The eyes of the people

Mass Democracy and the Problem of Spectatorship

Bibliographic Data

ID23257571
AuthorsJeffrey E Green
Year2009
Pages284
Publication date2009-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
Reviewed byThe eyes of the people: Democracy in an age of spectatorship, Holly Arden, 2011
VenueThe eyes of the people (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
Open LibraryOL23186940M
ISBN9780195372649
LanguageEN
Citations received75

"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."--Jacket.

Collective behavior · Democracy · Plebiscite · Political aspects · Political participation · Representative government and representation

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