Democracy as Textual Accomplishment

Bibliographic Data

ID2276086
AuthorsBeng-Huat Chua (Trent University), Beng‐huat Chua (Trent University, corresponding author)
Year1979
Volume20
Issue4
Pages541-549
Publication date1979-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1533-8525.1979.tb01234.x
OpenAlexW2074087485
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited13

By analysing a government commission's report, this essay demonstrates empirically the utility of ethnomethodology for ideological investigation and critique. In a liberal democratic society, publicly appointed investigative commissions must claim a non-interventionist stance toward opinions submitted to the commissions. This claim in turn furnishes the commissioners' display of having followed the due democratic processes in their objective reporting of the investigated situations. The ethnomethodologically informed analysis demonstrates that (i) commissioners cannot be non-interventionist and (ii) they necessarily discredit some segment of the public opinions by formulating these opinions as less than adequate in some ways, of which the formulation of “non-representativeness” is most readily available. Because of space limitations, this essay is only a precursor to the detailed analysis of “discrediting” practices in ideological production and reproduction

Commission · Democracy · Epistemology · Ethnomethodology · Government (linguistics) · Ideology · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Representativeness heuristic · Reproduction · Social science · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Public Administration · Social Psychology · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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