Performative governance - Impression management, teamwork, and conflict containment in city commission proceedings

This article discusses patterns of interaction among citizens and officials in city commission proceedings. Drawing on Goffman's dramaturgical metapho r, the author examines elements of discourse and action that create interac tional inequities and unobtrusive limits to democratic participation in thi s setting. The proceedings are described as a series of interactional perfo rmances geared toward maintaining an atmosphere of public involvement in de cisions made by the commission. Techniques of impression management, teamwo rk, and strategies of conflict containment are employed by commissioners to manage the flow of interaction and mitigate conflicts that emerge among pa rticipants during the proceedings. At the same time, an impression of conce rn for constituents and an atmosphere of constructive public involvement in the commission's decisions is displayed. This constitutes a situation of p erformative governance-an occasion in which impressions of committed govern ance are staged and maintained by officials, yet effective inclusion of cit izenry in decision making is negligible.