In a new article,* Elizabeth Simas, Scott Clifford, and Justin Kirkland provide evidence that empathy is not a solution to partisan polarization in the US. Quite the contrary: people who demonstrate more “empathic concern” are more likely to blame the opposite party for the suffering that they see in the world, hence more likely to decry the other party, to favor censoring it, and to exhibit Schadenfreude (pleasure at others’ pain) when members of the opposing party lose out.
Part of the article involves an experiment with undergraduate subjects. Students are shown a story in which “campus police had to shut down a group of partisan students who were protesting a speech to be given by an individual known for making inflammatory comments about that party. In both versions, a bystander who was attempting to hear the speech was struck by a protestor. And in both versions, the protestors succeeded in getting the speech canceled.” Students were assigned to see versions of the story that randomly varied the partisan identities of the speaker, the protesters, and the bystander.
Students who scored higher on a general measure of empathetic concern were more likely to favor censoring the inflammatory speaker, and more likely to be glad that the bystander was hurt. These results were the same for Democratic and Republican students.
It rings true for me that deep emotional concern is associated with anger and a distancing of intellectual and political opponents, a refusal to hear their arguments.
I’ve posted concerns about empathy several times before.** The main problem is its susceptibility to bias. Usually, empathy is felt for individuals (or concrete categories of people), and it can easily promote injustice against others. There is such a thing as universal, undifferentiated empathy, but it looks more like an ethical principle than a concrete emotion. The Buddhist objective is not empathy (as measured by questions from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, such as: “When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective toward them”). Instead, Buddhism prizes equanimity, which is calm and detached.
I do not take for granted that political polarization is bad. Sometimes it is right to blame political opponents for others’ suffering. And although Schadenfreude should always be avoided, it can be welcome news when a political enemy suffers defeat. These emotions of blame and satisfaction are appropriate if and when the opponent is actually at fault. To find out whether someone is actually wrong requires engagement with that person’s arguments and reasons. Censorship defeats such engagement and is almost always a mistake. It’s troubling that more empathy means more support for censorship, especially if that exemplifies a deeper problem with empathy. Perhaps empathy discourages us from hearing alternative views by fixing our attention on concrete suffering.
I’m teaching Public Policy Analysis to undergraduate this spring–a new course. I’ve pasted the working syllabus (minus the grading rubric, rules about technology, and other practicalities) below. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. I don’t think this design is a very unusual, but it may lean more toward institutional analysis (per Elinor Ostrom) than is common.
Objectives
To learn to analyze institutions and develop strategies that improve the world by changing these institutions or creating new ones. A good strategy must be just (which requires normative argument), effective, and politically viable.
Summary of Content
The class will first investigate one policy question together. That question is: Which students should attend which k-12 schools in the USA, and who should decide that matter? Concrete policy options include mandatory assignment to neighborhood public schools, school choice, charter schools, vouchers, etc. Every student will write a short paper on that topic.
Each student will then select one policy issue and write three 5-7-page essays that connect to produce one policy memo on that issue. As students conduct research for their individual papers, in class, we will discuss methods and theories of policy analysis.
Our overall framework will the Institutional Analysis and Design (IAD) framework developed by Elinor Ostrom and colleagues. We will use it both for the k-12 school example and for each student’s individual project.
Working with this framework, we will pose these questions:
What is the institution? What is its name? How would you define it uniquely, and which people, resources, locations, etc. does it involve?
What problem or set of problems interests you about it? This problem may be a failure (the institution doesn’t yield the intended results) or an injustice (it has bad results), or it could be the intellectual problem posed by its success: why does this institution work and can we replicate it?
What other institutions are closely related to it, and how?
Which institutional form(s) does it reflect, e.g., a government, a firm, a market, a network, an association, a community?
What are important relevant biophysical conditions? What natural resources does it use, and which natural processes come into play? What characteristics of these resources and processes are relevant to the institution: e.g., scarcity, fragility, adaptability, ability to reproduce and grow, interdependence, tendency to move?
What are important technological conditions, where “technology” means the relevant affordances and limitations that have been created–or will predictably be created–by human beings?
What cultural meanings (in the sense of Geertz 1973) are involved? Are these meanings shared or disputed?
What official, formal, usually written rules govern the institution? What are its rules-in-use? (These may diverge from the official rules.)
Are the rules grounded (Links to an external site.)in phenomena beyond the institution? For instance, an institution might use a currency whose value is determined by other institutions. Tufts runs on an academic calendar related to the solar calendar, which is grounded in the motion of the earth. (Grounding is different from causation.)
What goods are relevant? Who has which kinds of ownership over which goods? Are the goods subtractable? Are they excludable?
Who are the relevant actors?
What choices confront each actor? What does each actor know about the available choices?
What does each actor value, and why?
Under what conditions do the actors choose (e.g., with or without discussion, once or repeatedly, simultaneously or in turn, with or without knowledge of what the others are choosing)?
What are the consequences of the most important or most likely combinations of choices made by all the actors?
Are these consequences desired by the actors?
Are these outcomes desired by people who are not among the actors?
Are the outcomes fair or just by various normative criteria?
Are they sustainable–meaning a) literally repeatable many times, and/or b) good for nature?
How do the outcomes affect the issues raised in questions 1-15? In other words, do the outcomes of the institution change the institution itself, in a feedback loop?
What deliberate changes in institutional forms (4), technologies (6), meanings (7), rules (9-10), or values (13) would produce preferable outcomes according to the criteria raised in questions 18-20?
How can we go about altering the institution in the light of 22?
Book to purchase
Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek, Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About (University of Chicago Press, 2019)
Robert Pondiscio, How The Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice (Avery 2019)
These will be in the bookstore but you are welcome to purchase electronic versions instead.
Criteria for assessing class participation:
Attendance.
Engaging in a discussion that is informed by the assigned texts.
Focusing on the topic and the texts, which does not preclude drawing connections beyond them.
Being responsive to other students. Responsiveness needn’t always be immediate, verbal, or occur within the class discussion itself.
Building on others’ contributions, and sometimes making links among different people’s contributions or between what they have said and the text.
Demonstrating genuine respect for the others, where respect does not require agreement. In fact, sometimes respect requires explicit disagreement because you take the other person’s ideas seriously.
Taking risks, trying out ideas that you don’t necessarily endorse, and asking questions that might be perceived as naive or uninformed.
Seeking truth or clarity or insight (instead of other objectives).
Exercising freedom of speech along with a degree of tact and concern for the other people.
Demonstrating responsibility for the other students’ learning in what you say (and occasionally by a decision not to speak).
Wed. Jan 15
Introductions. Some preliminary discussion of school choice based on our own experiences
Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek, Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About, pp. vii-81
(Johanek will visit class via videoconference.)
Mon., January 29
Values: What are We Trying to Acccomplish?
Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek, pp. 83-129
Monday, February 3: no class (instructor is traveling)
Wed. Feb 5
Does Choice Work? Qualitative evidence
Robert Pondiscio, How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice (2019); especially recommended pages: 3-51, 77-104, 111-113, 156-163, 175-179, 184-194, 210-219, 257-267, 271-279, 295-311, 320-340.
Meira Levinson, “Is Pandering Ethical? Power, Privilege, and School Assignment,” in Levinson and Jacob Fay, Dilemmas of Educational Ethics: Cases and Commentaries, pp. 143-78
(Feb 17: no class; President’s Day)
First paper due: 4-6 pages about school choice
Part II: Other Issues
Wed., February 19
Policy analysis: mainstream approaches
Bardach, E. A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis. (2000), excerpts
(Feb 17: no class; President’s Day)
Mon, Feb. 24
Unpacking institutions
In class, we will build and operate an extremely simple institution by playing a “tragedy of the commons” game. We will apply the IAD framework to it.
Ostrom, Elinor. 1987. “An Agenda for the Study of Institutions.” Public Choice 48:3-25. Reprinted in McGinnis (2000), Chapter 3.
Monday, March 2
Rules
Toulmin, Stephen. 1974. “Rules and Their Relevance for Understanding Human Behavior.” In Understanding Other People, ed. Theodore Mischel, 185-215. Oxford: Blackwell. Excerpts: pp. 189-214.
Wednesday, March 4
Attributes of community: Example # 1, the community’s social capital
Coleman, James S. “Social capital in the creation of human capital.” American journal of sociology 94 (1988): S95-S120.
Monday, March 9
Attributes of community: Example #2, the community’s culture
Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Culture and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2000. 175-201.
Wednesday, March 11
Games: players, situations
Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life: Competitive Edge in Business, Politics and Everyday Life, excerpts
Second paper due: 4-6 pages presenting a public policy issue in terms of “players,” choices, and outcomes.
Monday, March 9
Exit Voice and Loyalty
Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), excerpts
Wednesday, March 11
Evaluative Criteria: 1) Cost-benefit analysis
Richard Layard and Steven Glaister, eds., Cost-Benefit Analysis, second edition: chapters on Safety and the saving of life: The theory of equalizing differences, pp 272-289; by Sherwin Rosen; The environment: The environment and emerging development issues pp 319-348, by Partha Dasgupta, Karl-Göran Mäler ); Regulation and deregulation: Enhancing the performance of the deregulated air transportation system, pp 375-395 by Steven A. Morrison
(March 16-19 is Spring Break)
Monday, March 23
Evaluative Criteria: 2) Rule of law
Scalia, Antonin. “The rule of law as a law of rules.” U. Chi. l. reV. 56 (1989): 1175.
Wednesday, March 25: no class (instructor is traveling)
Monday, March 30
Evaluative Criteria: 3) Rights
Dworkin, Ronald, and Jeremy Waldron. “Rights as trumps.” Arguing about the Law (1984): 335-44.
Third paper due: 4-6 pages analyzing the value conflicts and choices raised by your policy issue
Wednesday, April 8
Types of institution
Aligica, Paul Dragos, and Vlad Tarko. “Co-production, polycentricity, and value heterogeneity: the Ostroms’ public choice institutionalism revisited.” American Political Science Review 107.4 (2013): 726-741.
Feedback loops
Mettler, Suzanne, and Mallory SoRelle. “Policy feedback theory.” Theories of the policy process 3 (2014): 151-181.
Complexity and Wicked Problems
Rittel, H., M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy Sciences 4(1) (1973) 155-169
Monday, April 13
How policy gets made
Sabatier. P.A. and C.M. Weible. The Advocacy-Coalition Framework: An Assessment. 189-220
Schlager, E., C.M. Weible (2013). New Theories of the Policy Process. Policy Studies Journal, 41(3), 389-396.
Fourth paper due: 4-6 pages presenting and defending a policy recommendation on your issue.
Scholars in many disciplines are grappling with how to produce rigorous scholarship that addresses significant social challenges in collaboration with communities, organizations, and agencies. They strive to learn from those working outside of academia, to benefit from the insights of all kinds of groups and institutions, and to give back to communities rather than extract value from them. Although political scientists offer models of excellence in civically engaged research, relevant methods and strategies are not yet widely taught in the discipline’s graduate programs or sufficiently valued in the profession as a whole.
In 2019, in an effort to address this need, the APSA Presidential Task Force on New Partnerships launched the now-annual APSA Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER). ICER is intended for advanced graduate students in political science and political scientists at any stage of their careers who wish to shift to using civically engaged research. (It is not meant for scholars who are already experienced in that approach.)
To apply, please complete this form. Application deadline: March 1, 2020.
Content of the Institute
Topics covered will include:
Expertise: what do political scientists uniquely contribute? What are the limitations of scholarly expertise? What types of expertise do those outside of academia have?
The ethics of collaboration: sharing of credit, funds and overhead, navigating IRB, dealing with disagreements.
Communicating results: to partners, relevant communities, the press, and directly to the broader public.
How to navigate common social science values and norms while doing civically engaged work
Career considerations: publication and credit, tenure and promotion, funding your research.
Mapping the different and varied ways that political scientists engage through research and beyond.
We will explore these issues by discussing relevant readings, by analyzing specific examples of civically engaged research from political science and cognate disciplines, and by considering the research plans and ideas of institute participants.
People
Speakers and visitors are currently being finalized. Confirmed speakers include: Anjuli Fahlburg (Tufts University), Michelle Fine (CUNY), Samantha Majic (John Jay College/CUNY), Jamila Michener (Cornell University), Pearl Robinson (Tufts), and Ethel Tungohan (York University).
The Institute Directors are Amy Cabrera Rasmussen (California State University Long Beach) Peter Levine (Tufts University), and Valeria Sinclair Chapman (Purdue University). If you have further questions about the institute, please contact APSA’s Centennial Center at centennial@apsanet.org.
Practicalities
The Institute will take place on the campus of Tufts University, in the Boston area, from June 15-18, 2020. Approximately twenty participants will meet each day for intensive discussions and workshops. Thanks to support from the Ivywood Foundation, participation in the Institute for Civically Engaged Research is free, and scholarships are available to defray costs of travel, food, and housing on the Tufts campus. Applicants are expected to seek financial support from their home institution, but admission to the Institute for Civically Engaged Research will not be affected by financial need.
ICER participants are invited to attend the Frontiers of Democracy conference immediately following the institute, from the evening of June 18 until noon on June 20 in downtown Boston. Frontiers offers the opportunity to engage directly with over 120 activists, policymakers, and engaged scholars from across multiple disciplines, to present one’s work to and learn from potential partners about their interests and best practices for collaboration. ICER participants will have the Frontiers’ conference fee waived and be provided lodging assistance.
Applicants to ICER will be notified of decisions by late March.
For the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, RAND’s Social and Economic Well-Being Team conducts a regular and large representative survey of National Health Attitudes (authors: Katherine Grace Carman, Anita Chandra, Sarah Weilant, Carolyn Miller, and Margaret Tait.) It includes items about civic engagement as well as health and healthcare and other topics. I look forward to detailed analysis that examines which kinds of Americans answer each question in various ways and how the various topics relate to each other.
For now, here is my graph showing simple topline responses to a question about the impact (whether positive or negative) of various “groups or organizations” on health.
None of these groups and institutions scores very well. Only two (local nonprofits) barely satisfy a majority of the population as being good for health.
To be specific, respondents were asked about about “Local organizations that provide health services (e.g., health care, public health)” and “Local organizations that provide other social services (e.g., food assistance, job training) such as faith based orgs, nonprofits.” It’s interesting that the perceived health impact of these two types of groups was about the same. You might guess that health-service organizations would have a bigger impact. Perhaps people understand the importance of the social determinants of health, such as employment. Or perhaps the mention of “faith-based orgs” in the latter question boosted its score.
Local businesses were rated higher than any government entity and higher that other residents. Of course, businesses provide goods and services that benefit health; the drug store and the vegetable aisle of the supermarket are really important. Still, this answer shows a gap between public opinion and the progressive view that the net impact of business is probably negative, or at least less positive than the net impact of government. (Just 1.6% thought that the impact of local business was very negative.)
As in almost all surveys, local government scores better than state government, which scores better than federal government. In this case, the information is somewhat ambiguous because respondents are asked about “local government,” and then about “leaders” at the state and federal level. It’s not clear whether the difference in their responses results from the change in scale or the shift from government to leaders. After all, the most evident federal leader is Donald J. Trump. Still, I suspect that if the question had been about government (not about leaders) at each level, confidence would have decreased with scale.
One response to these data might be: See, most Americans are not aligned with strong progressive proposals to increase the imprint of the federal government on health. They trust business much more. But some respondents may think the government helps less than local businesses do because the government is insufficiently ambitious. In any case, these data may support policy recipes that involve more federal funding–with a key delivery role for local nonprofits and local businesses, including your neighborhood drug store and supermarket.
Frontiers of Democracy is an annual conference hosted by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University since 2009.
In 2020, the conference will take place from June 18 (5 pm) until June 20 (noon) at the downtown Boston campus of Tufts University: Tufts Center for Medical Education, Room 114; 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston. You are invited!
You can propose a concurrent session for Frontiers using this form. Proposals will be accepted until April 1, 2020
The agenda is still in development but will include short plenary talks, concurrent sessions, and interactive activities for the large group. Among other whole-group activities, we will experience Pre-Texts (“pedagogical acupuncture”) and will use several new “teaching cases” to prompt intensive discussions in small groups. (Teaching cases are short narratives about real events that conclude at a moment when the protagonists must make a difficult choice.)
Frontiers will follow the American Political Science Association’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research and precede the Summer Institute of Civic Studies and will convene members of those two programs plus about 100 others: activists and practitioners in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors; scholars, educators, students; and others. Participants will come from many countries and many streams of work related to democracy–social movements, community organizing, civic education, arts and media work, political reform, civil liberties, dialogue and deliberation, political theory, and more.
A major objective is to build relationships among people who work in diverse ways at the frontiers of democracy in the United States and around the world.
