Marres 2005 – Issues spark a public into being¶

Page numbers

The PDF is an author manuscript paginated 1–15. The chapter appeared in Making Things Public (Latour and Weibel, eds., MIT Press 2005) (p. 1), but the book's page numbers are not in the PDF. If Rebekka cites the book, the page references must be checked against it.

In brief

Marres revisits the Lippmann–Dewey debate of the 1920s to ask what role objects – the practical things politics is about – play in democracy (pp. 1–3) [U]. She argues that Lippmann and Dewey turned the usual view upside down: complex, unfamiliar issues are not an obstacle to democracy, but what enables public involvement (pp. 2, 6–7) [U]. A public is called into being when people are affected by an issue that existing institutions and communities fail to deal with (pp. 7–9) [U]. She then updates Dewey: today there are many possible addressees, and publics are often divided by disagreement (pp. 11–12) [U].

Research question and main claim¶

Starting point: ‘we are pretty clueless about the role of objects in democratic politics’ (p. 1) [U].
She wants to explore the proposition that complex issues enable public involvement in politics, and use it to describe the role of objects in current democratic practices (p. 2) [U].
Main claim: ‘publics are called into being by issues’ (p. 3); issues call a public into being, and public involvement serves these issues (p. 13) [U].
A politics that revolves around the problems people are implicated in can be a democratic politics (p. 14) [U].

Theoretical perspective¶

American pragmatism: Lippmann's Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, and Dewey's The Public and Its Problems (pp. 1–2) [U].
Westbrook's biography of Dewey on how Dewey took over Lippmann's problem definition while rejecting his solutions (p. 3) [U].
Annemarie Mol's phrase ‘the what of politics’ (p. 3) [U].
Kierkegaard on the public as a ‘phantom’ (pp. 12–13) [U].
Michael Warner on the public as a relation among strangers (p. 10, n. 20) [U].
The idea that agency is distributed (p. 13) [U].

Empirical material and context¶

No empirical study. Close reading of Lippmann and Dewey, with contemporary examples: genetically modified food and access to AIDS drugs (pp. 10–12) [U].
Context: published in the exhibition catalogue/anthology Making Things Public (p. 1) [U].

Method¶

Conceptual argument through close reading of classic texts, followed by her own amendments to Dewey's argument (pp. 11–13) [U].

Key concepts¶

Concept	How the source defines or uses it	Page	U/T
issue / public affair	An affair whose consequences extend beyond those directly involved; this is what calls a public into being	9, 14	U
public	(Dewey) All those affected by indirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that they need to be systematically cared for	8	U
community of strangers	Actors jointly implicated in an issue who do not belong to the same social world	10	U
objects of politics	The practical things politics is about; ‘the what of politics’	1, 3	U
spontaneous democracy	(Lippmann) The modern ideal that every man can manage his own affairs, if the environment is confined to what he knows	5	U
phantom public	(Lippmann, after Kierkegaard) The public as partly imaginary; Marres sees this as a possible source of agency	12–13	U
addressee	The institution singled out to deal with an issue; identifying it is a merit of public involvement	11–12	U

How privacy and private data are understood¶

Topic not addressed. Information appears only as a question of whether better information is the solution to democracy's problems, which Lippmann and Dewey reject (p. 6) [U].

Arguments and findings¶

Lippmann observed that in technological societies it is often unclear what the object of public debate and decision-making is (p. 3) [U].
Modern democratic theory has no place for unfamiliar, entangled objects, according to Lippmann (pp. 4–6) [U].
Lippmann and Dewey rejected the idea that high-quality information or simple problem definitions are necessary conditions for democracy (p. 6) [U].
Simple, familiar problems are handled by existing institutions; the hardest problems, which institutions cannot handle, are ‘the public's problems’ (p. 7) [U].
A public is not a social community; it is called for precisely when no community exists that can take care of an issue (p. 9) [U].
Dewey's task for the public is to ‘re-make the state’ (p. 11) [U].
Marres departs from Dewey: there is not one state but many possible addressees, and publics are antagonistically implicated (p. 11) [U]. An issue is also an opportunity for disagreement (p. 12) [U].
The phantom character of the public may be a source of ‘pressure’ directed at specific institutions (p. 13) [U].

Limitations the source itself mentions¶

Lippmann and Dewey wrote almost a century ago, and some of their observations need updating (p. 2) [U].
Dewey relied on assumptions that cannot be made today (one state, a unified public) (p. 11) [U].
There are many more points on which their arguments could be amended (p. 13) [U].

What the source does not cover¶

Government documents as such [T].
Privacy or personal data [T].
Empirical analysis of a specific issue; the examples are brief [T].

Possible relevance for the thesis¶

The concept of issue that Asdal 2015 builds on and argues against comes from this tradition (see the Asdal card) [T].
Marres asks which institution should be the addressee of an issue (pp. 11–12). The same question can be asked about digital privacy: which bodies do the Norwegian documents point to [T]?
The claim that information is not the solution (p. 6) may contrast with documents that treat information to citizens as the answer to privacy problems [T].

Connections to other sources¶

Asdal 2015 – Asdal builds on the STS concept of issue (Marres 2005, 2007), but the Marres 2005 she cites is the dissertation No issue, no public, not this chapter [T – from the Asdal card]. This chapter has a section with the same title, ‘No issue, no public’ (p. 7) [U].
Marres 2007 – same author, develops the issue concept further [T].
Solove 2011 – both use Dewey, but for different points: Solove on individual and society, Marres on issues and publics [T].

Key quotes¶

“To begin with, it should be admitted that we are pretty clueless about the role of objects in democratic politics.” (p. 1)

“Or rather, they show how objects of politics have played a crucial role in democratic politics all along, that publics are called into being by issues.” (p. 3)

“The emergence of a strange, unfamiliar, complex issue, they posited, is an enabling condition for democratic politics.” (p. 7)

“When issues call publics into being, those that are implicated better be prepared to disagree.” (p. 12)

“The public adopts problems that no one is currently taking care of, so as to identify an addressee for these […] issues, which may take care of them.” (pp. 13–14)

Open questions for Rebekka¶

Do you cite the book version? If so, the page numbers must be checked against Making Things Public.
Has digital privacy in Norway ‘sparked a public into being’, or is it handled by existing institutions without a public?
Which addressees (Datatilsynet, ministries, the EU …) do the documents point to for privacy issues?
Do you use the issue concept mainly via Asdal, or directly from Marres?