Does democracy require physical public space?

Abstract

When political theorists discuss public space they generally take it to be a metaphor that refers to the myriad ways in which citizens separated in time and space can participate in collective deliberation, decision-making and action, a concept interchangeable with 'the public realm' or 'the public sphere' (for example Benhabib 1992; Nagel 1995). Thus 'public space' is taken by many to refer to things like the media, the internet, and networks of citizens in civil society, such that the literal meaning has almost been wiped out (Hénaff and Strong 2001, p. 35). This shift has taken place for good reasons. From the standpoint of democratic theory, the issues are scale and complexity. The members of large-scale, complex societies cannot all gather together in a physical forum to argue, deliberate and decide. Yet they need to participate in public debate in some way if that society is to be called democratic, even if only to debate their choice of representatives. But while the pursuit of metaphorical conceptions of public space is clearly a worthwhile endeavour, and one that is doing much to broaden conceptions of democracy, I think it would be a pity to wipe out the literal meaning. In this chapter I contend that physical public space matters to democracy, and that neglecting the physical can have detrimental consequences for a democratic society's health. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.