The Eyes of the People
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$49.95 (06)Description
For centuries it has been assumed that democracy must refer to the empowerment of the People's voice. In this pioneering book, Jeffrey Edward Green makes the case for considering the People as an ocular entity rather than a vocal one. Green argues that it is both possible and desirable to understand democracy in terms of what the People gets to see instead of the traditional focus on what it gets to say.The Eyes of the People examines democracy from the perspective of everyday citizens in their everyday lives. While it is customary to understand the citizen as a decision-maker, in fact most citizens rarely engage in decision-making and do not even have clear views on most political issues. The ordinary citizen is not a decision-maker but a spectator who watches and listens to the select few empowered to decide. Grounded on this everyday phenomenon of spectatorship, The Eyes of the People constructs a democratic theory applicable to the way democracy is actually experienced by most people most of the time.
In approaching democracy from the perspective of the People's eyes, Green rediscovers and rehabilitates a forgotten "plebiscitarian" alternative within the history of democratic thought. Building off the contributions of a wide range of thinkers-including Aristotle, Shakespeare, Benjamin Constant, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and many others-Green outlines a novel democratic paradigm centered on empowering the People's gaze through forcing politicians to appear in public under conditions they do not fully control.
The Eyes of the People is at once a sweeping overview of the state of democratic theory and a call to rethink the meaning of democracy within the sociological and technological conditions of the twenty-first century.
Features
- Imports the notion of the "gaze" to democratic theory
- Offers an account of democracy that focuses on the everyday structure of political experience and approaches democracy from the position of the political spectator.
- Explores democratic theory that is relevant for democracy as it is lived today: in polities of enormous size, complexity, diversity, inequality, and technological mediatization
Reviews
"Jeffrey Green's The Eyes of the People is a bold and brilliant contribution to democratic theory. Citizens today are much more likely to watch politics than to participate in it. Instead of simply lamenting this fact, Green reflects on it in a highly original manner. Ultimately he finds in our shared spectatorship a new and hitherto unrecognized potential for popular empowerment."--Bryan Garsten, Professor of Political Science, Yale University
"This is a deeply intelligent, eye-opening book. Trenchant, bracing, and beautifully written, it shows us how to see democracy's future in an age when politics for most citizens must be more about spectacle than deliberative action. That Green defends a theory of politics--plebiscitary democracy--most would dismiss is a surprise; that he does it so convincingly is an education, and ultimately an act of hope."--Russell Muirhead, Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
"The Eyes of the People is an erudite and imaginative intervention into contemporary democratic theory and contribution to a burgeoning literature on the place of aesthetics and the senses in democratic politics. Jeffrey Green's notion of 'spectatorship democracy' is bound to provoke lively debate: Is it the long-sought-for approximation of direct, ancient democracy in a world of indirect, representative governments? Or is it a pessimistic restriction of democratic possibilities in the contemporary world? Either way, the book is a thought-provoking and illuminating read."--John P. McCormick, Professor of Political Science, The University of Chicago
"In this rigorous and provocative work, Jeffrey Green defends a very different understanding of democracy. According to Green, the passive citizen who watches political life, should, far from being disparaged, be seen as a central actor in democratic governance, possessed of dignity. I expect this book will become both the canonical defense of plebiscitary democracy and a text that is central to broader contemporary debates about the meaning and value of democracy."--Corey Brettschneider, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Brown University
About the Author(s)
Jeffrey Edward Green is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. The author of scholarly essays on various topics including political apathy, disenchantment, and ignorance, Green has taught previously at Harvard and at Gothenburg University in Sweden.
