Clive Barnett & Murray Low 
Spaces of Democracy 
Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation

′This volume successfully exposes the ‘ghostly presence’ of democracy in the field of geography and shows the value of thinking about democracy geographically. It is a major contribution to serious examination of a normative political issue from a geographical perspective. This is welcome above all because geography is a field whose cultural and economic branches, though often claiming the appellation ‘critical’, are currently dominated by unexamined radical political fantasies′ –
John Agnew, University of California, Los Angeles

In an historically unprecedented way, democracy is now increasingly seen as a universal model of legitimate rule.This work addresses the key question: How can democracy be understood in theory and in practise?

In three thematically organised sections, Spaces of Democracy uses a critical geographical imagination (informed by thinking on space, place, and scale) to interrogate the latest work in democratic theory. Key ideas and concepts discussed include globalization and transnationalism; representation; citizenship; liberalism; the city and public space; and the media.

This volume comprises commissioned work by leading academics investigating democracy. Historical and comparative, animated by wider debates on globalization, it will facilitate the critical discussion of core questions on citizenship, the state, and democracy. Spaces of Democracy is essential reading for students of human geography, political science/international relations, and political sociology.

Table des matières

Geography and Democracy – Clive Barnett and Murray Low

An Introduction

PART ONE: ELECTIONS, VOTING AND REPRESENTATION

Global Democratization – John O′Loughlin

Measuring and Explaining the Diffusion of Democracy

Electoral Geography in Electoral Studies – Ron Johnston and Charles Pattie

Putting Voters in Their Place

Representation, Law and Redistricting in the United States – Richard L Morrill

PART TWO: DEMOCRACY, CITIZENSHIP AND SCALE

Citizens and the State – Sallie A Marston and Katharyne Mitchell

Citizenship Formations in Space and Time

Open Borders and Free Population Movement – David M Smith

A Challenge for Liberalism

Cities as Spaces of Democracy – Murray Low

Complexity, Scale and Governance

PART THREE: MAKING DEMOCRATIC SPACES

Spaces of Public and Private – Lynn A Staeheli and Don Mitchell

Locating Politics

The Geopolitics of Democracy and Citizenship in Latin America – Gareth A Jones

Media, Democracy and Representation – Clive Barnett

Disembodying the Public

Cultures of Democracy – Sophie Watson

Spaces of Democratic Possibility

Spaces of Mobilization – Byron Miller

Transnational Social Movements

A propos de l’auteur

Murray Low′s research focuses on relationships between geography and democracy including institutional and spatial aspects of elections, changing practices of accountability and legitimacy in cities, and the geography of political party organisations and social movements. His work has dealt with the relationships between global networks and democracy, constructions of globalization and states in geography, and geographical aspects of political representation. He has recently completed research funded by the Leverhulme Foundation into city democratisation in South Africa. He is co-editor of Spaces of Democracy: Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation (Sage, 2004), and of The Sage Handbook of Political Geography (Sage, 2008)