The End of Representative Politics (eBook)

Simon Tormey is a political theorist based in the School of Social and Political Sciences. Prior to his appointment at Sydney in 2009 he was Professor and Head of the School of Politics and International Relations and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) at the University of Nottingham UK.

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1

1 Contours of a 'Crisis' 15

2 Locating 'Representative Politics' 37

3 Are We Becoming Unrepresentable? 59

4 Is the Party Over? 83

5 Citizens against Representation 105

6 Democracy after Representation 125

Notes 150

References 152

Index 160

Spirited and clearly written, Tormey's searching interrogation of political representation as we've come to know it is sharp, provocative and compelling. Drawing widely on history, theory and contemporary developments, it will bring a new vibrancy to current debates on democracy's potential futures.
Michael Saward, University of Warwick

Timely, provocative and rigorous too. Tormey has produced an important resource for all who share the hunch that far from politics being dead, a new kind of politics is being born and with it a more pervasive democracy for which we all have responsibility.
Hilary Wainwright, author of Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy, and a founding editor of Red Pepper.

"The book is informative and clearly written and provides fresh insights on the transformation of representative politics. It gives a new approach to our understanding of contemporary politics."
Political Studies Review