Collaborative Research: Democracy and Public Life in the United States and United Kingdom

城市的公共空间通常被认为是两种截然不同的方式--人们聚集在一起，形成一种公众或社区的感觉，以及因为麻烦的人的行为不受控制而有点可怕或不舒服的地方。公共空间通常被理想化为民主社区可以聚集在一起的地方，这使得在民主国家建立能够引发辩论和分歧的纽带成为可能。然而，这种理想受到了无序和破坏性行为的挑战。有时，这些行为带有明显的政治性，比如抗议或静坐，以引起人们对某个特定问题的关注。其他行为似乎不是政治行为，比如教堂在建筑外向无家可归者提供食物，或者清真寺广播祈祷的呼唤，但受影响地区的一些人可能会认为这些行为是破坏，即使教堂正在进行他们认为对他们的使命或他们的存在至关重要的行为。这一合作研究项目将研究公共空间中不同类型的无序、公共生活质量以及扩大包括民主公众在内的人群范围的潜力之间的关系。从这个角度来看，民主与其说是一种政府制度，不如说是一套人与机构(如政府)之间的关系。在这个意义上，民主是一个由规范、价值观和对不同类型空间中适当行为的期望制约的过程。根据人们对这些社会规范的遵守情况，判断他们是否值得被纳入社区或“民主公共”。调查人员将研究秩序和无序之间的平衡是如何维持的，它如何塑造公共生活的质量，以及这如何影响民主的质量。16个关于公共空间冲突的案例研究将在四个城市进行：美国的加利福尼亚州伯克利和科罗拉多州的丹佛，英国的曼彻斯特和苏格兰的格拉斯哥。不同城市之间的比较有望揭示当地文化和对公共行为的期望在塑造空间使用和管理方式方面所起的作用。国家之间的比较应该揭示国家法律结构的差异如何制约所产生的各种冲突、对冲突的理解方式以及在对公共空间提出主张时所使用的策略。将使用人种学方法和数据编制案例研究，以构建对冲突的叙述。这些叙述将结合通过密集采访、报纸搜索、政府文件和对冲突现场的观察收集的数据。通过对公共空间中秩序和无序的悖论进行空间敏感的分析，这项研究将结合16个案例研究的结果，提供关于冲突如何产生、无序是如何被容纳的以及公共空间管理的策略的更广泛的见解。它还将揭示公共生活和民主的复杂来源，评估差异和多样性对此的重要性，并将通过展示地方空间和政治文化对民主化进程的重要性，帮助重新定义“最佳做法”的概念。该项目将为研究生和本科生提供教育和培训机会。研究成果将通过编写关于每个城市的民主和公共生活的“白皮书”和关于丹佛案例研究的纪录片，在学术出版物之外提供。

Public spaces of the city are often thought of in two contrasting ways -- as sites where people come together and forge a feeling of being a public or a community and as sites that are a bit scary or uncomfortable because behaviors of troublesome people are not controlled. Public spaces often are idealized as places where democratic communities can come together, making it possible to forge the bonds that enable debate and disagreement in a democracy. That ideal, however, is challenged by disorderly and disruptive acts. Sometimes these acts are overtly political, such as a protest or sit-in to draw attention to a particular issue. Other acts do not seem political, such as when a church offers food to homeless people outside its building or when a mosque broadcasts the call to prayer, but some people in the affected spaces may view these actions as disruption even as the churches go about what they see as acts that are central to their mission or their existence. This collaborative research project will examine the relationship between different kinds of disorder in public space, the quality of public life, and the potential for expanding the range of people included the democratic public. From this perspective, democracy is not a system of government so much as it is a set of relationships between people and institutions (e.g., government). In this sense, democracy is a process that is conditioned by norms, values, and expectations as to appropriate behaviors in different kinds of spaces. People are judged to be worthy of being included in the community or in "the democratic public" on the basis of their conformance with those social norms. The investigators will examine how the balance between order and disorder is maintained, how it shapes the quality of public life, and how this affects the quality of democracy. Sixteen case studies of conflicts in public space will be conducted in four cities: Berkeley, California, and Denver, Colorado, in the United States and Manchester, England, and Glasgow, Scotland, in the United Kingdom. Comparisons across cities are expected to reveal the roles local cultures and expectations of public behavior play in shaping how spaces are used and managed. Comparisons between countries ought to reveal the ways in which variations in national legal structures condition the kinds of conflicts that arise, the ways they are understood, and the strategies used in making claims on public spaces. The case studies will be developed using ethnographic methods and data to construct narratives of the conflicts. The narratives will combine data collected through intensive interviews, newspaper searches, government documents, and observations at the sites of the conflicts.By developing a spatially-sensitive analysis of the paradox of order and disorder in public space, this research will combine the results from the 16 case-studies to provide broader insights into how conflicts arise, how disorder is accommodated, and what strategies exist for managing public space. It also will reveal the complex sources of public life and democracy and assess the importance of difference and diversity to this, and it will help redefine the idea of "best practices" by showing the importance of local spatial and political cultures to processes of democratization. The project will provide education and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Research results will be made available beyond scholarly publications though the preparation of "white papers" on democracy and public life for each city and a documentary film on the Denver case study.