My project uncovers and explores the democratic sources of political cynicism. I contest the conventional view that the expanding gap between the near-universal acclaim accorded democratic principles and the near-total absence of democratic political practices is a product of either “market society” or liberal political systems. Instead, I argue that the particular form of the contemporary contempt for all-things-political - the reflexive assumption that politics is necessarily corrupt and even absurd - is inscribed in modern democratic culture. In relation to the sublime freedom and equality of the idea of democratic openness, democratic political action and association cannot but be experienced as impoverished and unfree. In this sense, I argue that democracy is self-subverting, undermining the possibility of political argument and reform. I conclude by sketching out a prescription in the American context for robust democracy based upon this diagnosis. By rhetorically reorienting self-perceptions about what we are doing when we engage in politics around the elevated but not transcendent notion of participating in an ongoing constitutional project, we can transform our anti-political dispositions. Beyond issues of political legitimacy, I argue that the symbolic order of the Constitution might foster political vitality by framing a politics experienced as potentially meaningful and worthy of respect. One might say that I offer Madisonian means to Jeffersonian ends. / text

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This study examined the perceptions of celebrity CEOs potentially transitioning to political candidates. Using Carly Fiorina's campaign for Senator of California, this study identified how young voters perceive celebrity CEOs as politicians, their identification of celebrity CEOs, and the evaluations of CEOs and their companies. Results indicate a more favorable evaluation of Fiorina resulted in a more favorable reaction to Hewlett- Packard. Results also confirm the use of media messages to prime young voters about political candidates. Finally, political party affiliation was found to significantly influence the findings of this study while gender and political cynicism did not. Theoretical implications and areas of future research in celebrity and politics are discussed. / Master of Arts

The thesis concerns the dynamics during the 1990s of political action by many groups of people, in what came to be called the movement of movements. The activists, who held that corporations were overstepping some mark, worked on alternative arrangements for self-rule. The thesis views the movement as micropolitics, using concepts devised by Deleuze and Guattari. It sets out particulars of the rhizomic make -up of the movement. A key point is that the movement trains participants in decentred organisation, which entails the forming of subject-groups as opposed to subjugated groups. The thesis records how the movement was shaped by earlier events in political action and thinking, especially from the 1960s on. The movement had previously been read as a push for absolute democracy (Hardt and Negri). The thesis shows that reading to have been incomplete: the movement is, in part, a push for agonistic democracy. More a practice than a form of rule, agonistic democracy is found where state power is bent on not moulding peoples into any unified polity. It is found where state power fosters conflicted-self-rule, so that every citizen may engage in the polity as a decentred "I". The thesis throws light on relations between the movement and the constitutionalist state. Part of the movement, while cynical about the existing form of state rule, wears a mask of obedience to constituted authority. When one upholds the fiction of legitimate rule, one can use the fiction as a restraint on the cynics-in-power. The play creates a shadow social contract, producing detente within the polity and within the �I.� The thesis also reports on a search in mainstream cinema for some expression of the movement's dynamics. The search leads to a cycle of thrillers, set in a nonfiction frame story about a coverup of gross abuse of state power.

The thesis concerns the dynamics during the 1990s of political action by many groups of people, in what came to be called the movement of movements. The activists, who held that corporations were overstepping some mark, worked on alternative arrangements for self-rule. The thesis views the movement as micropolitics, using concepts devised by Deleuze and Guattari. It sets out particulars of the rhizomic make -up of the movement. A key point is that the movement trains participants in decentred organisation, which entails the forming of subject-groups as opposed to subjugated groups. The thesis records how the movement was shaped by earlier events in political action and thinking, especially from the 1960s on. The movement had previously been read as a push for absolute democracy (Hardt and Negri). The thesis shows that reading to have been incomplete: the movement is, in part, a push for agonistic democracy. More a practice than a form of rule, agonistic democracy is found where state power is bent on not moulding peoples into any unified polity. It is found where state power fosters conflicted-self-rule, so that every citizen may engage in the polity as a decentred "I". The thesis throws light on relations between the movement and the constitutionalist state. Part of the movement, while cynical about the existing form of state rule, wears a mask of obedience to constituted authority. When one upholds the fiction of legitimate rule, one can use the fiction as a restraint on the cynics-in-power. The play creates a shadow social contract, producing detente within the polity and within the �I.� The thesis also reports on a search in mainstream cinema for some expression of the movement's dynamics. The search leads to a cycle of thrillers, set in a nonfiction frame story about a coverup of gross abuse of state power.