Ronan Paddison on public space and the post-political

ABSTRACT

Ronan Paddison’s work on urban public space and the post-political moved beyond the polarization that marks much of the ongoing debate around post-politics. This article briefly delineates three key propositions in Paddison’s engagement with the post-political: a critical dialogical reading of the thesis; a call for nuanced empirical engagement; and an ability to draw from deep personal engagement with local urban politics. Paddison’s propositions shape a generative engagement that has prefigured work that added geographical and political nuance to the post-political debate. They also provide critical pathways to illuminate how (urban) post-politicization and (re-)politicization intersect and shape one another.

KEYWORDS:

• Ronan Paddison
• post-political
• post-democracy
• urban public space
• end of public space

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Lazaros Karaliotas is a Lecturer in Urban Geography at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Manchester. Prior to his current position Lazaros has been an Urban Studies Foundation post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Glasgow and a Hallsworth Researh Fellow at the University of Manchester. His research interests are at the intersection of urban and political geography with particular interests in processes of de-politicization and repoliticization as well as urban uprisings and movements. He sits on the editorial board of Urban Studies where he collaborated with Ronan Paddison.