Civic Engagement in Today’s World
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: August 28, 1963
The Bill of Rights Institute
Charlotte, NC
September 30, 2008
Artemus Ward
Department of Political Science
Northern Illinois University
aeward@niu.edu
http://polisci.niu.edu/polisci/faculty/ward
Democracy at Risk
• Americans have turned away from politics and
the public sphere in large numbers, leaving our
civic life impoverished. Citizens participate in
public affairs less frequently, with less
knowledge and enthusiasm, in fewer venues,
and less equally than is healthy for a vibrant
democratic polity.
Civic Engagement
• Civic engagement includes any activity,
individual or collective, devoted to influencing
the collective life of the polity.
• Civic engagement can, for example, mean
participation in formal government institutions,
but it may also involve becoming part of a group
or organization, protesting or boycotting, or even
simply talking to a neighbor across the backyard
fence.
Negative Duties: Obligations
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•
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Obeying the Law
Attending School
Paying Taxes
Serving in the Armed Forces
Appearing in Court, including as a juror or
witness
Positive Duties: Privileges
• Voting
• Being Informed
• Sustained
Volunteering/Public Service
• Short-Term Political
Participation: such as writing
letters to the editor,
participating in rallies, and
volunteering for political
campaigns
• Joining and contributing to
voluntary organizations
Are these Duties?
• Work
• Rest and Leisure
• Health
The Decline of Civic Engagement
• American voter turnout ranks near the bottom among democratic
nations.
• Between 1974 and 1994, engagement in twelve key political activities,
such as writing letters to the editor, participating in rallies and
demonstrations, and volunteering in campaigns, fell significantly.
• Citizens need public information, but the number of civics courses taken
in public schools has declined by two-thirds since 1960, and, at least by
some measures, college graduates nowadays know as much about
politics as the average high school senior did fifty years ago.
• In 2002, only 15 of 435 congressional races were decided by 4% or less.
Of the 50 congressional incumbents who ran in California, not one lost,
and all got at least 58% of the vote.
• In the 2004 presidential election, despite a massive voter-drive ground
war in which interest groups alone spent more than $350 million to get
out the vote, voter turnout, at 59 percent, was only five percentage
points higher than in 2000.
• Also in 2004, just 2% of House incumbents and a single Senate
incumbent—the aggressively targeted Senate minority leader—lost.
• From the mid-1970s to the present, the number of adolescents who say
they can see themselves working on a political campaign has dropped
by about half.
The Design of our Institutions and
Practices Turns Citizens Off
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•
•
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If Americans find the presidential primary process long and boring, it is because that
process is indeed longer than it should be, and its lengthy and episodic nature
discourages sustained attention and continued political learning.
If Americans find congressional elections dull, it may be because they are rarely
competitive. Our systems of redrawing district boundaries and financing campaigns,
as well as our increasingly candidate-centered politics, all work to the advantage of
incumbents—an advantage that has grown in recent years. For example, in 2004,
98% of the incumbents running in House races won. When elections are not
competitive, citizens have little incentive to pay attention, become informed, take part
in the campaign, and vote in the election.
If Americans find partisan politics excessively ideological, nasty, and insufficiently
focused on practical problem solving, there is reason to think they are right: American
citizens tend toward the political middle, but safe congressional seats may empower
the ideological bases of the two parties at the expense of moderates, intensifying
party conflict in Washington and hindering efforts to work across party lines.
If poorer Americans believe that local political institutions are incapable of addressing
their problems, if racial minorities find American politics to be exclusive rather than
inclusive, and if better-off Americans seem disconnected from the problems and
experiences of their poorer fellow citizens, this is partly because our metropolitan
political institutions encourage privileged Americans to move to suburban enclaves,
defying the promise of common public institutions and a sense of shared fate.
Improving our Institutions
to Promote Robust Citizen Engagement
is Essential to American Democracy
• First, civic engagement enhances the quality of
democratic governance. More voices are better
than less.
• Second, the promise of democratic life is not
simply that government by the people yields the
most excellent governance. It is also—and
perhaps mainly—that government is legitimate
only when the people as a whole participate in
their own self-rule.
• Third, participation can enhance the quality of
citizens’ lives. Civic engagement has the
potential to educate and invigorate.
• In sum, when citizens are involved and engaged
with others, their lives and our communities are
better. Not only do people “feel” better but they
produce a wide variety of goods and services
that neither the state nor the market can provide.
Some Solutions?
• National Level:
• How do we increase voting?
– Mandatory voting?
– More flexibility in terms of time, manner, and place?
National holiday?
– nonpartisan redistricting of congressional districts?
• State and Local Level:
• There continues to be tremendous and growing inequalities
associated with places of residence, inequalities that defy
democratic ideals of equality and inclusion. How might this be
addressed?
• Associational Life and the Nonprofit Sector:
• Will increases in public funding for a variety of programs of
national service, whether in a military or civilian capacity such
as Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), AmeriCorps, or
the Peace Corps, promote civic engagement?
Is Change Possible or are we
Resigned to Bowling Alone?
• “Television, two-career families,
suburban sprawl, generational changes
in values--these and other changes in
American society have meant that fewer
and fewer of us find that the League of
Women Voters, or the United Way, or the
Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or
even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the
way we have come to live. Our growing
social-capital deficit threatens
educational performance, safe
neighborhoods, equitable tax collection,
democratic responsiveness, everyday
honesty, and even our health and
happiness.” – Robert Putnam, Bowling
Alone (2000).
Conclusion
• The framers of the Constitution recognized
that civic engagement was crucial for
America.
• The current situation in the United States
features three characteristics: questionable
legitimacy, high cynicism, and great
indifference.
• Increased participation, more equal
participation, and a higher quality of
participation benefit America? Is it even
possible?
References
• Macedo, Stephen, et. al, Democracy at Risk:
How Political Choices Undermine Citizen
Participation and What We Can Do About It
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press,
2005).
• Putnam, Robert, Bowling Alone: The Collapse
and Revival of American Community (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
• Skocpol, Theda and Morris P. Fiorina, eds.,
Civic Engagement in American Democracy
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press,
1999).