Spectators and Democratic Politics

What is it about?

A review of Jeffrey Green's 'Ocular Democracy' which is based on the 'politics is theatre' metaphor. The article argues that the metaphor can be used to develop a model for democracy that incorporates spectators, but that Green's model does not do this in a positive way.

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Why is it important?

Spectatorship is an important but unrecognized or devalued component of democratic politics, something that is clear from the long history of the use of the theatre metaphor to describe aspects of politics. It is important to recognize this because the kind of power that a spectator can exercise goes unmarked, and is therefore unaccountable.