The architecture of governance: the structure of democracy

Public lecture hosted by LSE Cities in partnership with Canadian Centre for Architecture

Professor Jerry Frug argues that the organisation of democratic government, and in particular, the relationship between local and national governments, should be viewed as a structure. This structure has its own design, or architecture, and there are a number of alternative designs currently in vogue around the world. These designs can be analyzed and critiqued like any structural design. The lecture offered a new way of thinking about alternative structures and will propose ideas for improving the current way we organize democratic government.

Profiles

    Gerald Frug

    Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

    Richard Sennett

    Richard Sennett is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. His research interests include the relationship between urban design and urban society, urban family patterns, the urban welfare system, the history of cities and the changing nature of work. His books include The Craftsman (2008), The Culture of the New Capitalism (Yale, 2006), Respect: The Formation of Character in an Age of Inequality (Penguin, 2003), The Corrosion of Character (1998), Flesh and Stone (1994) and The Fall of Public Man (1977). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Society of the Arts and the Academia Europea. He is past President of the American Council on Work and the former Director of the New York Institute for the Humanities. Recent honours and awards include The Schocken Prize, 2011; Honorary Doctorate from Cambridge University, 2010; The Spinoza Prize, 2010; The Tessenow Prize, 2009; The Gerda Henkel Prize, 2008; The European Craft Prize, 2008; and The Hegel Prize, 2006.