The Representative, the People, and the Public Sphere: Rethinking democratic concepts in the face of crisis | DEMOS21

The American University of Paris welcomes Prof. Simone Chambers, University of California Irvine, for a talk entitled "The Representative, the People, and the Public Sphere: Rethinking democratic concepts in the face of crisis." This talk is part of the Contemporary European Democratic Theory theme of the DEMOS21 event series organized by the Center for Critical Democracy Studies.

This event is co-organized with Professor Julian Culp

This paper argues that democratic theory is responding to democratic crisis in innovative and promising ways that not only involve rethinking concepts but also redesigning institutions for the 21st century. Today we see a new take on representation in the form of sortition and randomly selected citizen assemblies. Here I argue that although this conceptual and institutional innovation holds a lot of promise, it is a mistake to think of sortition as replacing electoral representation rather than perfecting it. The rise of populism and claims that electoral and plebiscitary success authorizes speaking on behalf of the people has generated an intense revisiting of the concept of the people. A proceduralized idea of the people is taking shape and I argue this has its institutional reflection in innovative designs for referendums and new conceptualization of majority rule. Finally, democratic theory has had to confront threats to information acquisition and undistorted communication posed by new technologies. An updated concept of the public sphere is required to address these challenges, one that is capable of informing software design rather than simply lamenting the power of algorithms.

Registration has been closed. If you would still like to attend the event, please email Prof. Julian Culp at jculpaup.edu.

Registrants will receive an email, including the event details and the link to join the event, 24 hours prior to the event start time.