Spaces of Democracy: Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation
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democratic principles, institutions and political culture (p. 109). He cites Habermas, as an advocate of this type of civic nationalism or cosmopolitan patriotism, who rejects the view that democracy in Europe cannot work because there is no unified European people. Developing a trans-state public sphere, with the participating individuals affected by common public policies, could develop social solidarity not grounded on national sentiment (p. 109). The economic integration that is already underway can be made significantly more accountable through popular pressure that is exerted upon national leaders and supranational organizations. References Held, D. (1987) Models of Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press. Keane, J. (2004–2005) ‘Humble democracy?’ CSD Bulletin 11(2)–12(1): 1–2.
Mary Walsh Division of Business, Law & Information Sciences, University of Canberra, Australia. Spaces of Democracy: Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation Clive Barnett and Murray Low (eds.) Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi, 2004, 253pp. ISBN: 0 7619 4734 5. Contemporary Political Theory (2006) 5, 224–226. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300225
In Spaces of Democracy, Barnett and Low distinguish between democracy as an ideal referring to political rule by the people and democracy as a set of processes and procedures. While there has been a seemingly universal acceptance of democracy as an ideal in the last two decades, there is dispute about procedures and processes for making the ideal into practices of institutionalized democracy. Their key starting point is not the question What is democracy? but rather Where is democracy? They are struck by the realization that processes of democratization, or democracy in a more general sense, have had limited influence on the research agenda of human geography. Their general aim is to rectify this situation by encouraging critical engagement with issues of normative political theory. Barnett and Low refer to the ‘ghostly presence of democracy in geography’ (p. 1) claiming that critical analysis of democratic procedures of participation and representation remains largely marginalized, constrained at a more fundamental level by understandings of Contemporary Political Theory 2006 5
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political processes as deriving from economic interests. More broadly, the neoGramscian state theory that has a strong presence in contemporary geography has remained largely uninfluenced by the 30 years of post-Enlightenment liberal political philosophy that has revitalized conversations about democracy, citizenship, and power in contemporary debates (p. 2). This means that geography’s engagement with politics is characterized by theoreticism, a term they take to mean ‘a tendency to deduce desirable political outcomes from deeper interests, established outside political processes into which the academic researcher has a privileged insight’ (p. 3). So far, the terms of engagement between geography and politics can be characterized as ‘persistently
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