This volume explores political culture, especially the catastrophic elements of the global social order emerging in the twenty-first century. By emphasizing the texture of political action, the book theorizes how social context becomes evident on the surface of events and analyzes the performative dimensions of political experience. The attention to catastrophe allows for an understanding of how ordinary people contend with normal system operation once it is indistinguishable from system breakdown. Through an array of case studies, the book provides an account of change as it is experienced, negotiated, and resisted in specific settings that define a society's capacity for political action.

This volume explores political culture, especially the catastrophic elements of the global social order emerging in the twenty-first century. By emphasizing the texture of political action, the book theorizes how social context becomes evident on the surface of events and analyzes the performative dimensions of political experience. The attention to catastrophe allows for an understanding of how ordinary people contend with normal system operation once it is indistinguishable from system breakdown. Through an array of case studies, the book provides an account of change as it is experienced, negotiated, and resisted in specific settings that define a society's capacity for political action.

Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance are at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it. In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides sustained analysis of our political discourse. He shows not only how the rhetoric of democracy produces strong desires for social order, global wealth, and justice but also how these desires cannot be satisfied. Throughout his discussion, Cintron includes ethnographic research from fieldwork conducted over the course of twenty years in the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, where he observes both citizens and the undocumented looking to democracy to fulfill their highest aspirations. Politicians hand out favors to the elite, developers strong-arm aldermen, and the disenfranchised have little redress. The problem, Cintron argues, is that the conditions required to put democracy into practice—territory, a bordered nation-state, citizens, property—are constituted by inequality and violence, because there is no inclusivity that does not also exclude. Drawing on ethnography, economics, political theory, and rhetorical analysis, Cintron makes his case with tremendous analytic rigor. This challenge to reassess the discourses on democracy and to consider democratic politics as always compromised by oligarchy will be of particular interest to political and rhetorical theorists.

Democracy has long been fetishized. Consequently, how we speak about democracy and what we expect from democratic governance are at odds with practice. With unflinching resolve, this book probes the theory of democracy and how the left and right are fascinated by it. In this innovative multidisciplinary study, Ralph Cintron provides sustained analysis of our political discourse. He shows not only how the rhetoric of democracy produces strong desires for social order, global wealth, and justice but also how these desires cannot be satisfied. Throughout his discussion, Cintron includes ethnographic research from fieldwork conducted over the course of twenty years in the Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, where he observes both citizens and the undocumented looking to democracy to fulfill their highest aspirations. Politicians hand out favors to the elite, developers strong-arm aldermen, and the disenfranchised have little redress. The problem, Cintron argues, is that the conditions required to put democracy into practice-territory, a bordered nation-state, citizens, property-are constituted by inequality and violence, because there is no inclusivity that does not also exclude. Drawing on ethnography, economics, political theory, and rhetorical analysis, Cintron makes his case with tremendous analytic rigor. This challenge to reassess the discourses on democracy and to consider democratic politics as always compromised by oligarchy will be of particular interest to political and rhetorical theorists.

As issues of power and social order loom large in Angelstown, Ralph Cintron shows how eruptions on the margins of the community are emblematic of a deeper disorder. In their language and images, the members of a Latino community in a midsized American city create self-respect under conditions of disrepect. Cintron's innovative ethnography offers a beautiful portrait of a struggling Mexican-American community and shows how people (including ethnographers) make sense of their lives through cultural forms.