Democracy as Fetish (Paperback)

Ralph Cintron

ISBN 10: 0271084863 / ISBN 13: 9780271084862

Published by Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 2019

About this Item

Paperback. Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance are at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it.In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides sustained analysis of our political discourse. He shows not only how the rhetoric of democracy produces strong desires for social order, global wealth, and justice but also how these desires cannot be satisfied. Throughout his discussion, Cintron includes ethnographic research from fieldwork conducted over the course of twenty years in the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, where he observes both citizens and the undocumented looking to democracy to fulfill their highest aspirations. Politicians hand out favors to the elite, developers strong-arm aldermen, and the disenfranchised have little redress. The problem, Cintron argues, is that the conditions required to put democracy into practiceterritory, a bordered nation-state, citizens, propertyare constituted by inequality and violence, because there is no inclusivity that does not also exclude.Drawing on ethnography, economics, political theory, and rhetorical analysis, Cintron makes his case with tremendous analytic rigor. This challenge to reassess the discourses on democracy and to consider democratic politics as always compromised by oligarchy will be of particular interest to political and rhetorical theorists. A multidisciplinary study of democratic politics that draws on ethnography, political theory, and rhetorical analysis to demonstrate how the rhetorics of democracy have become fetishized. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780271084862

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Democracy as Fetish (Paperback)
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271084863
• ISBN 13: 9780271084862
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance are at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it.

In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides sustained analysis of our political discourse. He shows not only how the rhetoric of democracy produces strong desires for social order, global wealth, and justice but also how these desires cannot be satisfied. Throughout his discussion, Cintron includes ethnographic research from fieldwork conducted over the course of twenty years in the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, where he observes both citizens and the undocumented looking to democracy to fulfill their highest aspirations. Politicians hand out favors to the elite, developers strong-arm aldermen, and the disenfranchised have little redress. The problem, Cintron argues, is that the conditions required to put democracy into practice―territory, a bordered nation-state, citizens, property―are constituted by inequality and violence, because there is no inclusivity that does not also exclude.

Drawing on ethnography, economics, political theory, and rhetorical analysis, Cintron makes his case with tremendous analytic rigor. This challenge to reassess the discourses on democracy and to consider democratic politics as always compromised by oligarchy will be of particular interest to political and rhetorical theorists.

About the Author

Ralph Cintron is Associate Professor of English and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and the Rhetorics of the Everyday and coeditor of Culture, Catastrophe, and Rhetoric: The Texture of Political Action.