BIFD and Francqui Inaugural Lecture Michael Saward

The Representative is Present : Power, Politics and Democracy in The Square 

 by Michael Saward

Across a range of countries, a resurgent far right is targeting many values and markers of contemporary democracy (or at least, liberal democracy). Some opponents of democratic erosion or backsliding argue that democracy must become something it has not yet been to do the work of equality, freedom and empowerment that is demanded of it; it must be deepened, extended, transformed. Central to this thinking is the need to bring power closer to the people, to increase trust and legitimacy in democratic ideas and institutions. We need, so it is argued, more proximity, co-creation, deliberation and connection between representatives and the represented, perhaps even in ways that destabilize that very distinction. To explore this conjecture in stark terms, the lecture takes us to The Square – a place of face-to-face encounter (or co-presence) where representation meets participation, government meets citizen, and roles and identities are contested and negotiated. In The Square, the representative is present, and relations of power are performed amid more fluid and dynamic sense of time, space, and material. Can exploring The Square – across a range of real-world and hypothetical examples – sharpen our thinking and open doors to new modes of democratic transformation?

Bio

Michael Saward is Emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick. A democratic theorist, he is author of The Representative Claim (Oxford UP 2010), Making Representations (ECPR Press and Rowman and Littlefield 2020) and Democratic Design (Oxford UP 2021). In recent years he has been a visiting scholar at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil), and Australian National University. International collaborations have in 2024 produced two new volumes: Claiming and Contesting Representation in Mexico: Meanings, Practices and Settings (edited by F. Castanos, S. Inclan and M. Saward) (Bristol: Bristol University Press 2024); and Bodies, Spaces, Claims: The Theory and Practice of Performing Political Representation (edited by P. Diehl and M. Saward) (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2024). Along with Shirin Rai (SOAS) and Warwick Theatre and Performance colleagues Silvija