@article{THESIS,
      recid = {1733},
      author = {Nichanian, Daniel},
      title = {Seizing a Seat at the Table: Participatory Politics in the  Face of Disqualification},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2016-12},
      number = {THESIS},
      pages = {394},
      abstract = {This dissertation addresses the difficulties in analyzing  contestatory movements as a form of participation in the  business of government. I argue that available theoretical  frameworks enable scholars to treat instances of  contestation as expressions of anger or discontent, as  demands for recognition and redress, or as symptoms of an  antigovernmental orientation, but not as attempts to  contribute politicized judgments on what governmental  bodies should do or what policies they should adopt. By  contrast, I ask how people work to contribute to  governmental processes when they are not recognized as  having the requisite qualifications to do so. I outline the  distinctive political rationality of practices of  contestatory participation by which activists persist in  intervening in activities widely believed to be beyond  their involvement and in engaging unresponsive institutions  or dismissive elites on the substance of what the latter  are doing. I reconstruct the misunderstood logic of  sociopolitical movements—like those of 1870s American  suffragists and 1980s AIDS treatment activists—whose  members act as if they have a seat at the proverbial table.  

Three of my chapters lay out reasons why contemporary  political theory’s dominant paradigms neglect the  contributory work some contestatory movements undertake. I  do this through close readings of Hannah Arendt, Seyla  Benhabib, Michel Foucault, Chantal Mouffe, and Philip  Pettit. First, I diagnose and question what I call the  framework of mutuality; this is the widespread premise  within democratic theory that it is only viable to act upon  one’s participatory aspirations insofar as one is embedded  in relations of mutuality with cooperative interlocutors  and responsive institutions. In particular, the presence of  such relations is seen to be necessary for people to be  competent to engage in participatory action and for their  practices to be taken up by others. Second, I argue that we  should refrain from resolving at an ontological level these  two predicaments that disqualified actors face, namely  doubts about their competence and a lack of uptake for  their claims. I contend that we should pay attention  instead to how particular movements negotiate in practice  the uncertainty as to what they can do and why they would  bother doing it. 

Three other chapters construct a  historical and conceptual framework that makes sense of a  neglected form of activism, one that people enact in the  face of perceived limits on their participation. I show how  pursuing uninvited interventions into the business of  government challenges social expectations as to one’s lack  of qualification. I work out this framework by offering new  readings of Frederick Douglass and Jacques Rancière’s  political thought and by studying two instances of  contestation whose stakes I believe have been misconstrued:  American suffragists’ constitutional claims in the 1870s,  and ACT UP activists’ technical recommendations on AIDS  research in the 1980s. I argue that, in the course of  adding contributions to the very governmental processes  from which they are disqualified, people can put the  propriety of their participation to a public and  contentious test. In particular, I demonstrate the value of  investigating what it means to be competent for a task by  experimenting with the adequacy of alternative divisions of  political labor; and I highlight political and rhetorical  strategies with which movements work for their  contributions to be taken up by even dismissive audiences.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1733},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1733},
}