Introduction: John Dewey and the Public Sphere

Asen, Robert; Brouwer, Daniel C.

doi:10.1080/00028533.2003.11821583

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…He strongly believed that a robust and healthy democracy was possible only if citizens participated actively in public life. For Dewey, no public sphere, however small and restricted to few, was to be totally private (Goodson 2004), and every public sphere had the potential for public deliberation (Asen and Brouwer 2003). As an ardent advocate of democracy, Dewey never doubted the ability of citizens to participate in democratic deliberation because doubting this capacity "was to doubt the very possibility of democracy itself" (Asen 2003).…”

Section: Neighborhood Councilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratizing the Administrative State: Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies

Kathi

Cooper²

2005

Public Administration Review

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Citizen participation in government decision making, especially at the local level, has received heightened attention with regard to its promise for improved governance. The overarching administrative ethos of the administrative state creates barriers to citizen participation in governance. Developing and nurturing citizen participation in the presence of the administrative state is a significant challenge. Drawing on the literary tradition of public engagement and learning, this article models a developmental strategy of participation that offers one avenue for achieving meaningful partnerships between city agencies and neighborhood councils in a metropolitan environment. We present a model of citizen participation that brings neighborhood councils and city agencies together in a collaborative partnership. This model is based on the literature on citizen participation, which focuses on the significance of interactive processes in building trust among participants and creating mutual understanding and agreement.

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Section: Neighborhood Councilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratizing the Administrative State: Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies

Kathi

Cooper²

2005

Public Administration Review

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“…The publication of Jürgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962 is widely acknowledged to be the primary impetus for post-war research on the public sphere in Western societies (Asen and Brouwer, 2001: 3). The central thesis of this study can be summarized fairly succinctly: in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a distinct forum for rational public debate emerged in most Western European countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wild Publics and Grotesque Symposiums: Habermas and Bakhtin on Dialogue, Everyday Life and the Public Sphere

Gardiner¹

2004

The Sociological Review

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“…In much of his work, moreover, Dewey shows a preoccupation with the challenges of securing a democratic public amidst the vastly different social realities of the modern industrial age. The role of communication and technology in this democratic project is the subject of much secondary scholarship on Dewey's thought (see Asen 2003; Asen and Brouwer 2003; Crick 2009). But Dewey was also quite attentive to the role of space in facilitating democratic action.…”

Section: Space and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Architecture of Political Spaces: Trolls, Digital Media, and Deweyan Democracy

Forestal

2017

Am Polit Sci Rev

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The problem of trolls exemplifies the challenges of building democratic communities in the digital environment of social media. Distinguishing trolls from activists can be difficult; democratic theorists have yet to adequately address how to prevent the former while remaining open to the latter. In this article, I outline a theory of democratic politics that takes space as a central element in shaping democratic interactions. Using the work of John Dewey, I draw out two key characteristics of democratic space: boundedness and flexibility. Using these criteria, I then evaluate Kinja, Gawker Media's commenting platform, both before and after trolls attacked the site in 2014. I find that in altering its boundaries to successfully protect against trolls, Kinja introduced a new problem: a lack of flexibility that continues to affect the possibility for democratic discourse on the platform. I conclude by suggesting how this theory of democratic space might shape future research.

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Introduction: John Dewey and the Public Sphere

Cited by 11 publications

References 12 publications

Democratizing the Administrative State: Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies

Democratizing the Administrative State: Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies

Wild Publics and Grotesque Symposiums: Habermas and Bakhtin on Dialogue, Everyday Life and the Public Sphere

The Architecture of Political Spaces: Trolls, Digital Media, and Deweyan Democracy

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