Sadiya Akram

Political participation and citizen engagement: beyond the mainstream

There is no doubt that the nature of political participation is changing in liberal democracy. At first, many researchers argued that the main feature of this change was an increase in political ap...

(Re)Conceptualising the third face of power: insights from Bourdieu and Foucault

The strength of Lukes’ third face of power is the recognition that agents can be influenced by structures and ideas in ways of which they are unaware. The weakness of Lukes’ position is that his consideration of the third face is under-developed. In this article, we argue that Bourdieu and Foucault’s work offer fruitful ways of exploring this ‘pre-conscious’ dimension. Using Bourdieu’s work, the core of any understanding of the third face is rooted in the relationship between the social field and the habitus, while, for Foucault, the focus is upon the construction of the subject and her preferences in relation to the ongoing production of power. We subsequently explore the differences between their positions.

A Crisis of Participation

Concerns over declining levels of political participation in the UK, particularly in traditional activities such as voting and political party membership, have led many to argue that political apathy is increasing and that democracy is at risk (Putnam 2000, Macedo et al. 2005). Reading this literature one could assert that there is a general crisis of political participation. This chapter questions this interpretation and argues that the mainstream participation literature only provides a partial account of trends in political participation because it operates with a narrow understanding of politics. While there has certainly been a decline, both in the UK and other mature, liberal democracies, in traditional forms of participation, which might be characterised as producing a crisis of participation, at the same time there has been a rise of new forms of political participation that operate outside of the established formal arenas. Consequently, this chapter argues that the decline in traditional forms of participation must be located within a broader understanding of the rise of alternative forms. Additionally, it is critical of the mainstream literature’s rather simplistic account of decline and crisis, arguing instead, first, that there is a growing crisis in engagement, resulting from an uncoupling between citizens and the state and, second, that this has important implications for state/citizen relations, which need to be addressed in order to strengthen democracy.

The Moveon Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy by David Karpf

David Karpf brings a unique and timely perspective to the field of online politics research because of his dual practitioner and academic roles. The preface to the book tells us that Karpf has been...

Review: Peter Tolmie and Mark Rouncefield (eds), Ethnomethodology at Play

Ethnomethodology at Play’s starting point is that ethnomethodology is a relatively new subdiscipline of social theory and that it has received limited academic attention. The authors also argue that the sociology of leisure suffers a similar fate and is, as a result, an empirically and theoretically ‘impoverished residual category’ (p. 3). In an attempt to fill in these gaps, this text seeks to provide an ethnomethodological interpretation of leisure or ‘play.’ This book is the first collection of ethnomethodological studies of various forms of leisure activity, but it is not the first ethnomethodological study of leisure, and other notable examples are usefully discussed in the introduction (pp. 3–5). Tolmie and Rouncefield are highly qualified to undertake the task of putting together this edited collection because both have dedicated much of their academic careers to exploring ethnomethodology. Ethnomethodology at Play is the second book coauthored by this duo and follows swiftly on the heels of Ethnomethodology at Work (2011). The topic of ‘work’ has historically been a fertile area of research for this theoretical position and it is refreshing to see the editors tackle a topic such as leisure, which benefits from ethnomethodological insight, but could also have implications for sociology more broadly. Following an introduction to Harold Garfinkel and ethnomethodology more generally, which is wryly entitled ‘Garfinkel’s Bastards at Play,’ the book is divided into four sections: Part I is on ‘Domestic Pleasures’; Part II, ‘Having a Hobby’; Part III, ‘Getting out of the House’; and Part IV is entitled ‘Doing Stuff Together.’ There are 12 chapters in total. The introduction tells us that ethnomethodology is concerned with challenging top-down theories, which propose to explain society through producing master narratives. In contrast, ethnomethodology is concerned with producing a bottom-up understanding, built from improvised conduct adapted to particular situations. It attempts to make visible the social practices in and through which members produce and manage the daily affairs of a setting. In defense of these principles, the editors accuse ‘mainstream sociologies’ of having ‘lost their phenomena’ and, in the context of leisure, of focusing on the forces ‘that supposedly shape the form, structure and experience of play’ (p. 5) rather than the leisure activity itself. 598111 ISS0010.1177/0268580915598111International Sociology ReviewsReviews: Ethnomethodology research-article2015