(Written in Oxford, OH): There is already too much post-Iowa punditry, but here are two points I would stress:
If we assume that there was some deliberation in Iowa (and not much peer-pressure), then we face a classic tradeoff. The Caucuses are especially valuable forms of democratic participation, but also especially difficult: lengthy, complicated, and “socially awkward.” Thus they trade quantity of participation for quality. This is often a choice in the design of democratic institutions.
We’re working on a press release to report that young people (ages 18-29) quadrupled their turnout in the Iowa Caucuses, compared to 2000. They voted at considerably higher rates than the 30-44 age group and represened almost as big a proportion of Caucus goers (17%) as of adult Iowa citizens (20%). If youth always participated at this rate, the 40 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 would be a major voting bloc.
There’s another lesson for those of us who are interested in youth participation: young people may vote, but they aren’t predictable. Slate quotes one Dean precinct captain who said, “I think if we could blame [Dean’s loss] on anyone, blame it on the 18- to 25-year-olds, because they were nonexistent.” Actually, they existed, and they turned out, but 35% of them went for Kerry and only 25% for Dean.
I often ask myself this question as I arrive at work, since my office is in a building dominated by a business school. I’m all for programs that train effective business executives. But should these programs be subsidized by state universities and nonprofit institutions? Should they use academic norms such as tenure and peer-review? Why not just have for-profit training academies? There may be a great case for academic business schools, but I’m not sure.
Along with the Council for Excellence in Government, my organization, CIRCLE, will release a new poll of young Americans on Thursday. So I’ve spent a lot of my time helping to analyze the poll results and figure out a strategy for persuading the press to pay attention (even during the run-up to the Iowa Caucuses).
This blog celebrated its first anniversary on Jan. 8, although I forgot to mark the day with an entry. (You can click here for the very first post.) Just a few days before I began to blog, I had moderated a conference panel on “communitarian approaches to cyberspace.” Amitai Etzioni had selected the speakers, who included two of the most prominent–and best–bloggers in America: Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds. I knew about blogs, but I didn’t recognize these people. Before the panel, I had quickly looked them up on their respective universities’ websites, saw nothing about their blogs, and therefore failed to mention what makes them both most famous. The panel discussion naturally focused on blogs and strengthened my feeling that I’d like to get into the game myself. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who reacted that way. The two other invited speakers were Jack Balkin and Amitai himself. Balkin started his fine blog on Jan. 10, 2003; Etizioni’s equally good one was launched a few months later in ’03.
(Incidentally, I don’t see blogs as having very much to do with community in cyberspace. I deeply appreciate the frequent visitors to this site who leave posts or send me email, and I look frequently to see what they’re up to online. In a couple of cases, they have volunteered invaluable assistance or advice. Nevertheless, I doubt that any of us would describe those occasional exchanges as a “community.”)