The Performative State

The Performative State

Author: Iza Yue Ding

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2022-09-15

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1501760386

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What does the state do when public expectations exceed its governing capacity? The Performative State shows how the state can shape public perceptions and defuse crises through the theatrical deployment of language, symbols, and gestures of good governance—performative governance. Iza Ding unpacks the black box of street-level bureaucracy in China through ethnographic participation, in-depth interviews, and public opinion surveys. She demonstrates in vivid detail how China's environmental bureaucrats deal with intense public scrutiny over pollution when they lack the authority to actually improve the physical environment. They assuage public outrage by appearing responsive, benevolent, and humble. But performative governance is hard work. Environmental bureaucrats paradoxically work themselves to exhaustion even when they cannot effectively implement environmental policies. Instead of achieving "performance legitimacy" by delivering material improvements, the state can shape public opinion through the theatrical performance of goodwill and sincere effort. The Performative State also explains when performative governance fails at impressing its audience and when governance becomes less performative and more substantive. Ding focuses on Chinese evidence but her theory travels: comparisons with Vietnam and the United States show that all states, democratic and authoritarian alike, engage in performative governance.


Book Synopsis The Performative State by : Iza Yue Ding

Download or read book The Performative State written by Iza Yue Ding and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the state do when public expectations exceed its governing capacity? The Performative State shows how the state can shape public perceptions and defuse crises through the theatrical deployment of language, symbols, and gestures of good governance—performative governance. Iza Ding unpacks the black box of street-level bureaucracy in China through ethnographic participation, in-depth interviews, and public opinion surveys. She demonstrates in vivid detail how China's environmental bureaucrats deal with intense public scrutiny over pollution when they lack the authority to actually improve the physical environment. They assuage public outrage by appearing responsive, benevolent, and humble. But performative governance is hard work. Environmental bureaucrats paradoxically work themselves to exhaustion even when they cannot effectively implement environmental policies. Instead of achieving "performance legitimacy" by delivering material improvements, the state can shape public opinion through the theatrical performance of goodwill and sincere effort. The Performative State also explains when performative governance fails at impressing its audience and when governance becomes less performative and more substantive. Ding focuses on Chinese evidence but her theory travels: comparisons with Vietnam and the United States show that all states, democratic and authoritarian alike, engage in performative governance.


Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly

Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly

Author: Judith Butler

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 067449556X

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A Times Higher Education Book of the Week Judith Butler elucidates the dynamics of public assembly under prevailing economic and political conditions, analyzing what they signify and how. Understanding assemblies as plural forms of performative action, Butler extends her theory of performativity to argue that precarity—the destruction of the conditions of livability—has been a galvanizing force and theme in today’s highly visible protests. “Butler’s book is everything that a book about our planet in the 21st century should be. It does not turn its back on the circumstances of the material world or give any succour to those who wish to view the present (and the future) through the lens of fantasies about the transformative possibilities offered by conventional politics Butler demonstrates a clear engagement with an aspect of the world that is becoming in many political contexts almost illicit to discuss: the idea that capitalism, certainly in its neoliberal form, is failing to provide a liveable life for the majority of human beings.” —Mary Evans, Times Higher Education “A heady immersion into the thought of one of today’s most profound philosophers of action...This is a call for a truly transformative politics, and its relevance to the fraught struggles taking place in today’s streets and public spaces around the world cannot be denied.” —Hans Rollman, PopMatters


Book Synopsis Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly by : Judith Butler

Download or read book Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly written by Judith Butler and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Times Higher Education Book of the Week Judith Butler elucidates the dynamics of public assembly under prevailing economic and political conditions, analyzing what they signify and how. Understanding assemblies as plural forms of performative action, Butler extends her theory of performativity to argue that precarity—the destruction of the conditions of livability—has been a galvanizing force and theme in today’s highly visible protests. “Butler’s book is everything that a book about our planet in the 21st century should be. It does not turn its back on the circumstances of the material world or give any succour to those who wish to view the present (and the future) through the lens of fantasies about the transformative possibilities offered by conventional politics Butler demonstrates a clear engagement with an aspect of the world that is becoming in many political contexts almost illicit to discuss: the idea that capitalism, certainly in its neoliberal form, is failing to provide a liveable life for the majority of human beings.” —Mary Evans, Times Higher Education “A heady immersion into the thought of one of today’s most profound philosophers of action...This is a call for a truly transformative politics, and its relevance to the fraught struggles taking place in today’s streets and public spaces around the world cannot be denied.” —Hans Rollman, PopMatters


State Formation in China and Taiwan

State Formation in China and Taiwan

Author: Julia C. Strauss

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-11-07

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1108476864

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An ambitious comparative study of regime consolidation in the 'revolutionary' People's Republic of China and 'conservative' Taiwan in the early 1950s.


Book Synopsis State Formation in China and Taiwan by : Julia C. Strauss

Download or read book State Formation in China and Taiwan written by Julia C. Strauss and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ambitious comparative study of regime consolidation in the 'revolutionary' People's Republic of China and 'conservative' Taiwan in the early 1950s.


Performativity, Politics, and the Production of Social Space

Performativity, Politics, and the Production of Social Space

Author: Michael R. Glass

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-10

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1136208097

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Theories of performativity have garnered considerable attention within the social sciences and humanities over the past two decades. At the same time, there has also been a growing recognition that the social production of space is fundamental to assertions of political authority and the practices of everyday life. However, comparatively little scholarship has explored the full implications that arise from the confluence of these two streams of social and political thought. This is the first book-length, edited collection devoted explicitly to showcasing geographical scholarship on the spatial politics of performativity. It offers a timely intervention within the field of critical human geography by exploring the performativity of political spaces and the spatiality of performative politics. Through a series of geographical case studies, the contributors to this volume consider the ways in which a performative conception of the "political" might reshape our understanding of sovereignty, political subjectification, and the production of social space. Marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of Judith Butler’s classic, Bodies That Matter (1993), this edited volume brings together a range of contemporary geographical works that draw exciting new connections between performativity, space, and politics.


Book Synopsis Performativity, Politics, and the Production of Social Space by : Michael R. Glass

Download or read book Performativity, Politics, and the Production of Social Space written by Michael R. Glass and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theories of performativity have garnered considerable attention within the social sciences and humanities over the past two decades. At the same time, there has also been a growing recognition that the social production of space is fundamental to assertions of political authority and the practices of everyday life. However, comparatively little scholarship has explored the full implications that arise from the confluence of these two streams of social and political thought. This is the first book-length, edited collection devoted explicitly to showcasing geographical scholarship on the spatial politics of performativity. It offers a timely intervention within the field of critical human geography by exploring the performativity of political spaces and the spatiality of performative politics. Through a series of geographical case studies, the contributors to this volume consider the ways in which a performative conception of the "political" might reshape our understanding of sovereignty, political subjectification, and the production of social space. Marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of Judith Butler’s classic, Bodies That Matter (1993), this edited volume brings together a range of contemporary geographical works that draw exciting new connections between performativity, space, and politics.


Theatrical Jazz

Theatrical Jazz

Author: Omi Osun Joni L. Jones

Publisher: Black Performance and Cultural

Published: 2023-01-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780814252079

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The first full-length study of the theatrical jazz aesthetic, that draws on the jazz principles of ensemble--the break, the bridge, and the blue note.


Book Synopsis Theatrical Jazz by : Omi Osun Joni L. Jones

Download or read book Theatrical Jazz written by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones and published by Black Performance and Cultural. This book was released on 2023-01-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-length study of the theatrical jazz aesthetic, that draws on the jazz principles of ensemble--the break, the bridge, and the blue note.


Performative Criticism

Performative Criticism

Author: Gerry Brenner

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2004-02-03

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780791459447

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Genre-bending experiments that appropriate, impersonate, and speak through already-created literary characters in order to offer fresh interpretations of well-known literary works.


Book Synopsis Performative Criticism by : Gerry Brenner

Download or read book Performative Criticism written by Gerry Brenner and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-02-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genre-bending experiments that appropriate, impersonate, and speak through already-created literary characters in order to offer fresh interpretations of well-known literary works.


Paper, Performance, and the State

Paper, Performance, and the State

Author: Farhat Hasan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-10-31

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 1009032445

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This book explores the changing socio–cultural world in early modern South Asia, and locates the agency of the Mughal state therein. The development of literacy and new forms of engagement between literacy and performance prompted the opening up of new spaces of social communication, and led to the development of a performative (and somatic) public sphere in South Asia. The work highlights the significance of legal spaces, along with the markets and coffeehouses, in shaping the emergent public sphere. While defending the case for legal pluralism, it argues that the Mughal state endured and enhanced the diversity in the legal order. Focusing on the socially embedded attributes of the state, it looks at how the state's relations with the local powers impinged on, and reproduced community identities, identity conflicts, legal pluralism, property relations, and different forms of social communication.


Book Synopsis Paper, Performance, and the State by : Farhat Hasan

Download or read book Paper, Performance, and the State written by Farhat Hasan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the changing socio–cultural world in early modern South Asia, and locates the agency of the Mughal state therein. The development of literacy and new forms of engagement between literacy and performance prompted the opening up of new spaces of social communication, and led to the development of a performative (and somatic) public sphere in South Asia. The work highlights the significance of legal spaces, along with the markets and coffeehouses, in shaping the emergent public sphere. While defending the case for legal pluralism, it argues that the Mughal state endured and enhanced the diversity in the legal order. Focusing on the socially embedded attributes of the state, it looks at how the state's relations with the local powers impinged on, and reproduced community identities, identity conflicts, legal pluralism, property relations, and different forms of social communication.


Deliberative Acts

Deliberative Acts

Author: Arabella Lyon

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-06-29

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 0271069945

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The twenty-first century is characterized by the global circulation of cultures, norms, representations, discourses, and human rights claims; the arising conflicts require innovative understandings of decision making. Deliberative Acts develops a new, cogent theory of performative deliberation. Rather than conceiving deliberation within the familiar frameworks of persuasion, identification, or procedural democracy, it privileges speech acts and bodily enactments that constitute deliberation itself, reorienting deliberative theory toward the initiating moment of recognition, a moment in which interlocutors are positioned in relationship to each other and so may begin to construct a new lifeworld. By approaching human rights not as norms or laws, but as deliberative acts, Lyon conceives rights as relationships among people and as ongoing political and historical projects developing communal norms through global and cross-cultural interactions.


Book Synopsis Deliberative Acts by : Arabella Lyon

Download or read book Deliberative Acts written by Arabella Lyon and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-29 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-first century is characterized by the global circulation of cultures, norms, representations, discourses, and human rights claims; the arising conflicts require innovative understandings of decision making. Deliberative Acts develops a new, cogent theory of performative deliberation. Rather than conceiving deliberation within the familiar frameworks of persuasion, identification, or procedural democracy, it privileges speech acts and bodily enactments that constitute deliberation itself, reorienting deliberative theory toward the initiating moment of recognition, a moment in which interlocutors are positioned in relationship to each other and so may begin to construct a new lifeworld. By approaching human rights not as norms or laws, but as deliberative acts, Lyon conceives rights as relationships among people and as ongoing political and historical projects developing communal norms through global and cross-cultural interactions.


Performative Democracy

Performative Democracy

Author: Elzbieta Matynia

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1317254341

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fresh appreciation of the events of 1989 as we approach their 20th anniversary in 2009 Performative Democracy explores a potential in political life that easily escapes theorists: the indigenously inspired enacting of democracy by citizens. Written by one who experienced an emerging public sphere within Communist Poland, the book seeks to identify the conditions for performativity-performing politics--in public life. It examines a broad spectrum of cultural, social, and political initiatives that facilitated the non-violent transformation of an autocratic environment into a democratic one. Examples of performativity range from experimental student theater, through the engaged political thinking of dissident Adam Michnik, the alternative culture, and the Solidarity movement, to the drama of the Round Table Talks (and their striking parallels in South Africa), and finally, the post-1989 efforts of feminist groups and women artists to defend the recently won right of free public discourse. The book argues that performative democracy, with its improvisational mode and imaginative solutions, deserves a legitimate place in our broader reflections on democracy. Matynia describes how two apparent miracles of recent history-that communism in Poland was brought down without violence and that apartheid in South Africa was ended without a bloodbath-were the results of hard work and a new approach to change that she calls "performative democracy." Matynia reveals amazing parallels between the drama of Poland's Round Table Talks in 1989 and the Truth Commissions in South Africa in 1994. Matynia describes how experimental student theater groups, though subsidized by a totalitarian regime afraid of any authentic public life, created little pockets of public space for free and meaningful expression that were augmented by uncensored underground publishing and further expanded by the Solidarity movement into a democratic society within the totalitarian state. Matynia describes in a personal way how in the 1970s student theater groups planted the seeds of an authentic public sphere, how underground publishers nurtured freedom of expression and social criticism, and how, after democratic elections, women artists in the 1990s fought to sustain the newly won right to free public discourse. Matynia traces in vivid human terms the democratic aspirations and practices that led to democratic change in Poland but went largely unnoticed by western media and policymakers.


Book Synopsis Performative Democracy by : Elzbieta Matynia

Download or read book Performative Democracy written by Elzbieta Matynia and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: fresh appreciation of the events of 1989 as we approach their 20th anniversary in 2009 Performative Democracy explores a potential in political life that easily escapes theorists: the indigenously inspired enacting of democracy by citizens. Written by one who experienced an emerging public sphere within Communist Poland, the book seeks to identify the conditions for performativity-performing politics--in public life. It examines a broad spectrum of cultural, social, and political initiatives that facilitated the non-violent transformation of an autocratic environment into a democratic one. Examples of performativity range from experimental student theater, through the engaged political thinking of dissident Adam Michnik, the alternative culture, and the Solidarity movement, to the drama of the Round Table Talks (and their striking parallels in South Africa), and finally, the post-1989 efforts of feminist groups and women artists to defend the recently won right of free public discourse. The book argues that performative democracy, with its improvisational mode and imaginative solutions, deserves a legitimate place in our broader reflections on democracy. Matynia describes how two apparent miracles of recent history-that communism in Poland was brought down without violence and that apartheid in South Africa was ended without a bloodbath-were the results of hard work and a new approach to change that she calls "performative democracy." Matynia reveals amazing parallels between the drama of Poland's Round Table Talks in 1989 and the Truth Commissions in South Africa in 1994. Matynia describes how experimental student theater groups, though subsidized by a totalitarian regime afraid of any authentic public life, created little pockets of public space for free and meaningful expression that were augmented by uncensored underground publishing and further expanded by the Solidarity movement into a democratic society within the totalitarian state. Matynia describes in a personal way how in the 1970s student theater groups planted the seeds of an authentic public sphere, how underground publishers nurtured freedom of expression and social criticism, and how, after democratic elections, women artists in the 1990s fought to sustain the newly won right to free public discourse. Matynia traces in vivid human terms the democratic aspirations and practices that led to democratic change in Poland but went largely unnoticed by western media and policymakers.


Performing and Reforming Leaders

Performing and Reforming Leaders

Author: Jill Blackmore

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2007-03-08

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780791470329

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Explores the issues inherent in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership.


Book Synopsis Performing and Reforming Leaders by : Jill Blackmore

Download or read book Performing and Reforming Leaders written by Jill Blackmore and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2007-03-08 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the issues inherent in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership.