democracy

Citizen engagement is essential for democracy, but an increasing number of regulatory policies are formulated by international organizations beyond the reach of established national democratic processes. For example, member nations negotiate agreements regulating investments through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. These rules may seem technical, but they directly affect ordinary people through their insurance plans, pension plans, and savings accounts.

Even when the nations involved are themselves democracies, international regulation increases the distance between the decision-makers and those regulated. Often with no more than a few clicks on computer keyboards, Americans and citizens of other advanced democracies can easily contact their representatives in Congress or various parliaments. But contacting a national minister serving on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development takes more effort. Even well-informed citizens are unlikely to know where to begin.

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“Public life is too important to be left solely to the professionals,” former Senator Bill Bradley once aptly said – and the small New England coastal town where I live is experimenting with new forms of collaboration between civil servants and civic-minded citizens. New England has a venerable history of town meetings, and our town had one until 1992, when citizens voted to do away with it because we had learned that activists could pack an auditorium for crucial votes and intimidate others with more tentative views. To allow wider participation and anonymity, secret ballot referenda were instituted instead. But many townspeople missed the dialogue in face-to-face meetings, so some of us looked for new ways to engage the public in formulating public policy. A small steering committee of active and respected citizens met for nearly a year and devised a plan for regular Community Dialogue Forums. more...

“Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” – the characteristically memorable title of one of Albert Hirschman’s best known books – encapsulates the ways people react to the failures of the societies or institutions in which they are involved. Hirschman knew whereof he spoke, for he practiced all three in his long and remarkable life, stretching almost a century from his birth in Berlin, Germany, on April 7, 1915 to his death in Princeton, New Jersey, on December 10, 2012.

The son of German Jews, Hirschman twice exited supreme danger – fleeing the Nazis first as an eighteen year old who departed for France, where he took part in Resistance efforts to ferry persecuted people to safety over the Pyrenees, and again when he barely escaped by the same route after discovery by the Gestapo. Always loyal to democracy, Hirschman fought for the Spanish Republic and again for the United States in World War II. Thereafter, he gave voice to creative ideas in the service of progressive change, during a decades-long scholarly career at major universities and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Hirschman came to be known and honored not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Latin America, where he lived for a time and whose trials and tribulations in economic and social development were the focus of some of his most innovative studies. more...

Americans take for granted that if they dislike leaders, candidates, or government policies, there are ways to voice opposition. They can criticize a policy and oppose or support a leader or candidate. Even if Americans do not like outcomes all the time, most understand that they can have input and work for change through democratic means. Historically, many other countries across the world have lacked similar arrangements to enable citizen dissent and input. But in recent decades, fledgling democracies have started to take shape, giving new hope to people who have not enjoyed peaceful openings to influence authoritarian governments. more...

On August 14, 2012 Wisconsin held a primary election and Governor Scott Walker brought his son to the polls to register to vote and cast his ballot. Months later, Walker announced his intention to eliminate the very same Election Day Registration system his son had used. But his proposal sparked an avalanche of opposition – from election administrators, the League of Women Voters and civil rights groups, and Wisconsinites of all party persuasions – prompting the normally resolute Walker to drop the idea. more...

To be effective, representative democracy requires that elected legislators understand what their constituents believe and want – and American politicians regularly declare that they are championing the priorities of voters in their districts. But are they? In late 2012, prior to the November elections, we surveyed nearly 2,000 candidates running for state legislative offices across the United States. more...

Most people feel a sense of identity with various different groups. A young black woman, for example, might feel a sense of involvement with African Americans, with women, with younger people – and, if she has a child, she could also identify as a parent. Scholars who study democratic politics are very interested in how group identities influence citizens’ political decisions. But to figure out how identities influence political choices, scholars have to do a lot more than drop people into one category or another, because people hold many different identities that can range from highly stable traits (such as race or gender) to relationships that can shift over the course of life (like marital status or active parenthood). These identities can spike or recede in importance depending on what people are doing and with whom. Different identities may come to the fore when parents watch a children’s soccer game, as opposed to when those same people are at work or attending a political rally. more...

Labor unions are known to improve wages and benefits for their members. Yet economic results are not all that unions accomplish. They also make a difference in democratic politics by lobbying for policies, by providing money and volunteers in elections – and also by fostering leadership skills among their members and helping some win elected public offices.

The role of unions in helping members win elected office has not received as much scholarly attention as the other economic and political functions unions perform. In part that is because this function is not easy to study in a rigorous, empirical manner. I have devised a new way to test the hypothesis that unions foster elected officials – and my findings open the door for further explorations of how union membership facilitates electoral careers – and why this matters. more...

The Tea Party soared to national prominence in 2009 and remains a force to be reckoned with. In November 2012, some 45 million registered voters, a fifth of the U.S. electorate, reported in a Fox News exit poll that they identified with the Tea Party. To build political power through the GOP, in the 2010 midterm elections Tea Party factions helped right-wing Republicans win super-majorities in many states, secure gains in the U.S. Senate, and take control of the House of Representatives. Democrats may have rebounded in 2012, yet more than nine of ten Tea Party-backed Republican House candidates also won election or re-election.

Why is the Tea Party enjoying so much success? Partisans and some commentators point to its stated support for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and reduced regulation. But support for such long-standing conservative preferences is not all we see in Tea Party politics. Many Tea Party goals – and the angry style of politics – are anything but “conservative” in the sense of favoring social stability. Tea Partiers make flamboyantly extreme claims about President Obama – for example, that he wants to confiscate guns from Americans in order to facilitate massacres of whites. And they have urged Republicans to refuse to raise the debt limit and default on America’s debts, even if that would forfeit our nation’s good credit rating and push the world economy into financial crisis.

Getting at the true wellsprings of the Tea Party requires that we look again at what the late historian Richard Hofstadter famously called the “paranoid style in American politics,” a recurrent tendency characterized by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” In a survey I directed between January and March 2011, questions were put to 1,504 adults across the country. The results show that the paranoid beliefs and political style Hofstadter described have recurred in the Tea Party upsurge of the early 21^st century. more...

In his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Obama invoked “our Sputnik moment.” Recalling U.S. investments in research and education after Russia launched the first space satellite half a century ago, the President called for renewed efforts to meet international competition with investments in education and research, renewable energy, biomedical science and information technologies. Obama’s call to action still matters. more...