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Abstract
In a democracy, legislatures are not only stages for performances by elected representatives; they are also stages for performances by other players in the public sphere. This article argues that while many legislatures are designed and built as spaces for the public to engage with politics, and while democratic norms require some degree of access, increasingly what are termed “purposive publics” are being superseded by groups who are only publics in an aggregative, accidental sense. The article begins with a conceptual analysis of the ways in which legislatures can be thought of as public spaces, and the in-principle access requirements that follow from them. It then draws on interviews and observational fieldwork in eleven capital cities to discover whether the theoretical requirements are met in practice, revealing further tensions. The conclusions are that accessibility is important; is being downgraded in important ways; but also that access norms stand in tension with the requirement that legislatures function as working buildings if they are to retain their symbolic value. The article ends with two “modest proposals”, one concerning the design of the plazas in front of legislatures, the other concerning a role for the wider public in legislative procedure.
Acknowledgements
This article results from a project called Democracy and Public Space funded by the British Academy Small Grants Scheme (SG-44244), and a Vice Chancellor's Anniversary Lectureship at the University of York, whose support I gratefully acknowledge. The project has involved a large cast of interviewees and commentators whose contributions I acknowledge in detail elsewhere, but my specific thanks go to Shirin Rai, Carole Spary, and the journal's anonymous referees whose criticisms helped reshape the article in important ways.
Notes
Scott, Temple of Liberty.
Barber, Marching on Washington, 11–12.
Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life”. Kohn, “The Mauling of Public Space”; and Brave New Neighbourhoods. Lofland, The Public Realm. Madanipour, Public and Private Spaces of the City.
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space; and “How is Space Public?”
Geuss, Public Goods, Private Goods.
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space.
Compare Chambers, “Deliberative Democratic Theory,” 307–26.
Parkinson, “Symbolic Representation in Public Space.”
Allen, How Buildings Work.
Saward, The Representative Claim.
Stone, Policy Paradox.
Norris, Passages to Power. For diversity of background and experience as a normative requirement of experts and representatives in democracy, see Christiano, “Rational Deliberation between Experts and Citizens.”
Pasley, “Democracy, Gentility, and Lobbying.”
For a history of media-Congress relations in the United States, see Schudson, “Congress and the Media.”
Katz and Mair, “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy” and “The Cartel Party Thesis”; Wright and Gamble, “Commentary: Reforming the Lords (again).”
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space.
Chambers, “Behind Closed Doors.”
Parkinson, “Does Democracy Require Physical Public Space?”
Bickford, “Constructing inequality,” 356.
Mitchell, “The End of Public Space?”
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space, 1–2.
Pasley, “Democracy, Gentility, and Lobbying,” 38–62.
Bessette, The Mild Voice of Reason, 3; Kohn, “Homo Spectator.”
Scott, Temple of Liberty, 68
Freeman, “Opening Congress,” 25–37.
National Assembly for Wales, “Design Concepts.”
Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners, “National Assembly for Wales.”
Parliament of Australia, Parliament House, Canberra.
National Assembly for Wales, “Access.”
Romaldo Giurgola speaking in Fewtrell, McIntyre, and Uhr, Architecture and Parliament.
McIntyre, Parliamentary Architecture and Political Culture.
Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, “Cannon House Office Building”.
Wilson, “The Historicization of the US Capitol,” 135, 139.
Ritchie, “The Press Coverage of Congress,” 239–49; Schudson, “Congress and the Media”.
In strong presidential systems, it is the presidential offices that tend to be open to the public, not the legislature – this is the case in Mexico, Chile and Greece, for example. Assemblies in those countries are not accessible directly by the public, and their galleries are reserved for the media and VIP guests.
See, for example, House of Commons, Canada, Building the Future, 53.
Pasley, “Democracy, Gentility, and Lobbying,” 49.
New Zealand Parliament, “Visiting and Tours: Access.”
Parkinson, Deliberating in the Real World.
Schudson, The Good Citizen; Zaller, “A New Standard for Judging News Quality.”
Schudson, “Congress and the Media”; Rogers and Walters, How Parliament Works, 178.
Editorial, “Unsightly Security on the Hill,” Canberra Times, May 28, 2003.
For an interesting discussion of the resulting approach, see Gournay and Loeffler, “Washington and Ottawa.”
National Capital Authority, Urban Design Guidelines.
Flint, “Both Safe and Sorry?,” 9.
Barber, Marching on Washington.
Hajer, Authoritative Governance.
Parkinson, Democracy and Public Space; Mark Thomas, “Demonstrations of Victory,” The Guardian, June 26, 2007; Zick, Speech out of Doors.
Vale, “Securing Public Space,” 41.
Parkinson, “How is Space Public?”.
Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings, 270.