PART I
DEMOCRACY
RECONSIDERED
1
SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS OF SELF-RULE
THE FIRST OF THE SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS of democracy I put on my list strikes at the heart of democracy: citizens arenât engaged; they are on the sidelines. People are reluctant to get involved in either conventional electoral politics or even civic efforts with other citizens. An example: the low turnout at the polls. Another example: the community projects that fail because citizensâexcept for the usual suspectsâdonât show up to do the work. Maybe people donât see their concerns or what is most valuable to them being addressed. Maybe there is little space for them to reason together without expectations of a predetermined conclusion. Maybe the political system has pushed them to the sidelines by gerrymandering their voting precincts so their ballots donât really count. Maybe theyâve sidelined themselves by retreating to small enclaves out of frustration or cynicism. Whatever the cause, the absence of people who think of themselves as citizens is a serious problem of democracy.
Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen.
â Dwight D. Eisenhower1
The second problem comes on the heels of the first. Issues are approached and discussed in ways that promote divisiveness. Maybe not all of the options for solving the problem are considered. Or only two options, which are polar opposites, are addressed, which leads to an unproductive debate. At the other extreme, the inevitable tensions among options and the necessity for trade-offs are never recognized. Fear of disagreement produces bland discussions.
The third problem follows suit: people may get involved yet make very poor decisions about what they should do or which policies are in their best interest. Hasty reactions fueled by misinformation and emotional biases rule the day. Morally charged disagreements arenât worked throughâas, for example, disagreements over what is right or just when scarce resources for things like health care are to be distributed. This lack of sound public judgment is another serious problem of democracy.
A fourth systemic problem has to do with citizensâ perception that they canât really make a difference in politics because they donât have the necessary resources. However, certain kinds of in-your-face problems can only be solved if the citizenry acts. An example: issues involving keeping young people out of harmâs way. Institutions like schools and social service agencies are essential, yet they canât do the job alone.
Fifth, citizens may act, but their efforts go in so many different directions that they are ineffective; they arenât mutually supportive. The standard remedy for this lack of coordination can be equally debilitating: a central agency is put in charge and creates burdensome rules and regulations that drain the energy out of citizensâ initiatives. This can happen following natural disasters when the spontaneous actions of volunteers fail to mesh with the efforts of professional âfirst responders.â When there is no shared sense of purpose for citizensâ initiatives or when bureaucratic control takes away peopleâs control, democratic self-organizing is undermined. That, too, belongs on the list of systemic problems.
Democracies have to respond to ever-changing circumstances, on the one hand, and to difficulties that never seem to go away, on the other. In fact, the problems of democracy are perennial because they are rooted in the human condition. We are always prone to try to get off the field and onto the sidelines, to make poor decisions, to underestimate or overestimate our resources. We canât declare victory and go home where democracy is concerned. To keep up the necessary momentum for dealing with systemic problems, democracies depend on constant collective learning, which promotes both experimentation and persistence. Consequently the sixth problem, the absence of shared learning, keeps democracy from working.
Finally, the seventh problem on my list has been quite acute for some time. It is the mutual distrust that burdens the relationship between citizens and most major institutions, governmental as well as nongovernmental. Institutions doubt that citizens are responsible and capable. And citizens see institutions as unresponsive as well as ineffective.
Democratic politics is both pragmatic and creative. People want to be able to shape their future, that is, to fashion the communities and world in which they live.
2
STRUGGLING FOR A CITIZEN-CENTERED DEMOCRACY
THE PROBLEMS-BEHIND-THE-PROBLEMS of democracy canât be solved without citizens. But exactly what role are citizens supposed to play? Is being voters, taxpayers, or volunteers enough? That all depends on what kind of democracy you have in mind.
The democracy discussed on these pages is based on the concepts captured in the two roots of the word itselfâdemo and cracy. The demos is the citizenry, and the cracy (from kratos) is their power to rule or prevail. In other words, democracy is governance based on the power of people to shape their future. Citizens are at the center, although it has always been a struggle to keep them there.2
The conventional understanding of democracy is as a system of representative government created through contested elections. Representative government is essential, yet I believe it rests on a foundation of a citizenry that does more than vote to choose political leaders. Iâm not talking about direct referendum democracy, but rather a democracy of citizens working with citizens to solve common problems and produce things that benefit everyoneâthings that also help the institutions of representative government work effectively. For a democracy to be strong and resilient, citizens have to be producers, not just consumers.
Some of our nationâs founders, however, did not want a democracy and said so emphatically; they wanted a republic of representative government. They were afraid that power in the hands of citizens, particularly the poor, would result in redistributing wealth. Nonetheless, a citizen-centered democracy began to take shape in the town meetings of colonial New England, and then gained strength in the armies of citizens who flocked to the Revolution. As the 18th century gave way to the 19th, citizens took on new roles in settling frontier communities. They built our early churches, schools, roads, and libraries. They organized associations to help their neighbors and assisted those visited by misfortune. They got their hands dirty doing the work required to make things that benefited everyone.3
©Anthony Baggett/Dreamstime.com
With public sentiment, nothing can fail;
without it nothing can succeed.
â Abraham Lincoln1
You may remember (because he is cited so often) Alexis de Tocque-ville, the French observer, who noted that when Americans faced a problem, they, unlike Europeans, were more likely to turn to their neighbors than to city hall or the statehouse.4 The citizens Tocqueville wrote about are the political ancestors of the active citizens I introduced in the opening pages of this book. These Americans worry about their role in todayâs democracy and about the institutions they created to serve them.
DISTRUST THATâS MUTUAL
Americans know something is wrong with our democracy, and we are concerned about what lies ahead for the country. A 2011 Rasmussen poll showed that more than half of American voters felt the nationâs best days were already in the past, and only 17 percent believed the country was heading in the right direction. Granted, people have been pessimistic before, and our confidence in government rises and falls; still, it has remained low for some 40 years. And the government isnât the only institution that has lost the publicâs confidence. Most major institutions, from the schools to the media, have dropped in the publicâs esteem.5 To make matters more serious, this distrust is mutual. Officials in our major institutions often have a low opinion of citizens.
A former mayor of Muncie, Indiana, lost reelection after campaign promises to bring new jobs didnât meet votersâ expectations. The National Journal quoted her as saying, âWhy wasnât I more honest with voters? They didnât want to hear it.â6 She didnât trust the voters and ran what she confessed was a less-than-upright campaign.
This mutual distrust has increased significantly over the last decade. Banks suffered a 24 percent decline in trust between 2002 and 2011. Confidence in the Presidency dropped 23 percent. Even confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen by 13 percent.7 One reason for the decline, the National Journal argues, is the inability of institutions to respond to peopleâs concerns. âItâs not just that the institutions are corrupt or broken; those clichĂ©s oversimplify an existential problem: With few notable exceptions, the nationâs onetime social pillars are ill-equipped for the 21st century. Most critically, they are failing to adapt quickly enough for a population buffeted by wrenching economic, technological, and demographic change.â8 I would add another reasonâpeople donât feel they have sufficient control over our major institutions.
The political system, blocked by hyperpolarization that is fueled by incivility, appears more concerned with which side wins than with solving problems. People say that voters donât vote, money does. Interest groups appear to control everything. Politicians seem easily corrupted. People complain, but some feel they get what they deserve. Or perhaps the media are to blame. The litany of charges goes on.
As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy, or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics.
â Fareed Zakaria9
Americaâs leaders are said to be out of touch with what life is like for most people. In the lines of the old country song, citizens are saying, in effect, to these leaders, âI donât see me in your eyes anymore.â A woman in Alabama explained, âI think [politicians] all have a personal agenda and theyâre not listening to what the average American has to say to them.â While public criticism seems to focus solely on national elected and political leaders, people are often equally dissatisfied with local leaders. A woman in New Mexico had in mind local political leaders and officials when she lamented, âI donât see them calling you back ⊠I canât even get somebody to get us a recycle bin at our school to call us back.â10 Dan Yankelovich, one of Americaâs premier analysts of public attitudes, has found that leaders and the public typically come at issues from vastly different starting points. Their assumptions, definitions, and expectations are often worlds apart.11
Personally, I get uneasy about the popular tendency to demonize politicians and officials of government. But I am reporting what people say, not what I wish they would say. I was never a politician, although I have been an official in government, where I met any number of able, responsible bureaucrats, along with decent, conscientious political leaders committed to serving the public good as they saw it.
STRONGER HANDS, OUR HANDS
With distrust so prevalent, many people feel about politics the way they feel when the remote to their TV set no longer controls the screen. The battery seems to be dead or some kind of bug has invaded the electronics. You can hear their frustration with politics in comments like, âThe system is out of whack.â âThe rules have changed (and I donât know what they are anymore).â Anxious Americans want more control in their own hands, not exclusively in the hands of those who say they will take care of the problems for them.12 This reassurance isnât reassuring.
Jean Johnson, reporting on research by Public Agenda, describes a discussion where citizens talked at length about unresponsive government, mortgage defaults, and the banking crisis, as well as an apparent lack of accountability and responsibility among leaders. When asked what would help, Jean wrote, people âimmediately started talking about citizens taking a stronger role,â although many were unsure of what a more robust role would be.13 The people Public Agenda heard from believed that the only way the country could overcome its current problems is for âaverage citizens to be less passive and get more involved.â14 People advised one another, âHave the confidence to believe that you can make a change. Donât be defeated before you try.â
Illustration by Jennifer Berman
We are the ones we have been waiting for.15
The advice to keep trying can be quite persuasive. One study showed that between 2008 and 2010, a majority of Americans were active âin working with others to improve their communitiesâ despite whatever reservations they had about making a difference.16 Even though worried and anxious, we Americans still have high expectations for the country. We want to live where justice reigns, where peace is the norm not the exception, and where people are free to follow their conscience. And we want the world our children inherit to be better than the world we have now. Americans have been hopeful for most of our countryâs 200-plus years and, deep down, many still are.17
HOPING TO HOPE
Although people want to hope, hope is fragile. Researchers, drawing from interviews with people from across the country, heard a man from Minnesota saying optimistically, âI think thereâs a hunger for engagement, generally, with people, and I think theyâre ...