The Political Value of Time

“Waiting periods and deadlines are so ubiquitous that we often take them for granted. Yet they form a critical part of any democratic architecture. When a precise moment or amount of time is given political importance, we ought to understand why this is so. The Political Value of Time explores the idea of time within democratic theory and practice. Elizabeth F. Cohen demonstrates how political procedures use quantities of time to confer and deny citizenship rights. Using specific dates and deadlines, states carve boundaries around a citizenry. As time is assigned a form of political value it comes to be used to transact over rights. Cohen concludes with a normative analysis of the ways in which the devaluation of some people’s political time constitutes a widely overlooked form of injustice. This book shows readers how and why they need to think about time if they want to understand politics.” Cohen speaks on her second book, The Political Value of Time, published 2018.
Elizabeth Cohen is a Political Science professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs within Syracuse University. She received her PhD from Yale, and she specializes in contemporary and modern political theory, history of political thought, as well as immigration and citizenship.