We had a panel discussion today at the Tisch College of Citizenship that was taped by C-SPAN for broadcast sometime in August. Our “text” was then-candidate Barack Obama’s statement in 2007: “I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am President of the United States. This will not be a call issued in one speech or program; this will be a central cause of my presidency.” Our questions were: What did this statement mean? What should it mean? How is the administration doing so far? What has to happen next? What should we do from outside?

The panelists were Alan D. Solomont, Chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service; Harry Boyte, Center for Democracy and Citizenship (videconferenced from Johannesburg); Archon Fung, Harvard University; Marshall Ganz, Harvard; Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks; Xolela Mangcu, University of Johannesburg; and Carmen Sirianni, Brandeis University.

The discussion was rich, diverse, and spirited–in fact, passionate. Any summary is a bit presumptuous (and I didn’t take notes, since I was moderating). But I think I detect something like a consensus that the Administration has moved far in some respects, and hardly at all–as yet–in others. The service agenda has moved very far, with the potential tripling of AmeriCorps. If that expansion is implemented well, it will generate not just philanthropic service, but also opportunities for diverse people to work on crucial public problems and learn skills. The transparency agenda has also moved along; we will have better access to more information about the government than ever before. (But we may not have more information about big private corporations; and the information about government may only be used for “gotcha” games.) Finally, the president has used his global podium to speak profoundly about active citizenship, from Los Angeles to Ghana.

But little has been done (or even proposed) to reform the administrative apparatus of the federal government or the legislative process to promote constructive civic engagement, to create conversations that bridge differences, or to invest in the development of civic skills.

This public panel was the final episode in our Summer Institute of Civic Studies, which was otherwise an intense graduate seminar. I did not think that the appearance in our seminar room of television cameras, lights, and a live audience reduced the candor or authenticity of the discussion at all. I thought it was a fitting conclusion to the 54 hours of private discussion that had preceded it.

In 2005, I wrote three consecutive posts that later became a published article:

• The Civic Renewal Movement (1) listed the main types of work that are happening under the heading of “civic renewal,” from deliberative democracy to the defense of the “commons.”
• The Civic Renewal Movement (2) identified essential principles, such as open-endedness and the combination of deliberation with action.
• The Civic Renewal Movement (3) argued that there is an increasingly well networked and strong overall movement that links these types of work and principles.

Today’s post asks what we still need, and how we will know when we succeed.

I believe we need:

• An effective advocacy effort at the federal and state levels. This wouldn’t mean one centralized organization; therefore, it would not subsume or replace existing advocacy groups like the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. Instead, it would be a broad, strong, yet diverse advocacy coalition. It would not only lobby professionally but also encourage effective grassroots action.
• What Carmen Sirianni and Lew Friedland call (in their book The Civic Renewal Movement) “expansive civic careers.” It should be possible for people to move intentionally from one job to another, and from one venue to another, within the movement. There should be educational programs that prepare people to enter these careers, and investment in professional development once you have a job. We need a strong “bench”–people who are ready to assume leadership positions within important organizations that are part of the movement.
• Broad gatherings in which people share ideas and inspiration. The recent No Better Time conference was a great example, as is the annual National Conference on Citizenship. But we need more regular and larger opportunities for interaction. Some of this can happen online if we develop more interactive and better websites.
• “R&D” for the movement, including more practically oriented research and experimentation; more federal data on civic engagement and youth civic development; and more “theory” that’s appropriate for various audiences and interests.
• A coordinated strategy for spreading the news. One-way, mass communication is problematic, in general, but there is an important need for messages (in various media) that stimulate interest and attention. Jeffrey Abelson is working on this skillfully and pro bono; there is much more to do.
• More money, of course, but that really means a larger and more diverse set of funders, including major foundations, community foundations, wealthy individuals, and government agencies at all levels.

How would we know if we had what we needed? Some examples:

When the Obama Administration decided to cut Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE), a model program for collaborative governance within EPA, civic advocacy groups would go ballistic. Groups concerned about civic education, transparency, community organizing, and other aspects of the movement would jump on this issue because CARE would seem important to them all.

Whenever a major institution–a government agency, foundation, university, or media company–expressed openness to civic engagement, we’d be ready with models, stories, potential partners, and experienced individuals who could help in the specific circumstances.

Hampton, VA has probably the best structure in the United States for involving young people in governance. It also has a very strong tradition of adult engagement in municipal government. Imagine (though heaven forbid this should actually happen) that some powerful politician decided to end Hampton’s programs. We would know we had a strong movement if people from other cities that also have good civic engagement programs–like Chattanooga, TN–got on buses and came to defend their peers in Hampton. That sounds far-fetched, but it does happen when civil rights violations or environmental crises occur–because the civil rights and green movements are strong.

Today, conservatives in Texas are trying to remove César Chávez, Anne Hutchinson, and Thurgood Marshall from state standards in the social studies. There are already liberal groups, such as People for the American Way, that will defend mandatory teaching of such progressive heroes in public schools. (Cultural liberals may be weak in Texas, but they are stronger in California and elsewhere). The result is standards that are enormous lists of miscellaneous topics. If we had a strong civic renewal movement, there would be an organized effort to reform Texas standards so that kids could actually learn to be effective citizens. The civic movement would demand meaningful experiences, not lists of people to study. It would challenge left and right alike.

The size of the US House of Representatives is set by an ordinary law; it’s not a Constitutional matter. The number of Representatives has remained at 435 since 1910, even as the population of the US has tripled. The bigger the districts, the harder and more expensive it is to get into Congress, the more remote each member seems from his or her constituents, the harder it is to make districts fit natural or historical boundaries, and the worse are the tradeoffs between giving voice to minorities (racial or partisan) versus representing majorities.

It turns out that the size of legislatures around the world is usually the cube root of the size of each nation’s population.* By that standard, our House should have 669 members instead of 435. The House of Commons in the UK has 646 members for a population of 61 million, seven times as many legislators per capita as we’ve got. The House of Commons generally works fine (the current scandal notwithstanding), so it seems perfectly possible to deliberate and make laws with more than 600 members.

I concede two points: 1) There are more pressing political reforms, such as a fair redistricting process and campaign finance reform; and 2) the very idea of adding extra federal legislators–with salaries and staffs–would probably be unpopular. Still, I think this is an important reform. It will be impossible, for example, to produce fully satisfactory electoral districts, even with a super-fair process, as long as each district is huge.

*Rein Taagepera, “The Size of National Assemblies,” Social Science Research 1 (December 1972).

My latest enthusiasm–also a subject of discussion in our Summer Institute today–is the Danish professor Bent Flyvbjerg. His slogan is “social science as phronesis.” The Greek word ???????? means “practical wisdom,” prudence, or wise practical thought. It is always about a particular situation, because one acts in particular cases, not in generalities. (See my recent post on generic thinking.) Phronesis combines a view of what is, what can be, and what would be good. These are not strictly separable matters; norms influence facts and strategies. According to Flyvbjerg, phronesis should also involve a consideration of power: who is causing things to be the way they are, and who would benefit from changing them in various ways.

We deliberate about practical matters, not about abstract principles. Flyvbjerg recommends that social scientists contribute to practical deliberation by doing research that is closely attuned to particular situations. The social scientist’s contribution will rarely be definitive; it will simply inform other actors by providing perspectives on what is, what can be, and what should be.

The opposite is social science on the model of physics–systematic, general, and predictive. I have not yet read Flyvbjerg’s full argument for why social science cannot be like physics, but he is obviously skeptical of that idea and notes that “no predictive social theories have been arrived at yet” (PDF). He explains:

The epistemic model finds its ideal in the natural science model for doing science. Here the objective of the social scientist is to discover the theories and laws which govern social action, just as the objective of the natural scientist is to discover the theories and laws which govern natural phenomena. Praxis, according to the natural science model of social science, is social engineering which applies social theories and laws to solve social problems.

A classic simile for this type of social science is the so-called “moon ghetto metaphor,” named for social scientists who argued during the 1960’s and 1970’s that if natural science and engineering could put a man on the moon, surely social science could solve the social problems of the urban ghetto (Nelson 1977). History proved them wrong.

I was on much the same track in my June 26th post about the disappointing results of quantitative social science.