Publics in Action: The Self-Making of Civic Life

Author/Contributor(s):	Kutz, Christopher
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Date:	08/27/2025
Binding:	Hardcover
Condition:	NEW

In Publics in Action, Christopher Kutz looks at how people should and do come together to create their shared institutions, and the lessons we can learn from one another. He argues that a healthy, dynamic public takes itself seriously as a subject of action, not just the passive beneficiary of a state institution. Kutz builds the book around an extended metaphor: we should understand ourselves as a public that improvises: listening to each other as we riff off shared standards and so creating something new, responsive to the scene and the moment.