Monthly Archives: April 2017

European Summer Institute of Civic Studies, this August in Chernivtsi, Ukraine

The Summer Institute of Civic Studies will take place in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, from July, 31st to August, 12th 2017 (at the Chernivtsi Yuri-Fedkovych-University). The Summer Institute of Civic Studies is organized by a team from Tufts University (Prof. Peter Levine), the University of Maryland (Prof. Karol Soltan) and the University of Augsburg (Prof. Tetyana Kloubert).

The total number of participants will be limited to 20. Ukrainian scholars and practitioners are strongly encouraged to apply. We will also consider the applications from Germany, Belarus, Poland and Moldova. We are especially interested in applicants who have a long term interest in developing the civic potential of Ukraine and the region.
The working language of the Summer Institute will be English. Your mastery of the English language must be sufficient to read and understand complex texts from multiple disciplines, and to take part in a lively discussion.

Objectives and topics

The Summer Institute of Civic Studies is an intensive, two-week, interdisciplinary seminar bringing together advanced graduate students, faculty, and practitioners from diverse fields of study.

The Summer Institute of Civic Studies deals with issues of development of civil society, the role of an individual/citizen in society, the role of education in promoting democracy, the role of institutions in the development of a civil society and questions related to the ethical foundation of civic issues in a (democratic) society. These topics will be examined in international and comparative perspectives, considering European (especially German) and US-American civic traditions. International examples will be discussed in the context of consolidation of democracy in Eastern Europe, particularly in Ukraine, Poland, Moldova und Belarus.

The Summer Institute of Civic Studies engages participants in challenging discussions such as:

  • What kinds of citizens (if any) do good regimes need?
  • What should such citizens know, believe, and do?
  • What practices and institutional structures promote the right kinds of citizen-ship
  • What ought to be the relationships among empirical evidence, ethics, and
    strategy?

Summer Institutes of Civic Studies were annually organized by Peter Levine and Karol So?tan at Tufts University since 2009. Read about the summer institutes.

How to apply

All application materials must be submitted in English. The application must include the following:

  • A cover letter telling us why you want to participate in the summer institute and what you would contribute (maximum 2 pages)
  • A curriculum vitae

All application material can be sent as an email attachment in DOC or PDF format to
tetyana.kloubert@phil.uni-augsburg.de.

Decisions will be announced before the end of May 2017. For best consideration apply by May 20, 2017.

Expenditures: Selected participants will be provided with accommodation, meals and full event access (in some urgent cases also with travel costs).

Contact: For more information about the Summer Institute of Civic Studies please contact tetyana.kloubert@phil.uni-augsburg.de

We encourage you to share this message with your networks of people who might be interested by the Summer Institute of Civic Studies.

Habermas, Ostrom, Gandhi (II)

(Santa Monica, CA) On Monday, I posted an argument that three traditions of theory and practice provide what we need for a civic theory, which is a theory of what we should do. It is different from a political theory that asks what should be done or how things should be.

I can elaborate by suggesting what it would mean to put the three traditions together, using each to compensate for the limitations of the others.

We might begin with a classic situation for the Bloomington School: a group of people is trying to manage a common-pool resource, which may be as traditional and tangible as a fishery or as current and abstract as protocols for the Internet. They should consider the whole list of design principles enumerated by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, including clear boundaries, graduated sanctions, shared monitoring, rules congruent with the context, and efficient mechanisms for conflict-resolution.

However, inspired by Habermas, we will elevate one design principle above the rest–participation–and will define it to be basically synonymous with public deliberation. People should deliberate about which of the other principles to employ, and how. This is because deliberation is our best mechanism for deciding what is right and wrong. Further, talking and listening with other people about public matters is an important aspect of the good life for human beings; it enriches our inner lives. While deliberating, people should strive for an ideal speech situation, one that is devoid of coercion and constraint, so that the only power is the power of the best argument.

Now the theory is beginning to sound fully Habermasian, but the Bloomington School puts deliberation in an essential context. After all, it is easier not to attend a discussion in the first place and let others do the work of governance. Thus the very existence of a discussion implies at least a partial prior solution to a free-rider problem. What’s more, the fact that the group has something to manage implies that they have already done some work together. To be sure, they may have taken the resource that they govern from others or exploited others’ labor. The founders of the United States, for example, governed a commonwealth that had been seized from indigenous nations and enriched by enslaved people’s labor. This was fundamentally unjust and evil. Nevertheless, it had taken common action to achieve this dominance; the colonists had to form local governments, create and enroll in militias, and sustain the Continental Army that wrested control from the British Crown. The general point is that a group that is in a position to govern a resource has usually managed to coordinate its members’ work already. Discussion rarely precedes governance; it is more typically a moment in an ongoing process of governance.

Moreover, the norms that allow groups to approach an ideal speech situation–norms like civility, reasonable trust, and openness–are fragile common resources that groups must build and sustain. Almost all real discussions are imperfect, by these criteria: some people are missing because they chose to free-ride, some participants undermine civility and trust in the way they talk, and time usually runs out before consensus can be reached, necessitating a vote. Thus the degree to which groups meet the Habermasian ideal of reasonable discourse depends on how well they have addressed core collective-action problems.

And not everything can be thrown open to discussion. The Bloomington School advises that boundaries must be clear and rules must be congruent with local circumstances and traditions in order for people to coordinate. In theory, boundaries and traditions could be freely discussed. Citizens could deliberate about who should be included in the group and what norms they should hold dear. But since a discussion already requires a reasonably functional group, and forming a group requires boundaries and congruence with local traditions, it is not literally possible to start from a neutral place. Instead, a group with some kind of boundary and set of traditions can consider modifying them in the interests of justice or practicality. They can rebuild their ship at sea, but they cannot start from scratch. The group comes first; then the discussion.

Although moments of explicit deliberation have special normative value, they need not be frequent. Ostrom analyzes a water management regime near Valencia, Spain, that was last deliberated almost six centuries ago and still functions today. Discourse should not be allowed to overshadow other kinds of contribution to the commons; people also contribute with their emotions, their labor, and their bodies.

In this combination of Habermas plus Ostrom, we have the nucleus of a satisfactory theory, but it doesn’t tell us what to do when some other group feels itself fundamentally different and sees no obligation to join a deliberation or share resources fairly. That is when we need the distinctive contributions of nonviolent social movements.They can force changes in the underlying rules and norms that govern a situation. They can force people to deliberate and to cooperate.

However, nonviolent social movements need insights from the schools of Habermas and of Ostrom, for three important reasons.

First, not every nonviolent social movement has desirable or worthy ends. The only way for human beings to test and reconsider whether their own values are worthy is to deliberate with people who do not agree with them (see Habermas).

Second a successful social movement requires people to coordinate their sacrifices, and that happens only when they already belong to, or can create, functional self-governing entities (see Ostrom).

Finally, a social movement cannot move forever. It must pursue a relatively stable or even permanent outcome as its objective. Participants in the Civil Rights Movement did not imagine that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would remove racism from the United States, but they pursued that legislation as a meaningful target during the early 1960s. An objective such as the Civil Rights Act should incorporate good institutional design (see Ostrom) and should allow or even require ongoing deliberation (see Habermas).

This does not mean that citizens are only fully active and responsible when they’re participating in a nonviolent social movement that urges a reform like the Voting Rights Act. But that example does bring out the main dimensions of citizenship, which can be combined in many other ways.

Ostrom, Habermas, and Gandhi are all we need

(Rancho Palos Verdes, CA) Back in 2014, I argued: [Elinor] “Ostrom plus [Jürgen] Habermas is nearly all we need.” I define a good citizen as anyone who seriously asks the question “What should we do?” Citizens face a dizzying variety of hard issues, but underlying them are general categories of problems. As of 2014, I thought these were the two basic categories:

  1. Problems of discourse make our thoughts and conversations go badly, so that we believe or desire the wrong things. Example include our susceptibility to propaganda and our strong tendency to “motivated reasoning,” or picking facts and theories because they yield the results we want.
  2. Problems of collective action cause us to get results that we do not desire, even when we agree about goals and values. An example is the temptation to “free ride” on other people’s contributions, or the tendency of small groups of specialists to dominate even democratic organizations (“The Iron Law of Oligarchy”).

Habermas and the postwar Frankfurt School provide a robust theoretical tradition, linked to practical experimentation, about how to address problems of discourse. Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School provide an equally robust theory/practice tradition about how to address problems of collective action. That was my basis for saying that Ostrom and Habermas nearly sufficed for a civic theory.

But I now think there is a third general category:

  1. Problems of identity and exclusion arise when some people simply won’t deliberate or collaborate with other people because they regard the latter as fundamentally different and inferior. Relatedly, sometimes people feel that they themselves don’t deserve to deliberate or collaborate because they are inferior.

The theoretical resources of Habermas and Ostrom are not sufficient for that third category, and we can learn more from theorists and practitioners of nonviolent social movements. That is the tradition that tells us what to do about problems of identity and exclusion if we choose to take violence off the table.

Therefore, I now believe that Ostrom, Habermas, and Gandhi are all we need–assuming that each name is synecdoche for a whole tradition of theory and practice.

Ostrom Habermas Gandhi
Fundamental problem People fail to achieve what would be good for them collectively People manipulate other people by influencing their opinions and goals. People fail to view others (or themselves) as fully human
Exemplary case of the problem We destroy an environmental asset by failing to work together Government or corporate propaganda distorts our authentic values One national or ethnic group exploits another
Characteristic starting point People know what they want but can’t get it People don’t know what they want or want the wrong things Some people won’t recognize other people
Essential behavior of a citizen Working together to make or preserve something. Talking and listening about controversial values. Using nonviolent sacrifice to compel change
Instead of homo economicus (the individual who maximizes material self-interest) we need … Homo faber (the person as a maker) Homo sapiens (the person as a reasoner) or homo politicus (the participant in public assemblies). A Satyagrahi (the person as a bearer of soul force)
Role of the state It is a set of nested and overlapping associations, not fundamentally different from other associations (firms, nonprofits, etc.) Citizens form public opinion, which should guide the state, which makes law. The state should be radically distinct from other sectors A target of demands
Modernity is … A threat to local and traditional ways of cooperating, but we can use science to assist people in solving their own problems A process of enlightenment that liberates people, but it goes wrong when states and markets “colonize” the private domain (for Gandhi) an imperialist imposition, undermining swaraj
Main interdisciplinary combination Game theory plus observations of indigenous problem-solving Normative philosophy (mainly achieved through critical readings of past philosophers) plus system-level sociology. Critical theology plus military strategy

deeper learning, civic learning

Newly published from Harvard Education Press is Rethinking Readiness: Deeper Learning for College, Work, and Life, edited by Rafael Heller, Rebecca E. Wolfe, and Adria Steinberg. It is an important overview of current efforts to make education “deeper,” meaning that students learn from guided but direct experience how to think critically and collaboratively about multidimensional problems. The Hewlett Foundation has been a leader in this work, and its Deeper Learning webpage is a useful introduction.

My colleague Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and I contribute the chapter on civic education. We argue that the deeper learning movement can revitalize civic education–and that civic education is an important opportunity for deeper learning. Subsections examine changes in the context of civics (such as political polarization and the rise of online citizenship), trends in civic education, and the relevance of the whole curriculum and school climate–not just civics courses–to youth civic development.

Suggested citation: Peter Levine and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, “Preparing for Civic Life.” In Rafael Heller, Rebecca E.,Wolfe & Adria Steinberg (eds)., Rethinking Readiness: Deeper Learning for College, Work, and Life (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2017), pp. 59-79

why do students sometimes lead social change?

(Cincinnati) At several critical points during the past century, college students have been at the vanguard of social change. Their agendas have not always been desirable; fascism, for example, had a student wing. But student activism is an important phenomenon. I think four frames of reference are most common for explaining it:

Age effects: Traditionally, most college students have been young. During young adulthood, individuals become aware of the social world but are still forming their identities and opinions. That gives them a certain critical detachment that is favorable to radical activism. They are also not overly burdened by experiences of political failure. Using that framework, we would expect younger adults consistently to be more active.

Generational effects: People who come of age during the same historical moment may form a shared and lasting identity as members of a given generation. The classic example (analyzed by Karl Mannheim in his seminal article) is the experience of being drafted into WWI. With this framework in mind, we might presume, for example, that German college students became highly active after 1965 because they shared the experience of growing up in prosperous homes with suppressed memories of the Nazi past. People born around the same time in contexts as different as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union might even share a common generational identity (e.g., as children of The Sixties) if some of their formative experiences were similar.

Historical effects: Major events can affect people differently depending on their social circumstances. For instance, when a war breaks out, only the young single men may be drafted. A budget crisis can cause the government to cut funds for higher education; then college students see their fees go up. With this framework in mind, we would expect college students to become activated soon after major events affect them specifically.

Class effects: College students come disproportionately from middle-class or wealthy homes. Thanks to college, they are destined for positions in the top half of the income distribution. We might then interpret college student activism as “bourgeois” activism and ask why the bourgeoisie is, or is not, activated at a given moment.

I would like to add a fifth type of explanation, derived from some thoughts in Offe (1985). College students may face specific material circumstances that encourage–or discourage–them from being politically active. These circumstances are variables that will influence students’ levels and forms of engagement even of we hold age, generation, class, and historical moment constant. In other words, these are consequences of how college is organized socially.

Offe argued that certain demographic groups predominated in the New Social Movements of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Second Wave feminism and environmentalism. Two especially active groups were “housewives” (his word) and college students. He proposed that both groups were exposed to explicit discipline that provoked them to criticize social norms. Married women faced explicit coercion from their husbands; students, from their universities and parents. Yet both enjoyed a degree of flexibility about how to employ their time. That meant that they were able to protest if they wanted to.

I think we can elaborate on these explanations. Typically, college students who attend large institutions along with many other full-time students experience the following material circumstances:

  • A great deal of fluid social interaction, not limited to a nuclear family or work unit. That means that students can easily find and select into activist groups.
  • A concentrated population of other youth, which attracts political actors looking for support. Politicians speak on campuses; they don’t go around to fast food franchises hoping to talk to all the service workers.
  • Some useful non-cash assets for social-movement participation, such as flexible time, access to information and ideas, and connections to well-positioned adults.
  • A significant level of protection for free speech, especially as compared to workers in for-profit enterprises (and often in state bureaucracies).
  • Institutions designed for political discourse and communication, such as student newspapers and governments.
  • Some encouragement, via the curriculum, to think critically.
  • Some ability to choose courses of study and career pathways, which they can use as leverage over parents and universities. For instance, a student may be able to threaten to go into social work instead of accounting and then negotiate with tuition-paying parents. Threatening to drop out may also offer leverage.

If these factors matter, then we would expect the level of college student activism to vary when they change. For instance, if students lose their ability to choose courses of study because the job market is bad, they will have less leverage. If their freedom of speech is reduced, that will either suppress activism or serve as a form of explicit discipline that prompts them to revolt.

See also basic theories of civic developmentthe New Social Movements of the seventies, eighties, and today and to what extent can colleges promote upward mobility.  Reference: Offe, Claus, “New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics,” Social Research, vol. 52, no. 1 (Winter 1985), pp. 817-68.