There’s a widespread belief that actually existing democracies are in the grip of a fast-paced world dominated by breaking news and all things instant. The following contribution sets out to question this belief. It takes readers on a time journey. It sets out to probe the meaning of time, and explains why time has a malleable quality. It asks why time is a political matter and why, when they function well, democracies do intriguing things to people’s shared sense of time. The text is a revised version of a presentation to the international conference, The Toronto School: Then, Now, Next held at the University of Toronto, October 15, 2016.
To read the complete article, click on the link below to the Sydney Democracy Network website.
http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/article-new-politics-time/
Born in southern Australia, John Keane is Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney. His Demagogues and Despots: Democracies on the Brink (Hurst/OUP) is forthcoming.