Performing Democracy.

John Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space : the physical sites of democratic performance, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.

John Parkinson argues in his new book, Democracy and Public Space, that the physicality of public spaces matters for the quality of democracies. Drawing on deliberative democracy ideas, he shows why and how this physicality is important to the quality of democratic practices. He draws on studies of eleven capital cities from around the world. He is particularly interested in the staging and setting of democratic life. He identifies four roles which these public spaces play : as stages [...]