Paula Diehl and Michael Saward, Bodies, Spaces, Claims: The Theory and Practice of Performing Political Representation – Oxford University Press, February 2025

There is no political representation without performance. When politicians, protesters, and even celebrities appear in public, they make or constitute political representation by performing it, shaping how we view roles and institutions and imagine society. Building theory through rich case studies—from the festival stage to the toppling of statues, and from presidential inaugurations to parliaments and council chambers – the book deepens our understanding of political representation by exploring how embodied action in different spaces creates representative claims in our highly mediatized contemporary politics. It shows how a performative take on representation is critical to our understanding of: the symbolism of political authority; the limits of democratic leadership; the politics of material spaces and presences; political empowerment and disempowerment; and the claim to and denial of authenticity in political life.