Author Archives: Peter Levine

political ideology websites

This summer, I began work on a website that would ask visitors some

questions and then tell them their ideology. I got caught up with the

technical difficulties and never completed the project. However, I believe

it could be useful, since most people I know use ideology as a heuristic.

That is, we don’t have the time to make a very precise and nuanced evaluation

of each candidate for each office. Instead, we start with the assumption

that we are liberals, conservatives, moderates, libertarians, feminists,

environmentalists, or proponents of some other ideology, and then we

use cues in the candidates’ speech and behavior to decide which politicians

come closest to our ideology. CIRCLE surveys show that those young people

who have no ideology do not vote, which suggests that this shortcut

is essential.

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American radicals in Iraq

In his Washington Post column

today, E.J. Dionne writes, "Our foreign policy debate right now

pits radicals against conservatives. Republicans are the radicals.

Democrats are the conservatives." Republicans want to

remake the world to match abstract ideals; Democrats are concerned about

traditional alliances and institutions, unintended consequences, and

appropriate limits on national power. In recent blog entries, I’ve been

claiming that Democrats and "progressives" represent the more

conservative voice in many areas of domestic policy. Dionne is making

the same argument about foreign policy (writ large).

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public work in Iraq

Today is the beginning of CIRCLE‘s

annual Advisory Board meeting, when we present our year’s work for review.

Meanwhile, I recommend this long but excellent radio

program about neighborhood councils in Baghdad.

(Thanks to Archon Fung for spreading

the word about it.) At least once a week, I read an article about Americans

and/or Iraqis who are improvising public services or creating democratic

forums in Iraq. Even though the Army is a hierarchical and bureaucratic

organization with a partly violent purpose, many of our soldiers seem

to have a great capacity for improvisation and diplomacy and a deep

understanding of liberal democratic ideals. There are plenty of stories

about poor planning at the highest levels of our government (and in

the Iraqi Governing Council), and about the inadequate training of the

occupation forces; but these stories don’t detract from the work that’s

being done by at least some of our rank-and-file servicemen and women.

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service-learning research

Salt Lake City: I gave the keynote luncheon address today at the International

Service-Learning Research Conference. I argued that we need research

to test whether service-learning (i.e., combinations of community service

with academic study) works as well or better than competing approaches

to civic education. The best way to prove causality is an experiment

in which students are randomly assigned to the "treatment"

(here, service-learning) or to a control group, and then the two groups

are compared. That’s the "gold standard," although there are

ways to approximate random selection if it proves to be impossible.

There has never been anything like a random experiment to test whether

(or how well) service-learning works as civic education.

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Dean and the working class

In JFK Airport, en route to Salt Lake City: Two decisions regarding

the Dean presidential campaign appear imminent. Gov.

Dean is likely to refuse federal funding (thus gaining the freedom to

spend unlimited private money); and he is expected to receive the endorsement

of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU, pronounced "see

you"). These events are symptomatic of the collapse of a set of

institutions that, 20 years ago, amplified the political voice of ordinary

people. In those days, federal funding for presidential campaigns was

adequate to replace private money, so there were no big donors in presidential

politics. Everyone counted the same under the presidential campaign

finance system. As for major unions, they had a powerful influence on

the institutional Democratic party and supported candidates with whom

they had lasting relationships—politicians who had risen through

the political ranks mainly because of organized labor. Today, SEIU evidently

thinks that it cannot afford to support the man who best fits that description,

Dick Gephardt, because his chances of winning the presidency are too

low. Instead, they are backing someone who owes them nothing, who has

never had much to do with them, but who has harnessed mostly white-collar

support through clever use of the Internet and a strong anti-War stance.

Evidently, they think Gov. Dean has the best chance of winning and they

want to have some leverage over him.

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