Michael Saward
Biographic Data
| ID | 326856 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Saward |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Saward |
| SIGNATURE | SAWARD M |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Open University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 580 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Representative-capacity-making: The strategic backstage work of political representation
The work of being an elected representative today is increasingly demanding as they seek to perform representation amid political distrust, polarised electorates, and rising populism. In response, elected representatives and their teams invest heavily in developing and showcasing their capacities to represent. This variously involves constructing representative personas, designing participatory events, curating diverse digital content, and commun…
Design/Democracy
This article seeks to open a space to think about democracy that stages an encounter between (a) work in democratic theory that embraces design ideas, and (b) work in design that invokes democracy. Democracy is now thought of as designable: designers have democracy in their sights, and democratic theorists are opening to design. It is argued that the ambitions of both sets of scholars would be well served by embracing a more expansive understandi…
Claiming and Contesting Representation in Mexico: Meanings, Practices and Settings
Tate Liverpool’s Democracies: Curatorial methodologies for exploring democracy
This article reconstructs and juxtaposes two radically different methodologies for approaching the topic of democracy – one exemplified by major UK art gallery Tate Liverpool’s exhibition called Democracies (2020–2023), the second a set of approaches characteristic of work in the academic field of contemporary democratic theory. By comparing a range of key features of the two methodologies, the article draws out ways in which methodological insig…
A Passionate Clarity: David Beetham on Democracy, Legitimacy and the Democratic Audit
KEYWORDS: LegitimacyDemocratic Audit Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristopher LordChristopher Lord is professor at ARENA, the Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo. He is the author of several books and academic articles on Democracy, Legitimacy and the European Union.Michael SawardMichael Saward is professor of Politics and Internati…
The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance
The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance is a unique collection of articles introducing cutting-edge research and scholarship on politics and performance, which contributes to exciting interdisciplinary work and to shaping a subfield. Organized along five themes—performativity and theatricality; identities; sites and scripts; body, voice, and gesture; and affect—the volume brings together leading scholars in the fields of politics and perf…
Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance
Democratic Design
The twenty-first century poses serious challenges to democratic ideals and institutions. Democratic Design argues that to respond effectively—to remake and renew democracy––democrats need to think and work in new ways, using a new and versatile toolkit of concepts and practices. Drawing together, and moving beyond, the best of existing theories and models, the author builds, defends, and illustrates the democratic design framework—a new set of to…
Theorizing about Democracy
How can we theorize about democracy? We can identify the major topics that form the focus of democratic theorists (and others traversing the field), such as democracy's meaning and value. This article focuses on the methodological lenses through which the topics have been and can be viewed. Different lenses bring into focus different phenomena, questions, and problems of democracy. It is argued that the lenses that bring conventional democratic t…
Governance and the transformation of political representation
About the book: There has been an explosion of new forms of governance as societies adapt to economic, social and political change. This book highlights the dynamics of the social, cultural and institutional practices involved in 'remaking' governance. It is structured around three key themes: the remaking of peoples, publics and politics.
Agency, design and 'slow democracy
Can democracy be resilient in an increasingly 'high-speed society'? Social acceleration, some critics argue, poses a serious threat to the idea and practice of democracy. Others invoke but do not develop the idea of 'slow democracy' as one important response to this threat. Despite its importance, the critique and response lack analytical depth. In this context, and in an effort to rebuild the debate on a stronger and more fruitful base, the arti…
Fragments of equality in representative politics
Deploying a broadly interpretive approach, the article explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, equality is enacted in non-elective as well as elective representation. It argues that the fleeting and fragmentary equalities evident in non-elective representation are democratically significant, and that examining them can enhance understanding of the democratic promise and limits of different modes of representation
Shape-Shifting Representation
Shape-shifting representation is common in practice but largely shunned in theoretical and empirical analysis. This article resurrects, defines, and explores shape-shifting and closely linked concepts and practices such as shape-retaining. It generates new concepts of representative positioning and patterning in order to aid our understanding, and makes the case for placing this critical phenomenon front and center in the analysis of political re…
Enacting European Citizenship
What does it mean to be a European citizen? The rapidly changing politics of citizenship in the face of migration, diversity, heightened concerns about security and financial and economic crises, has left European citizenship as one of the major political and social challenges to European integration. Enacting European Citizenship develops a distinctive perspective on European citizenship and its impact on European integration by focusing on 'act…
The dynamics of European citizenship: Enactment, extension and assertion
Slow theory: Taking time over transnational democratic representation
The possibility for transnational democratic representation is a huge topic. This article is restricted to exploring two unconventional aspects. The first concerns ‘the representative claim’, extending one critical part of previous analysis of the assessment of such claims, especially by largely unelected transnational actors. The second, which strongly conditions the account of the first, concerns ‘slow theory’ as the way to approach building de…
The representative claim
'The Representative Claim' is set to transform our core assumptions about what representation is and can be. At a time when political representation is widely believed to be in crisis, the book provides a critical corrective to conventional wisdom on the present and potential future of representative democracy.
Must Democrats Be Environmentalists
Framing the Good Citizen
This article interrogates the norms of good citizenship invoked in and across different social domains, using the example of citizenship education in the UK as one field in which good citizenship is constituted. It is possible to make visible the political struggle inherent in the mechanisms of framing the good citizen by unpacking the differences between citizenship as acts, status and virtues. This is a necessary step in assessing good citizens…
The Representative Claim
Recent work on the idea of political representation has challenged effectively orthodox accounts of constituency and interests. However, discussions of representation need to focus more on its dynamics prior to further work on its forms. To that end, the idea of the representative claim is advanced and defended. Focusing on the representative claim helps us to: link aesthetic and cultural representation with political representation; grasp the im…
Democracy and Citizenship: Expanding Domains
This article analyses some key recent threads in the debate about the meaning and scope of democracy and citizenship in contemporary political theory. It uses the frame of expanding domains to link the two concepts together in order to determine the impact that different innovations in democratic thinking have on the conception of citizenship. It also explores the ways which elements of contemporary innovative conceptions of democracy seek to rec…
A conversation with Benjamin Barber
Trajectories of green political theory
Representation and Democracy: Revisions and Possibilities
In recent years, political theorists and others have questioned a series of longstanding assumptions about ‘representative democracy’. There are renewed doubts as to whether our existing systems of political representation serve democracy, as well as new ideas and empirical work about what representation in politics involves. This article explores some recent innovations in thinking about representation, and in particular the idea of representati…
Constituting Sustainability
Research Article| January 01 2008 Constituting Sustainability Michael Saward Michael Saward Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2008) 17 (2): 12–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/20711293 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Michael Saward; Constituting Sustainability. The Good Society 1 January 2008; 17 (2): 12–17. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20711293 Download citation file:…
The Representative Claim
Recent work on the idea of political representation has challenged effectively orthodox accounts of constituency and interests. However, discussions of representation need to focus more on its dynamics prior to further work on its forms. To that end, the idea of the representative claim is advanced and defended. Focusing on the representative claim helps us to: link aesthetic and cultural representation with political representation; grasp the im…
Authorisation and Authenticity: Representation and the Unelected
Enacting Democracy
We do not need more ‘models of democracy’, but we do need a fresh view of democratic theory to take full advantage of deliberative, ecological, cosmopolitan and other innovations of recent years. Approaches such as these can be understood in terms of the devices they deploy – deliberative forums and cross-border referendums, for example, as well as more familiar elections and legislatures. Devices enact democratic principles; indeed, it is argued…
Shape-Shifting Representation
Shape-shifting representation is common in practice but largely shunned in theoretical and empirical analysis. This article resurrects, defines, and explores shape-shifting and closely linked concepts and practices such as shape-retaining. It generates new concepts of representative positioning and patterning in order to aid our understanding, and makes the case for placing this critical phenomenon front and center in the analysis of political re…
Democratic Theorists and Party Scholars: Why They Don't Talk to Each Other, and Why They Should
Despite their importance to one another, the current literatures on political parties and normative democratic theory continue to develop largely in mutual isolation. Empirical studies of contemporary political parties and party systems tend to have little to say about the meanings and possibilities of democracy, and therefore also about the varied potential roles of political parties within it. Meanwhile, contemporary democratic theorists quietl…
Framing the Good Citizen
This article interrogates the norms of good citizenship invoked in and across different social domains, using the example of citizenship education in the UK as one field in which good citizenship is constituted. It is possible to make visible the political struggle inherent in the mechanisms of framing the good citizen by unpacking the differences between citizenship as acts, status and virtues. This is a necessary step in assessing good citizens…
Making Representations: Modes and Strategies of Political Parties
This article critically addresses the varied ways in which political parties can be said to represent. Three important ideal-typical modes of party representation are outlined: the popular, the statal, and the reflexive. Arguments are offered for countering the common view that, for example, popular modes are the most democratic, and statal modes the least democratic. Statal modes in particular are often taken to be an indicator of a decline in p…
Representation and Democracy: Revisions and Possibilities
In recent years, political theorists and others have questioned a series of longstanding assumptions about ‘representative democracy’. There are renewed doubts as to whether our existing systems of political representation serve democracy, as well as new ideas and empirical work about what representation in politics involves. This article explores some recent innovations in thinking about representation, and in particular the idea of representati…
Agency, design and 'slow democracy
Can democracy be resilient in an increasingly 'high-speed society'? Social acceleration, some critics argue, poses a serious threat to the idea and practice of democracy. Others invoke but do not develop the idea of 'slow democracy' as one important response to this threat. Despite its importance, the critique and response lack analytical depth. In this context, and in an effort to rebuild the debate on a stronger and more fruitful base, the arti…
The Subject of Representation
En el marco de los debates contemporáneos sobre la representación política de las mujeres, este artículo se propone a estudiar la bancada femenina en el Parlamento uruguayo en el período 2000-2010 para identificar y analizar a partir de este caso arquetípico en la región las posibilidades y desafíos que plantean las iniciativas de articulación multipartidaria para lograr la representación sustantiva de las mujeres.El análisis explora cómo las dis…
Fragments of equality in representative politics
Deploying a broadly interpretive approach, the article explores the extent to which, and the ways in which, equality is enacted in non-elective as well as elective representation. It argues that the fleeting and fragmentary equalities evident in non-elective representation are democratically significant, and that examining them can enhance understanding of the democratic promise and limits of different modes of representation
Trajectories of green political theory
Dog Whistles and Democratic Mandates
Manipulative mixed messages from candidates to voters affect what governments are entitled to do in office. A party that wins an election gains a 'mandate to rule'. But there is a second type of mandate: a 'policy mandate' to enact specific policy proposals central to the winning party's campaign. Mixed‐message politics in general can undermine policy mandates, and the use of 'dog whistle politics' ‐ telling one group of voters one thing, while a…
Slow theory: Taking time over transnational democratic representation
The possibility for transnational democratic representation is a huge topic. This article is restricted to exploring two unconventional aspects. The first concerns ‘the representative claim’, extending one critical part of previous analysis of the assessment of such claims, especially by largely unelected transnational actors. The second, which strongly conditions the account of the first, concerns ‘slow theory’ as the way to approach building de…
Reconstructing Democracy: Current Thinking and New Directions
Today's Democratic Theory Offers Sketches Of Tomorrow's democratic polity. How innovative, and how compelling, are the visions it offers us? This article explores possible democratic futures by scanning a selection of today's key democratic innovations –cosmopolitan, deliberative, ‘politics of presence’, ecological, associative and party-based direct models– in the light of a set of six central issues useful for examining the core aspects of demo…
The dynamics of European citizenship: Enactment, extension and assertion
Direct Democracy Revisited
Cooption and Power: Who Gets What from Formal Incorporation
This paper examines the central generalizable factors which influence the flow of power within formal or ‘institutional’ cooptive arrangements. It examines the key resources of four different types of societal group and explores the utility of these resources in the light of an account of basic government needs. In the light of this, it explores a range of group–government dependencies. Its aim is to set out why some groups can get more and other…
Enacting European Citizenship
What does it mean to be a European citizen? The rapidly changing politics of citizenship in the face of migration, diversity, heightened concerns about security and financial and economic crises, has left European citizenship as one of the major political and social challenges to European integration. Enacting European Citizenship develops a distinctive perspective on European citizenship and its impact on European integration by focusing on 'act…
Green state/democratic state
Theorizing about Democracy
How can we theorize about democracy? We can identify the major topics that form the focus of democratic theorists (and others traversing the field), such as democracy's meaning and value. This article focuses on the methodological lenses through which the topics have been and can be viewed. Different lenses bring into focus different phenomena, questions, and problems of democracy. It is argued that the lenses that bring conventional democratic t…
Democracy and Competing Values
Where it is Practised, Democracy is a) Not The Only principle practised, and b) practised differently from the way it is practised in other places. If democracy has a clear meaning and clear requirements – I shall argue that it does – then we should be able to map out the bases on which degrees of democracy are traded off in the name of other values, and with what justification. In attempting to make some inroads into the serious conceptual and e…
Postmodernists, pragmatists and the justification of democracy
According to current wisdom, we have entered a new ‘age of democracy’. The new global popularity of the democratic ideal appears likely to pose new challenges to democratic theory, adding yet more formulations and nuances to existing categories. Just as some key questions about democracy–such as ‘why is it a good (or the best) political system?’ and 'precisely what does it demand of us, and owe to us, as citizens?' – become daily more urgent, som…
Constituting Sustainability
Research Article| January 01 2008 Constituting Sustainability Michael Saward Michael Saward Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2008) 17 (2): 12–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/20711293 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Michael Saward; Constituting Sustainability. The Good Society 1 January 2008; 17 (2): 12–17. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20711293 Download citation file:…
Cooption and Power: Who Gets What from Formal Incorporation
This paper examines the central generalizable factors which influence the flow of power within formal or ‘institutional’ cooptive arrangements. It examines the key resources of four different types of societal group and explores the utility of these resources in the light of an account of basic government needs. In the light of this, it explores a range of group–government dependencies. Its aim is to set out why some groups can get more and other…
Direct Democracy Revisited
Book notes
Going Green, People, Politics and the Environment in South Africa edited by Jacklyn Cock and Eddie Koch. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp.262; index. £19.50 (hardback). ISBN 0 19 570582 3. Environmental Legacy of the Former Soviet Republics by Ruben A. Mnatsakanian. Edinburgh: Centre for Human Ecology, University of Edinburgh, 1992. Pp.xi + 209; index, maps. £20. ISBN 0 906876 02 8. Power in Trust: The Environmental History of the Cen…
Green theory
Green Political Theory by Robert E. Goodin. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. Pp.x + 240; indices. £39.50 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 74561026 9 and 0 7456 1027 7. Ecopolitical Theory: Essays from Australia edited by Peter Hay and Robyn Eckersley. Hobart: Board of Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, 1992. Pp.ii + 238. $A24 (paperback). ISSN 1034 1412
Postmodernists, pragmatists and the justification of democracy
According to current wisdom, we have entered a new ‘age of democracy’. The new global popularity of the democratic ideal appears likely to pose new challenges to democratic theory, adding yet more formulations and nuances to existing categories. Just as some key questions about democracy–such as ‘why is it a good (or the best) political system?’ and 'precisely what does it demand of us, and owe to us, as citizens?' – become daily more urgent, som…
Book notes
Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology by Andrew McLaughlin (SUNY Series in Radical Social and Political theory.) USA: State University of New York Press. 1993. Pp vii + 259; index. $16.95. ISBN 0 7914 1384 5 Environmental Leadership: Developing Effective Skills and Styles edited by Joyce K. Berry and John C. Gordon, foreword by Whitney Tilt. Washington, DC. Island Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 275; index. £18.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 55963 243…
Democracy and Competing Values
Where it is Practised, Democracy is a) Not The Only principle practised, and b) practised differently from the way it is practised in other places. If democracy has a clear meaning and clear requirements – I shall argue that it does – then we should be able to map out the bases on which degrees of democracy are traded off in the name of other values, and with what justification. In attempting to make some inroads into the serious conceptual and e…
In Search of the Hollow Crown
The American political philosopher Michael Walzer echoed a widespread perception when he wrote recently that ‘the state is boring these days, or it is ineffective and corrupt ... while civil society is an exciting place’. The power of many national states is said to be leaching away from above and below. Short-term actions and long-terms trends, so the refrain goes, all point to a common process — the hollowing out of the state.
Deliberation, Difference and Democratic Institutions
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Green state/democratic state
Reconstructing Democracy: Current Thinking and New Directions
Today's Democratic Theory Offers Sketches Of Tomorrow's democratic polity. How innovative, and how compelling, are the visions it offers us? This article explores possible democratic futures by scanning a selection of today's key democratic innovations –cosmopolitan, deliberative, ‘politics of presence’, ecological, associative and party-based direct models– in the light of a set of six central issues useful for examining the core aspects of demo…
Democratic Distributive Justice
Democratic Innovation: Deliberation, Representation, and Association
Enacting Democracy
We do not need more ‘models of democracy’, but we do need a fresh view of democratic theory to take full advantage of deliberative, ecological, cosmopolitan and other innovations of recent years. Approaches such as these can be understood in terms of the devices they deploy – deliberative forums and cross-border referendums, for example, as well as more familiar elections and legislatures. Devices enact democratic principles; indeed, it is argued…
Dog Whistles and Democratic Mandates
Manipulative mixed messages from candidates to voters affect what governments are entitled to do in office. A party that wins an election gains a 'mandate to rule'. But there is a second type of mandate: a 'policy mandate' to enact specific policy proposals central to the winning party's campaign. Mixed‐message politics in general can undermine policy mandates, and the use of 'dog whistle politics' ‐ telling one group of voters one thing, while a…
Representation and Democracy: Revisions and Possibilities
In recent years, political theorists and others have questioned a series of longstanding assumptions about ‘representative democracy’. There are renewed doubts as to whether our existing systems of political representation serve democracy, as well as new ideas and empirical work about what representation in politics involves. This article explores some recent innovations in thinking about representation, and in particular the idea of representati…
Constituting Sustainability
Research Article| January 01 2008 Constituting Sustainability Michael Saward Michael Saward Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2008) 17 (2): 12–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/20711293 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Michael Saward; Constituting Sustainability. The Good Society 1 January 2008; 17 (2): 12–17. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20711293 Download citation file:…
Making Representations: Modes and Strategies of Political Parties
This article critically addresses the varied ways in which political parties can be said to represent. Three important ideal-typical modes of party representation are outlined: the popular, the statal, and the reflexive. Arguments are offered for countering the common view that, for example, popular modes are the most democratic, and statal modes the least democratic. Statal modes in particular are often taken to be an indicator of a decline in p…
Authorisation and Authenticity: Representation and the Unelected
The Subject of Representation
En el marco de los debates contemporáneos sobre la representación política de las mujeres, este artículo se propone a estudiar la bancada femenina en el Parlamento uruguayo en el período 2000-2010 para identificar y analizar a partir de este caso arquetípico en la región las posibilidades y desafíos que plantean las iniciativas de articulación multipartidaria para lograr la representación sustantiva de las mujeres.El análisis explora cómo las dis…
Democratic Theorists and Party Scholars: Why They Don't Talk to Each Other, and Why They Should
Despite their importance to one another, the current literatures on political parties and normative democratic theory continue to develop largely in mutual isolation. Empirical studies of contemporary political parties and party systems tend to have little to say about the meanings and possibilities of democracy, and therefore also about the varied potential roles of political parties within it. Meanwhile, contemporary democratic theorists quietl…
Democracy and Citizenship: Expanding Domains
This article analyses some key recent threads in the debate about the meaning and scope of democracy and citizenship in contemporary political theory. It uses the frame of expanding domains to link the two concepts together in order to determine the impact that different innovations in democratic thinking have on the conception of citizenship. It also explores the ways which elements of contemporary innovative conceptions of democracy seek to rec…
A conversation with Benjamin Barber
Trajectories of green political theory
The representative claim
'The Representative Claim' is set to transform our core assumptions about what representation is and can be. At a time when political representation is widely believed to be in crisis, the book provides a critical corrective to conventional wisdom on the present and potential future of representative democracy.
Political science (39 works) · Politics (34 works) · Law (33 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Democracy (25 works) · Law (23 works) · Epistemology (18 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (14 works) · Computer Science (13 works)