About

Lisa Disch is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, having joined the university in 2008 after beginning her career at the University of Minnesota. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University and a B.A. with high honors in Political Science and English from Kenyon College. Her interests in political thought span from the mid-18th century to the present, with a specialization in contemporary continental political thought, feminist theory, political ecology, and theories of democracy in both the US and France. Disch's work is characterized by a focus on the power of conventions regarded as necessary or natural, and how they come to be perceived as such. She has explored storytelling in her first book and early articles, and her second book analyzes how 20th-century US citizens, after a century of third-party participation, came to see electoral duopoly as a safeguard of democracy. Her recent writings address sex/gender differences, inspired by her broader concern with conventions and perceptions. Her current research includes a project on political representation that seeks to reconcile the idea that acts of representation mobilize constituencies rather than merely reflecting them, emphasizing the notion of government 'by' the people. She is also working on a project examining the reciprocal influences of contemporary French and American political theory. Disch teaches courses on 20th Century French and Anglo-American Feminism, Political Representation, and Contemporary Political Theory. Her academic affiliation includes the Department of Women's Studies, with fields of study in Democratic Theory, Feminist Theory/Gender and Politics, and Political Ecology.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Social Science
• Positive economics
• Engineering ethics
• Literature
• Physics
• Philosophy
• Art
• Mathematics
• Economics
• Environmental ethics
• Epistemology
• Engineering
• Geology

Selected publications

• The Council Chamber and the Politics of Encounter

  2024-12-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter takes the framework of Michael Saward’s ‘Square’ (see Chapter 3) to analyse the politics of encounter on a local legislative body. It focuses on the mediators of representation, which include the physical space and its positioning of bodies, the authoritative documents that order the agenda and govern communication during a meeting, the expertise of city staff, and the narratives through which residents view local political conflict. It demonstrates that competition over the power to represent occurs along two axes: one that links representatives and constituents, and one that runs between elected officials and city staff. Encounters along the first axis are overt, but rare. Along the second they are more common but less perceptible, and can be magnified by the lens of the Square.

  PublisherDOI

• Ecocene PoliticsEcocene PoliticsMihneaTănăsescu. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2022. 212 pp. Open Access eBook (ISBN 978-1-80064-317-8); £20.95 paper (ISBN 978-1-80064-314-7).

  The AAG Review of Books · 2024-04-02

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  editorial reviewed

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Democracy for Busy People <i>by Kevin J. Elliott</i>

  Political Science Quarterly · 2024-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Performative politische Repräsentation

  Politologische Aufklärung - konstruktivistische Perspektiven · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The power of political representation

  Contemporary Political Theory · 2023-12-16 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  This Critical Exchange takes up a conversation David Plotke inaugurated twentyfive years ago with this simple statement: 'Representation is democracy ' (1997).This sentence announced a unique and powerful reframing that 'transformed what was commonly believed to be an oxymoron into an equivalence', as Mónica Brito Vieira so aptly and eloquently described it (2017, p. 6).Rather than promote representation from the typical standpoint of republicanism, Plotke took up a vantage point informed by and grateful for the successes of twentieth-century democratic movements.By extending voice and rights to the formerly marginalized and replacing 'direct personal domination' and favoritism with abstract rules and procedures, he argued, democratic movements made 'politics more complex and less direct' (Plotke., 1997, p. 24).Increased complexity gave representation 'a central

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mark Warren: Between Realism and Aspiration—Democracy for the Twenty-First Century

  Political Science Today · 2023

  • Political Science
  • Art
  • Law

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• Response to Robert B. Talisse’s Review of <i>Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy</i>

  Perspectives on Politics · 2022-08-31

  article1st authorCorresponding

  An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

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• Affluence and Freedom: An Environmental History of Political Ideas. By Pierre Charbonnier. Translated by Andrew Brown. Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2021. 327p. $74.95 cloth, $28.95 paper.

  Perspectives on Politics · 2022-12-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Affluence and Freedom: An Environmental History of Political Ideas. By Pierre Charbonnier. Translated by Andrew Brown. Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2021. 327p. 28.95 paper. - Volume 20 Issue 4

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Repenser le « French feminism » avec Christine Delphy

  Nouvelles Questions Féministes · 2022-11-09

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Political Theory: Intellectual Decline or De-Institutionalisation?

  Raisons politiques · 2022-01-20

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nadia Urbinati

  6 shared

• Jason Frank

  Cornell University

  5 shared

• Jennet Kirkpatrick

  Arizona State University

  5 shared

• Steven Shaviro

  4 shared

• Verity Smith

  4 shared

• John D. Rockefeller

  Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

  4 shared

• Dan Stone

  Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

  4 shared

• Mary L. Bellhouse

  Trent University

  4 shared