INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
BEHAVIOR, 6(3), 442-460
OF
ORGANIZATION
THEORY
AND
FALL 2003
DYNAMIC INTERPRETATIONS OF CIVIC DUTY:
IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNANCE
Vera Vogelsang-Coombs and Larry Bakken*
ABSTRACT. This essay explores the norms of civic duty, based on the legal,
ethical, and practical interpretations of democratic citizenship. The authors find
that interpretations of civic duty are dynamic and touch on a fundamental
political question: What is the proper balance between elected officials and the
professional civil service in a liberal democracy? They conclude that the norms
of civic duty are political interpretations concerning an institutional struggle
over governance as much as they are matters of law, ethics, and best practice.
Successive interpretations of civic provide an opportunity for the renewal of
citizenship while channeling political conflict into liberal democracy’s
established institutions.
INTRODUCTION
This essay explores the norms of civic duty, based on legal, ethical,
and practical interpretations of democratic citizenship. Civic duty refers
to the rights, obligations, feelings, and habits of a citizen. A citizen has
membership in a democratic state. A state is an independent country with
defined territory. A state compels obedience from all who reside in its
geographic domain because its sovereign commands absolute power
internally. The sovereign’s institutions promote a country’s permanent
-------------------------------* Vera Vogelsang-Coombs, Ph.D., is Director, Leadership Programs, and
Director, Master of Public Administration Program, Maxine Goodman Levin
College of Urban Studies, Cleveland State University. Her research interests
are in local government leadership, ethics in government, and public
management. Larry Bakken, J.D., LL.M., is a professor in the Hamline
University Law School and the Graduate School of Public Administration and
Management. His research interests are in administrative law, ethics in
government, government regulation, and public conflict resolution.
Copyright © 2003 by PrAcademics Press
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interests--law and order, social stability, long-term economic prosperity,
and national security. The relationship between a state and citizens is
two-way. The state provides protection to citizens. In exchange, citizens
accept the duty to obey the sovereign, to fulfill the requirements of
citizenship, and to defend the state from external aggression. Adult
residents who are not citizens do not enjoy the full protection or the
rights therein of a state.
A democratic state is one in which the “demos”--the people
collectively--are the sovereign; its defining characteristic is selfgovernment. In America, the founders vested the new country’s
sovereignty in the citizenry. The founders believed that citizens, as
differentiated from a king’s subjects, could govern themselves because
they could regulate themselves (Eberly, 1994). Citizens regulate
themselves when they are faithful to the duties associated with the status
of citizenship. Citizenship takes two forms: legal citizenship and ethical
citizenship; ethical citizenship has two subclasses -- national citizenship
and democratic citizenship. The meaning of civic duty is dynamic
because the American state embeds the norms of citizenship in changing
political institutions, legal rules, and democratic culture. American
democracy involves citizens in the roles of private individual, political
participant, and officeholders. Officeholders can have three identities:
(1) political representatives, i.e., popularly elected officials or
lawmakers; (2) public administrators, i.e., bureaucrats or the civil
service; and (3) and independent judges. Excluded from this analysis is a
discussion of independent judges’ civic duty. The following sections
describe each row of Table 1 in turn.
LEGAL CITIZENSHIP AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT
Democratic government sets the foundation for legal citizenship.
American government is a form of liberal democracy. Liberal
democracy rests on the principle of limited government. This principle
assumes that the citizens voluntarily surrender part of their absolute
power as sovereign to government so that government can make
decisions for the state. In exchange for the people’s grant of some
sovereign power, liberal democracy functions according to a constitution
or charter. In America, the Constitution is written. This written
document expresses the reciprocal relationship between individual
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citizens and democratic government. Besides enumerating the powers
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TABLE 1
Citizenship, Liberal Democracy, and Civic Duty
Types of Citizenship
Legal Citizenship
National Citizenship
(Ethical Citizenship)
Democratic
Citizenship (Ethical
Citizenship)
Characteristics of
Liberal
Democracy
Limited
Government
Good
Government
Potential
Responsiveness
Norms for
Citizenship
The Civic Duty of
Public
Administrators
Personal
The Higher Standard
Responsibility of Conduct
Caring for
Office as Public
Public
Service
Interests
The Civic
Citizenship as
Culture
Office
that the people have surrendered to government, the Constitution also
lists the restraints on government. Its significance is that it is the supreme
law of the land. All who reside in America are subject to it, including the
popularly elected president, the head of state. The U.S. Constitution uses
three other legal devices to protect citizens from government. First, it
establishes a federal republic with dual sovereigns. Federalism means
that two distinct governments exist that derive their powers directly and
independently from the sovereign people: The national government and
states. The Constitution assures a republican form of government in
every state and at the national level. Citizens of one state enjoy the
privileges of citizenship in every other state. It also guarantees to protect
states in the American union from external invasions and domestic
violence. Second, the Constitution secures citizens’ civil rights and
liberties. The U.S. Bill of Rights, constitutional amendments, and federal
laws express these protections. Liberties, such as free speech, are
inalienable and are immune from the arbitrary exercise of governmental
power. Neither government nor a citizen can repudiate them or transfer
them to another person. Third, the Constitution authorizes the principle
of reserved powers. Amendment X gives to the states or the people the
powers that the Constitution has not explicitly granted to the national
government or withheld from the states.
Pluralism and Civil Society
Liberal democracy presupposes the existence of a pluralist civil
society. A pluralistic society divides a democratic state’s power into
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open and competing groups instead of concentrating it in a ruling elite.
Pluralism creates a civil society. Civil society is broader than
government, giving citizens a private (social) life and a political life.
Citizens get a unique identity by pursuing personal interests, including
family life, in private (non governmental) associations. The premise is
that only citizens can define their interests. Citizens advance their own
interests by joining groups of similarly minded individuals. Pluralism
assumes that a check on group power occurs as self-interested
individuals shift their allegiances from group to group in response to
changing perceptions of their own interests (Shafritz, 1993a, pp. 354355). Citizens’ groups align with others in the political arena to advocate
for their policy preferences and to achieve favorable outcomes. Politics
is the mechanism for aggregating and converting individual preferences
into collective decisions. In theory, this conversion takes place in the
competitive processes of responsible parties and within a set of legal
rights and political rules. Backed by political authority, these collective
choices compel obedience. For a critique of this view, see Lowi (1979).
Civic Duty and Personal Responsibility
Citizens in liberal democracy can assume the identity of a private
citizen, a political participant, or an officeholder. All have a duty to be
responsible. Personal responsibility for private citizens means that
individuals voluntarily restrain their behavior. They choose to restrict
themselves not to interfere with others’ private lives, liberties, and
interests. In exchange, responsible citizens have the right to expect
others to do the same. Furthermore, citizens’ private lives have legal
protections. Democratic government has a duty to avoid arbitrary
intrusions into the citizenry’s private affairs and can only do so
reluctantly after following due process. Personal responsibility also
means that citizens have a civic duty to participate in democratic political
processes. Political participation is necessary because the legitimacy of
democratic government depends on it. It allows the citizenry to show
consent. Showing consent legitimates democratic government’s use of
the sovereign state’s power. Citizens show consent indirectly by voting
for political representatives who, in turn, conduct the “people’s
business.” Voting depends on three principles. First, citizens stand as
political equals. Second, liberal democracy holds open and free elections
at regularly scheduled intervals. Third, democratic government has an
obligation to count each citizen’s vote. Personal responsibility for
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elected officials means that they encourage pluralistic participation, grant
access to citizen groups, broker exchanges among competing interests,
and enforce contracts. Political representatives grant the right to exercise
limited discretion to public administrators so that democratic government
can listen and respond to legitimate group interests. Elected officials
control administrative discretion by organizing government agencies into
hierarchies and through legislative oversight. The electorate has the
power to replace democratic government or even to change the
Constitution if the voters perceive officeholders as unresponsive.
The Higher Standard of Conduct
In democratic theory, the position of a free and autonomous citizen is
the most esteemed identity. Citizens who serve in government must
surrender more rights and democratic freedoms to government. The
democratic sovereign restricts the conduct of officeholders because of its
distrust of concentrated political authority. Therefore, some actions of
private citizens are illegal if done by political representatives or public
administrators. The restrictions of office translate into a higher standard
of conduct. Legislative codes, conflict of interest statutes, and criminal
sanctions operationalize this higher standard. In exchange for
discretionary authority, public administrators must follow the rules of
their office. Legal requirements exist for public administrators to carry
out their office with political impartiality and professionalism. They have
a duty to respect election outcomes, to support democratic processes, and
to act as rule-abiding trustees (March & Olsen, 1995). Administrators
must submit to sanctions if a legislative review finds that they have failed
to discharge these duties properly. Impartiality and professionalism
counteract the partisanship and ideologies of popularly elected officials.
One school of thought frees public administrators from legal restraints,
obliging them to disobey evil-minded elected officials in times of crises.
If nefarious elected officials capture the state’s absolute power and
present their unconstitutional activities as those of the democratic
sovereign, then dictatorship happens, as in Nazi Germany. According to
March and Olsen, public administrators must actively thwart the methods
and goals of iniquitous political officials.
NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
The legal foundations of citizenship are incomplete. Citizens who
possess legal and civil rights in a pluralist society do not automatically
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feel political allegiance to their country (Heywood, 1994). To stimulate
national citizenship, the American founders vested the sovereignty of the
new country in the political community, not the electorate. This political
community encompasses the nationwide body of citizens as they interact
informally and formally in social, religious, economic, cultural, and
community associations in their localities (Hult & Walcott, 1990). By
vesting sovereignty in the national political community, the founders
broadened the idea of citizenship to include an ethical dimension. Ethical
citizenship refers to the moral beliefs, values, fraternal feelings, habits,
and reciprocal commitments of individuals that guide their lives.
Whereas legal citizenship is expressed in law and rules, ethical
citizenship is in standards that most people acknowledge but are not
codified. Ethical citizenship is always a matter of voluntary behavior
and is subject to different interpretations by different people.
The founders rooted the political community in a culture of “good
government.” Political culture refers to the citizenry’s attitudes about the
style of democratic governmental operations (Shafritz, 1993b, p. 362).
Good government, as opposed to perfect government, is based on
legitimacy that extends beyond electoral popularity. This means that
democratic government must defend its legitimacy on higher (normative)
values. It is not enough for government to appear good; its actions must
be good. To make government’s actions “good,” officeholders are bound
to justify publicly and receive approval from the democratic sovereign
(not just the electorate) (Madison, 1788/1961). In obtaining prior
approval, officeholders determine whether their proposed actions are
ethically appropriate, i.e., have wide community support. For March and
Olsen, the ethic of appropriateness means that government acts
consistently with cultural and political norms. This ethic reassures the
democratic political community that officeholders will not act arbitrarily
nor for purely private interests. The actions of good government
strengthen the democratic sovereign’s confidence in those to whom it has
entrusted the state’s power.
Civic Duty and Caring for Public Interests
Membership in the political community gives citizens a public life
besides a private life. In public life, citizens actively maintain public
purposes, based on a perception of national solidarity and a sense of a
common destiny. For Norton Long (1962b, p. 184), a precondition of
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legal citizenship is that citizens have a sense of “moi commun.”
Communal feelings stir in citizens, he says, if “a public thing” quite
literally exists for which they feel responsible. For John Dewey (1927),
this public thing emerges when citizens rediscover the “public and its
interests.” A political community of citizens, he says, cares for public
interests. To care for public interests, citizens must engage each other to
discern common needs. This task requires citizens to reflect and to
distinguish between the special case (their own interests) and the general
case (the interests of others). In other words, citizens use moral reasoning
to perceive the difference between public interests and private interests.
According to Dewey, people create private interests when they join
voluntarily, and only those people involved in a transaction experience
the direct or indirect consequences of those interactions. Public interests
are not fixed. They emerge when individuals as a group are seriously
and indirectly harmed by the consequences of transactions in which they
have not engaged. Although reasonable citizens may disagree, their open
discussions allow the political community to search for remedies for
public interest causes.
Caring for the public gives diverse citizens a common ethical
identity. Public spirit awakens this identity in citizens. The civic virtue
of private citizens is the source of public spirit. Public-spirited citizens
participate in public life when they perceive that the personal advantage
of each member of the community is consistent with working for the
good of all. Alexis de Tocqueville (1838/1945: Vol. II, p. 129-132) calls
this disposition of American citizens “the principle of self interest rightly
understood.” Citizens live this principle daily in small acts of self
restraint, not through great sacrifices. Such daily actions, says de
Tocqueville, gradually draw individuals through their habits in the
direction of the national political community. Virtuous citizens, acting on
this principle, voluntarily help others. In place of doing it themselves,
they willingly give up additional personal resources to sponsor
community programs aimed at serving the poor and at improving society.
De Tocqueville says that this public role for private citizens is based on
custom, not law. This custom binds together the nation, allowing diverse
citizens in the political community to lead a good life. For Dewey,
public life is a good life. A good or high-quality common life emerges
only if a democratic state is a good state. A good state comes into
existence when trustees of the public (lawmakers and public
administrators) systematically care for public interests. In Dewey’s good
state, citizens have greater liberty and security in their private affairs
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because they are relieved from the waste of negative struggle and
needless conflict. The community-based processes of the good state, by
promoting reflection, moral reasoning, and open discourse, civilize
humanity, allowing citizens to show empathy, tolerance, and generosity
(March & Olsen, 1995: 60).
Office as Public Service
For Dewey, the public is vital to the creation of government.
Government is the public organized to carry out the functions of the state
in a way that strengthens ethical bonds among citizens. The sovereign
political community connects the power of the democratic state to care
for public interests through government officials. It gives them the use of
the democratic state’s power to regulate the conjoint actions of
individuals and groups that cause a public interest to emerge. Different
issues create different public interests. As trustees of the public and its
interests, public administrators hold the office of a public servant. The
duty of public servants is to recognize the dynamics and the
consequences of individuals “acting as a public.” According to March
and Olsen, the political community’s discussions about public interests
should guide and restrain public servants’ actions. By listening to these
discussions, public servants will get an idea about what governmental
actions are acceptable to the larger political community on moral
grounds. These discussions reveal the issues that government should
avoid or remove from the policy agenda temporarily because of a lack of
wide acceptance. By withdrawing these issues, public servants help to
prevent the polarization of the community. Such actions displace
conflicts, producing new majorities and new allocations of governmental
power. In effect, the influence of community discussions on public
servants allows the democratic sovereign to civilize its government.
Ethical Maturity
This task of public service requires ethically mature officeholders.
Ethically mature public servants, says Stephen K. Bailey, appreciate the
reality of self-interest and its impact on motivating behavior, both public
and private.
... Public service is the capacity to harness private and personal
interests to public interest causes. Those who will not traffic in
personal and private interests (if such interests are within the
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law) to the point of engaging their support on behalf of causes in
which both public and private interests are served are, in terms of
moral temperament, unfit for public responsibility (Bailey,
1964/1990. p. 47).
Ethically mature public servants, says Bailey, possess three moral
qualities: optimism, courage, and fairness tempered by charity. Optimism
allows public servants to see possibilities in shifting political priorities so
that they can perform the political function of government without
becoming cynical. Optimistic public servants are motivated to better
society and to improve the quality of human life. Cynical officials who
perceive humankind as unworthy of such efforts are a source of
corruption in a free society. Courage overcomes the forces of private
relations, especially friendship, and provides a degree of neutrality to
override requests for special favors. Ethical courage means that public
servants are willing to decide even with inadequate information. Ethical
courage is meaningless unless it enables public servants to act justly.
Fairness tempered by the virtue of charity promotes justice. Charitable
public servants discipline themselves by controlling persistent inner
claims for personal recognition, power, and status. Charity is also a
source of visions for the “good society” without which government, says
Bailey (1964/1990, p. 52), becomes “a sullen defense of existing patterns
of privilege.” Fairness compensates for the subjective nature of all
decision making. Fairness is necessary because of administrative
discretion. Fair-minded public servants control that discretion by
balancing flexibility and consistency in their decisions. As Bailey points
out, public administrators who never deviate are rigid and lack
compassion; those who deviate too much are subversive. The ethical
compromises of mature administrators allow them to act with enough
consistency and flexibility to survive and succeed in public service.
CHALLENGES TO NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP
At the end of the twentieth century, scholars have identified at least
five challenges to national citizenship in America. First, Robert Putnam
(1995) argues that American life lacks communal solidarity. Instead of
finding de Tocqueville’s “nation of joiners” with a vibrant public life,
Putnam observes that Americans are “bowling alone,” and their civic life
has all but disappeared. Second, scholars have identified a societal
malaise: widespread alienation of citizens from government. For
example, Evan Berman’s (1997) national survey identifies three sources
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of citizen discontent: (1) government officials whom citizens perceive as
indifferent or hostile to their needs; (2) poor service delivery; and (3)
governmental processes that exclude citizens. Third, the emergence of
the welfare state has significantly undermined the citizen-government
relationship. Specifically, Eberly says that Americans have assumed
problematic identities as clients, customers, consumers, and claimants of
government.
The provision of public assistance to tens of millions of
Americans is often accompanied by the subtle message that
recipients are hopelessly trapped in conditions that require the
permanent help of advocates, interest groups and government
workers. It produces a mindset that dwarfs citizenship for the
poor and the non-poor alike. It leaves the poor feeling justified in
doing little to reclaim control of their lives and the non-poor
feeling no obligation to intervene with neighborly aid (Eberly,
1994, p. xxix).
Fourth, in a comprehensive study of citizenship, Rogers Smith
(1997) finds that liberal democracy is not the core meaning of the
American civic identity. Clashing traditions and popular politics have
excluded most Americans from enjoying full citizenship. Fifth, Chester
Newland (1987) argues that a pervasive system of spoils at the national
level excludes most of the public administration community from
important matters of governance. This exclusion undermines the
capacity of American democracy to function adequately or to achieve
social change. Some fixes to these problems of national citizenship, such
as Benjamin Barber’s (1984) “strong (grassroots) democracy,” aim at
weakening liberal democratic institutions and basic protections. A more
constructive approach is not to deny democratic liberal traditions. It
draws the norms of ethical citizenship from the operations of successful
liberal democracies. If democracy is to endure, then pragmatic realism,
says Hanson Baldwin (1960), must temper the idealistic notions of
citizenship.
DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP AND POTENTIAL RESPONSIVENESS
E. E. Schattschneider provides a realist’s view of democratic
citizenship. The most damage to the democratic cause, he says
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(1975:135-136), comes from idealists who attribute a “mystical, magical
omnipotence” to the people.
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This attribution takes no heed of what the democratic system can do.
Involving 280 million people directly in all aspects of governance is
physically impossible. Instead, he assumes that democratic citizens are
moral equals: Each person is a precious and unique human. Morally
equal citizens have potential involvement. Potentially involved citizens
become active in public affairs because of a democratic dynamic:
conflict is contagious. Different public issues activate different citizens.
If only 0.10 percent of the citizenry mobilizes around an issue, then the
latent force of the remaining citizens is 999 greater than that of the
activists. Schattschneider’s point is that any estimate of citizen
participation based on the number of original activists is fatuous.
Potentially involved citizens are not neutral spectators. Public issues
succeed or fail because the original activists mobilize or exclude the
spectators. For Schattschneider (1975, pp. 4-5), the balance of citizen
involvement in any public issue, he says emphatically, is not fixed until
everyone is involved.
From this analysis, Schattschneider recasts the meaning of ethical
citizenship to include a practical dimension. He adapts Aristotle’s (trans.
1962) concept of practical knowledge. Aristotle argues that humans use
knowledge derived from direct experience, experimental learning, and
practice in taking action (personal discipline) in matters of ethics and
politics. For Schattschneider, democratic citizens use practical
knowledge in democratic governance. They adjust their role so that it is
consistent with what most people can and are willing to do in public life.
The behavior of practical-minded citizens is the same as in private
relationships: People take advantage of what other people know and
judge results. In public affairs, citizens rely on government leaders and
organizations, or their responsible opposition, to give them choices about
policy alternatives. These choices must allow citizens the potential to
participate in meaningful ways. In this democratic system, the sovereign
people “act through the government.” This system satisfies citizens only
if it meets the condition of “potential responsiveness.” Potential
responsiveness in a democracy, says Hanna Pitkin, requires citizens to
have: “. . .Access to power rather than its actual exercise . . . There need
not be a constant activity of responding, but there must be a constant
condition of responsiveness, of potential readiness [of government] to
respond” (Pitkin, 1972, p. 233).
If citizens perceive potential
responsiveness in the democratic system, then they feel that they can
initiate action or trust leaders to do the right thing. Citizens accept
governmental authority despite their lack of awareness of what
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government is doing most of the time. These beliefs are a part of the
democratic civic culture.
The Civic Culture
According to Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1963), the civic
culture shapes the norms for citizens, their relationship to each other and
to their democratic government. Their comparative analysis of five
democracies, though drawn in 1963, remains the classical formulation. It
shows that stable democracies have democratic civic cultures. They
describe the American civic culture as mixed. American citizens’ activity
in public life combines involvement and activity with passivity and
noninvolvement. They take on and balance the duties of three identities:
The influential activist, the passive governmental subject, and the
parochial (family-oriented, private) person. Almond and Verba find that
the norms of trust and confidence from citizens’ social interactions
transfer to their political relationships and temper them. They also find
that the interactions of citizens and government show a cyclical pattern.
In normal times, most citizens are quiescent. They are uninterested in
what decision makers do, but officeholders can act only within legal and
ethical bounds. If an issue becomes salient, then citizens will increase
their involvement with government, making demands on elected officials
and public administrators. If government officials make appropriate
adjustments, then the importance of politics will lose saliency for
mobilized citizens, and they will withdraw from active participation.
This cycle allows a democratic system to change slowly and humanely.
If issues become and remain intense, then they destabilize a democracy.
Almond and Verba’s research shows that the cycle of political
participation strains neither people nor stable democracies. The reason is
that the civic culture controls decision makers without checking them so
tightly as to render democratic government ineffective. The check and
balance occur for four reasons. First, democratic government officials
subscribe to the belief in the influence potential of citizens. Second,
government decision makers anticipate citizens’ reactions even if citizens
are not active or making demands on them. Third, government officials
and citizens are part of the same political community. They share the
same civic culture that exposes them to the same democratic values.
Fourth, public and private life is not opposites in the civic culture. The
democratic culture mixes the personal, social, and political identities of
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citizens. It socializes government officials to uphold a continuum of
public-private relationships that flourish legitimately in the political
community.
Citizenship as Office
Terry Cooper (1991) formulates an ethic of citizenship for
democratic public administration. He assumes that citizenship underpins
all normative relationships in the political community. Citizenship, in his
conceptualization, is the public office of virtuous individuals in the
political community. Public administrators are citizens first. They are
virtuous citizens “employed as one of us to work for us” (Cooper, 1971,
p. 139). In office, they are fiduciary citizens. As trustees for the political
community, virtuous administrators make citizens part of the
administrative role. Efficient service delivery and law enforcement are
their penultimate obligations. Their ultimate duty is to build and
contribute to community life by sharing the sovereign’s power,
upholding civic values, and pursuing long-term interests. The authority
relationships of virtuous administrators are both vertical and horizontal.
They look at popularly elected politicians and to the citizenry for
direction. For Cooper, the ultimate loyalty of virtuous administrators
belongs to the citizenry because the citizenry’s authority is that of the
sovereign. The sovereign’s authority transcends loyalty to specific
elected officials or particular governmental agencies.
Virtuous administrators, says Newland (1987), use transformational
leadership practices to awaken and broaden the involvement of citizens
in public affairs. They combine their professional expertise and civic
values in a way that gives citizens new and meaningful opportunities to
participate in governance and for self reflection. These practices
stimulate positive changes in individuals, institutions, and the
community. “Coproduction,” “indirect administration,” and “transparent
decision making” are three examples of such practices. For Charles
Levine (1984/2001), “coproduction” means that virtuous administrators
involve active citizens as partners in allocation decisions regarding
service delivery. For Cooper, virtuous administrators engage in indirect
administration by subordinating their technical expertise to active
community leaders. They engage in policy deliberations by working
through and respecting existing communities, their associations and
authorities. Cooper says that virtuous administrators are justified to shed
their neutrality and to act as policy advocates if their judgments are
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consistent with their role as fiduciary citizens. Transparent decisionmaking, says Carol Lewis (1991, p. 58), establishes the ethical credibility
of public administrators. It is necessary because most administrative
decisions take place without the physical presence of citizens. Credible
administrators, she says, “go on record.” By going on record, they
justify publicly their decisions. Dennis Thompson (1987) finds that this
practice socializes them to account for their decisions even if citizens
will not judge the results for years. Besides enhancing governance and
enriching community life, these practices develop the virtuous character
of democratic citizens.
Political Socialization
The development of democratic citizenship is a task of political
socialization. Political socialization is concerned with the “personal and
social origins of political outlooks” (Dawson, Prewitt, & Dawson, 1977,
p. 1). It is the process through which citizens orient themselves to the
political community, democratic government, and the civic culture.
Political socialization begins early and is lifelong. It takes place in the
family, peer groups, public schools, work places, and in political
processes, although the quality of these experiences will vary. A liberal
education is a vehicle for building citizenship in young adults. For
Hanna Gray (1987/1997), this broad education allows young people to
reflect carefully about the human condition while encouraging them to
use this learning to shape their lives as moral citizens and civilized
human beings. Socialization also takes place in university-based MPA
Programs and through the associations of professional administrators,
such as the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the
International City/County Management Association (ICMA). Finally,
virtuous administrators socialize citizens. Their transformational
practices connect citizens and democratic government.
Virtuous
administrators are also educators. They teach citizenship, using the
experience of the political community.
IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
The dynamics of interpretations of citizenship and civic duty touch
on a recurring question in democratic governance: What is the proper
balance between popularly elected officials and public administrators in
a liberal democracy? Answers to this question are political ones as much
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as they are matters of law, ethics, and best practice. The terms associated
with civic duty -- the “common good,” “the public interest,” “ethical
maturity,” and “the virtuous administrator”-- are political terms. Political
terms have ambiguous meanings because no consensus exists on their
definitions. This definitional ambiguity accommodates multiple
normative interpretations of civic duty. For example, citizen-centered
norms of civic duty prevail in the literature at the end of the 20 th century.
Embedded in these norms is the following proposition: The citizen is
supreme in governance, despite what legitimate elected officials want
public administrators to do. This is an explosive proposition. It implies
that the ultimate duty of the public administrator is to enable citizens to
realize their view of the public interest. This proposition makes
professional administrators, through their citizenship identity, preeminent
over elected officials in democratic governance. As a political
proposition, one can place it at an extreme point on a definitional scale of
civic duty. Given this conceptual placement, one can better understand
why this is a provocative proposition. Moreover, political shifts in a
changing environment are inevitable, and they will lead people to
challenge the prevailing conventions. For example, before the terrorists
attacked America on 9-11-01, national citizenship was a minor identity
for Americans. Putnam’s “bowling alone” metaphor captures the view
that civic duty was irrelevant in American society. After the attacks,
national citizenship has become a primary identity for many Americans.
In the catastrophe’s wake, normative interpretations of civic have tipped
to the other extreme. These new norms make the preferences of elected
officials pre-eminent in American governance. They contain another
controversial political proposition: The ultimate duty of public
administrators is to enable elected officials to realize their view of the
public interest. It implies that the public interest (i.e., the national
interest) is whatever the head of state, the nationally elected president,
says it is.
Inherent in the literature on civic duty are changing political
interpretations of “who should govern.” The extreme interpretations
clarify that norms of civic duty are part of an ongoing institutional
struggle. To accept either extreme interpretation of civic duty literally is
to invite “revolution from the left” or “revolution from the right”
(Vogelsang-Coombs, 1985, pp. 406-407). Revolution from the left
assumes devolution, and devolution, ultimately, means secession. The
U.K. and Canada are two democracies where public discussions of
devolution divide rather than unify their political communities.
DYNAMIC INTERPRETATIONS OF CIVIC DUTY: IMPLICATIONS FOR
GOVERNANCE
459
Revolution from the right assumes that the discretion of public
administrators places them out of the bounds of office and beyond the
control of legitimate political representatives. Ultimately, this means
that public administrators could seize power on their own or become a
“hired gun” for groups aimed at subverting democratic government. As
Herbert Kaufman (1978), Vogelsang-Coombs & Cummins (1982),
among others, have pointed out, this view is empirically dubious and
should be treated as an allegation of a bureaucracy problem. Given their
diversity, structure, ethos, and practices, professional administrators, says
Long (1962a, p. 74), are institutional mechanisms for stimulating the
conditions that develop nationwide interpretations of experience. John
Rohr (1986) notes that professional administrators compensate for the
conspicuously undemocratic composition of representative institutions.
Larry D. Terry (1995) offers evidence that administrative (bureaucratic)
leaders who act as “conservators” preserve the mission, values, and
stability of democratic government. Guided by constitutional principles,
these conservators are an institutional check on the power of elected
officials.
In sum, by clarifying different types of citizenship, we have sought
to deepen an understanding of civic duty. By uncovering extreme
interpretations of civic duty, we have related interpretations of civic duty
to an institutional tension between elected officials and public
administrators. This tension arises from a fundamental political question
in democratic governance. Changes in the normative interpretations of
civic duty ease this tension temporarily, but each change, argues Harold
Lasswell (1962), serves liberal democracy by channeling social energy
into established political institutions. A change in an institutional venue
produces a change in the scope of political conflict. However, political
institutions do not channel conflict impartially; they elicit reactions and
counter reactions. Interpretations of civic duty are dynamic because they
are answers to a political question. As answers to a political question,
they can never resolve the matter of who should govern a liberal
democracy once and for all. In this light, changes in the norms of civic
duty take on new significance-- they are institutional expressions
associated with the management of an ongoing political conflict.
Whether or not citizens’ behaviors literally match the changing
prescriptions is secondary to their role in what Lasswell (1962, chap. X)
calls “preventive politics.” The political dynamic of changing normative
interpretations absorbs social energy, protecting the democratic
460
VOGELSANG-COOMBS & BAKKEN
sovereign from the destabilizing effects of an uncontrollable conflict.
The accumulation of normative meanings and shared practices allows the
political community to change institutional controls over the powers of
democratic government without jeopardizing national unity. Within the
experience of its political institutions, the democratic sovereign forms
and reforms the legal and ethical bonds between citizens and the state.
Each time the political community reinterprets these ties, it
accommodates changing human conditions while preserving self
government. The renewal of citizenship, as expressed in dynamic
interpretations of civic duty, intensifies political allegiance to the liberal
democratic state.
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