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"The Performative Presidency brings together literatures describing presidential leadership strategies, public understandings of citizenship and news production and media technologies between the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton and details how the relations between these spheres have changed over time. Jason Mast demonstrates how interactions between leaders, public and media are organized in a theatrical way and argues that mass mediated plot formation and character development play an increasing role in structuring the political arena. He shows politics as a process of ongoing performances staged by motivated political actors, mediated by critics and interpreted by audiences, in the context of a deeply rooted, widely shared system of collective representations. The interdisciplinary framework of this book brings together a semiotic theory of culture with concepts from the burgeoning field of performance studies"--

AbstractThis article introduces a theory of societalized politics to investigate crisis events in the German civil sphere between 2015 and 2024, and to proffer an answer to the disputed question of the preconditions that facilitated the rapid rise of right-wing populism in the German context. Drawing on civil sphere and societalization theory, the article specifies the foundational cultural elements, or binary cultural codes (BCCs), upon which German political elites crafted meso-level narratives to contest and manage strains in the civil sphere. Through an analysis of communicative and regulative institutions' responses to the arrival of refugees in 2015, and the publication of the Correctiv.org report and the backlash protests it inspired in 2024, the article charts the rise of the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and explains its success as due in part to its leaders' capacities to represent themselves and their supporters as embodying the BCC's civil democratic signifiers. Introducing a theory of societalized politics, the analysis demonstrates a processual approach to the construction and contesting of crisis events that emerge within the civil sphere itself. The article also introduces a civil sphere theory of right-wing populism, which frames the phenomenon as the elevation of nativist, primordial signifiers born foremost of the noncivil spheres of ethnicity and religion. It concludes by arguing that while the German civil sphere is in flux, the post-Potsdam civil protests indicate a significant portion of the nation's publics remain committed to universalistic, civil democratic principles.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election revealed a nation deeply divided and in flux. This volume provides urgently needed insights into American politics and culture during this period of uncertainty. The contributions answer the election's key mysteries, such as how contemporary Christian evangelicals identified in the unrepentant candidate Trump a hero to their cause, and how working class and economically struggling Americans saw in the rich and ostentatious candidate a champion of their plight. The chapters explain how irrationality is creeping into political participation, and demonstrate how media developments enabled a phenomenon like "fake news" to influence the election. At this polarized and contentious moment, this volume satisfies the urgent need for works that carefully analyze the forces and tensions tearing at the American social fabric. Simultaneously intellectual and accessible, this volume is designed to illuminate the 2016 U.S. presidential election and its aftermath for academics and students of politics alike.--

Cet article traite de la montée de la performativité au sein de la politique-spectacle contemporaine. Il soutient qu'à mesure que les conditions sociales sont devenues fragmentées, les acteurs politiques ont été amenés à travailler de façon plus consciemment symbolique dans leur manière de communiquer et de convaincre leur public. Le concept de fragmentation (defusion) sera ici proposé. Celui-ci suggère que les acteurs politiques doivent désormais travailler de façon plus théâtrale pour incarner l'autorité dévolue à leurs charges. En examinant à la fois les changements dans les stratégies américaines présidentielles, la compréhension populaire de la citoyenneté, la production de nouvelles ainsi que les technologies médiatiques tout au cours du vingtième siècle, l'article explique comment la sphère polymorphe que l'on appelle politique s'est organisée de manière de plus en plus théâtrale.

Jeffrey C. Alexander brings together new and leading contributors to make a powerful and coherently argued case for a new direction in cultural sociology, one that focuses on the intersection between performance, ritual and social action. Performance has always been used by sociologists to understand the social world but this volume offers the first systematic analytical framework based on the performance metaphor to explain large-scale social and cultural processes. From September 11, to the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, to the role of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Social Performance draws on recent work in performative theory in the humanities and in cultural studies to offer a novel approach to the sociology of culture. Inspired by the theories of Austin, Derrida, Durkheim, Goffman, and Turner, this is a path-breaking volume that makes a major contribution to the field. It will appeal to scholars and students alike.