The performative arts of political communication and representation in Mumbai

In an era of global political passions, many have wondered whether some sort of natural affinity exists between political style and substance. Does liberal democracy speak the language of rationality and sincerity while political emotion, imagery, and embodiment properly belong to authoritarianism? Taking an ethnographic approach to the relationship between political form and political content, Drama of Democracy explores the material substance of representations (things like heady crowds and rousing images) together with language-based forms of political communication, such as public oration and community meetings.

Drawing on a decade of research in the city of Mumbai, Lisa Björkman shows that embodied performance is the very site and substance of representation and demonstrates how Mumbaikars evaluate performative bids to represent. The ethnographic accounts demonstrate the extraordinary fluency in this evaluative work in Mumbai, where people from all walks of life are remarkably astute at navigating and assessing political signs and representations, endlessly discussing and debating possible meanings of the city’s dense material-semiotic ecologies—whether words or images, cash or crowds, flyers or flowers.

In Mumbai, Björkman argues, the evaluative criterion of representation is not whether something is sign or substance, or even whether people are deemed to utter truths or falsehoods. Rather, what matters is whether and how a performance activates and actuates the social relations and political subjectivities that it professes to display. Drama of Democracy highlights Mumbaikars’ communicative fluency and theatrical acumen to offer a conceptual toolbox through which contemporary political churnings around the globe might be understood.

A fresh examination of political representation in an era of negative partisanship.

What does representation look like when politicians focus on "othering" the opposing party rather than the policy interests of their constituents? How do voters react to negative partisan rhetoric? And is policy responsiveness still the cornerstone of American representative democracy?

In How Politicians Polarize, Mia Costa draws on survey experiments, analysis of congressional newsletters and tweets, and data on fundraising and media coverage to examine how and why politicians rely so often on negative partisan attacks. Costa shows that most Americans do not like negative rhetoric, and politicians know this. Nonetheless, these kinds of attacks can reap powerful rewards from national media, donors, and party elites. Costa’s findings challenge the popular notion that Americans are motivated more by their partisan identities than by policy representation. Her research illuminates how the political ecosystem rewards negative representation and how this affects the quality of American democracy.

There can scarcely be a greater tribute to the vitality of the Fifth Republic's democracy than this monumental work. A searching analysis of how the will of the voters is translated into authoritative political decision making, this book not only uncovers political truths about contemporary France but also provides a model for the study of other popular forms of government.

The authors set out to find an answer to the perplexing question of how representative government operates in France in the seemingly unstable context of multiparties. By interviewing voters as well as legislators in 1967 and in 1968 after the great upheaval, and by monitoring policies of the National Assembly from 1967 to 1973, the authors test relationships between public opinion and decision making. They are able to sort out the abiding political cues that orient the French voter, to establish the normal electoral processes, to gauge the nature of mass perceptions of the political options available to voters, and to interpret the strikes, riots, and demonstrations of 1968 as a channel of communication parallel to the electoral process itself.

Lucid in style, methodologically sophisticated, and often comparative in approach, Political Representation in France is a seminal work for political scientists, sociologists, and historians.