The Politics of Politeness: Citizenship, Civility, and the Democracy of Everyday Life

Politically inactive ‘ordinary citizens’ are often disparaged for their apathy and seen as a blight on democracy. This book argues that, on the contrary, the everyday activities of those ordinary citizens are vital to a healthy democratic order. It focuses specifically on the practice of politeness in day-to-day urban interactions. Usually seen as a problem of sociology or of morality and ethics, this book asks what it would mean to regard politeness as a problem of democratic politics. In so doing, it proposes an interpretation of politeness as civility. Against prevailing conceptualizations of polite civility as a ‘communicative’ virtue, it elaborates and defends a new, ‘ceremonial’ conception of civility. It then deploys that conception in the analysis of a sequence of dilemmas of everyday urban etiquette including the management of clashing codes of manners, the challenge of speaking up against injustice, the response to rudeness, and the negotiation of social hierarchies. In this way, it exposes a neglected realm of democratic citizenship and provides tools to help readers better understand the political dimensions of everyday city living.