Making Democratic Life: Civic Action in the Civil Sphere shows how civic culture shapes capacities and outcomes in struggles over inclusion and equity, inside institutions and on the streets. In this collection of international cases, civic actors wrestle with environmental catastrophe, gentrification, restrictive immigration policies and democratic backsliding, among other issues. Scholars of democracy and culture can learn how civil rhetoric and styles of collective civic action work in tandem, shaping the limits of acceptable debate, facilitating some strategies and inhibiting others.

Until now, empirical work on civic culture has followed two lines of inquiry. Civil sphere theory examines the storylines and cultural codes that political leaders, social activists and ordinary citizens alike use to maintain a respectful public arena. Civic action theory finds patterned styles of collective action which cultivate different skills, capacities and understandings of success. Bringing the two lines together, this book presents a comprehensive view of civic culture. It overcomes the tendency to treat everyday action in local sites and national civic discourses in isolation from one another. It reveals practical puzzles collective actors face when they work to expand civil solidarity and confront authoritarianism in a time when some doubt the value of democracy as a way of life.