Category Archives: Barack Obama

partisanship and civic renewal

In The American Prospect, Henry Farrell argues that partisan activity is helping to restore “civic engagement”–voting, discussing, and grassroots activism. This is ironic, in his view, since Barack Obama emerged out of a nonpartisan movement for civic renewal and presented himself as somewhat post-partisan on the campaign trail. In the 1990s, Obama had joined Robert Putnam’s Saguaro Seminar, one of the important gatherings of intellectuals who tended to view citizenship in deliberative or communitarian terms and who decried hyper-partisanship. According to Farrell, “when Barack Obama speaks about how citizens can transcend their political divisions to participate in projects of common purpose, he is drawing on the arguments and ideas from these intellectual debates of a decade ago.” Yet Obama won by tapping the energy of a highly partisan grassroots movement that may now challenge his administration from the left. “Scholars have misunderstood the basis of civil society,” Farrell claims. They have hoped for civility, deliberation, and solidarity when competition and debate are more to the point.

I personally believe strongly in the value of political parties, which have the motives and resources to draw people into politics. Parties also provide opportunities for activism and leadership and offer choices to voters on Election Day. As I told the Christian Science Monitor in 2006, “Polarization tends to be a mobilizing factor in getting out the vote.” At CIRCLE, we helped to organize randomized experiments of voter outreach with the goal that the parties would learn new techniques and compete more effectively for our target population (youth). I believe we and our colleagues had some influence on the parties and thereby helped boost turnout. We also funded a study that found that parties were under-investing in their young members. Again, our goal was to persuade them to become more effective.

Thus I wouldn’t say that Farrell reaches the wrong conclusions, but he does stereotype other scholars of citizenship. He writes, “None of the civic-decline academics, whether they focused on voter participation, social capital, or the quality of deliberation, saw much use for political parties or partisanship.” In fact, parties and competition got a lot of positive play within what Farrell calls the “academic movement to reverse civic decline.” His list of academics is selective, and some of the ones he mentions are favorable to parties. For instance, Theda Skocpol has written voluminously on parties; she advocates reforms to make them more participatory and competitive. Perhaps, as Farrell says, Robert Putnam “underplayed” the role of parties by depicting them “as merely one form of civic participation among many”–but Putman took a communitarian line that many of his colleagues criticized. For instance, what about Bill Galston, who is not only a political scientist who favors reforms to enhance party competition, but also an active strategist for the Democratic Party? Or what about Barack Obama, who has moved strategically from nonpartisan community organizing to elected office?

Jane Mansbridge was a participant in the discussions that Farrell briefly recounts (including a well-known meeting with President Clinton); and she is perhaps the most famous critic of a narrow definition of “politics” as party competition. Her great early book is entitled Beyond Adversary Democracy. Yet a quick online search of her work yields characteristic passages like this one (pdf):

    Because there are good arguments for the electoral connection, I would never suggest

    replacing it. I suggest only that we stress elections less and supplement them with other

    forms of citizen interaction with the state. Elections are irreplaceable in democracy at the

    very least because parties organize opinion and crystallize issues in the electoral process,

    electoral campaigns discover and bring out issues and information that the other side

    would like to hide, and, most importantly, votes for representatives have some effect on

    political outcomes and are thus deeply legitimating.

Compared to Mansbridge, political scientists like Steven Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Diana Mutz, Dan Shea, Nina Eliasoph, Marshall Ganz, and Sidney Verba and colleagues are far more favorable to parties and sharp ideological debate. A particularly clear example is Nancy Rosenblum, who was a scholarly adviser to the National Commission on Civic Renewal, a ubiquitous participant in related discussions in the 1990s, and author of a book called On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship.

My own ideal is a variegated political ecosystem that provides opportunities for ideological and partisan competition as well as neutral fora for open-ended discussions and traditions of collaborating across party lines. These varieties of politics check and balance one another. They also provide individuals with choices–which is important because different circumstances and temperaments require different styles of participation.

I think Farrell might share this goal. He writes: “Political conflict between parties with clearly diverging political platforms has its own pathologies, just as does the bipartisan-consensus politics it is replacing.” This seems like a balanced view, much in keeping with the mainstream discussion of civic engagement. I only object to his effort to portray his own position as original and iconoclastic, when it is actually quite standard.

An emerging view seems to be that Barack Obama uses post-partisan rhetoric, either naively or vacuously, but his actual effectiveness is as a mobilizer of Democrats for liberal causes. In my interpretation, Obama has a richer and more comprehensive idea of “politics” than we have seen for a long time, from either left or right. His ability to see the value of parties and trans-partisan networks was one reason his campaign was so successful. It was also characteristic of the academic discussion that was one of his many influences.

Rick Warren at the Inauguration

I thought Frank Rich’s response to the Rick Warren controversy was very strange. In the New York Times, Rich wrote that asking Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration “was a conscious–and glib–decision by Obama to spend political capital. It was made with the certitude that a leader with a mandate can do no wrong.” It was, Rich said, rather like George W. Bush’s high-handed dismissal of moderate and liberal voters at the outset of his administration. And “we all know how that turned out.”

I would have thought exactly the opposite. Obama seeks to obtain political capital by inviting a conservative evangelical to speak at his inaugural, thus reassuring Americans who think that the President Elect is a Muslim, or else secular and hyper-liberal. He might also hope to peel some conservative voters away from the Republican coalition. Far from arrogant or spendthrift, this was a rather calculated, cautious, and defensive political move. The people it might offend (i.e., supporters of gay rights) are outnumbered by the people it might attract; and more to the point, the former have nowhere else to go, whereas the latter are potential swing voters. If I were criticizing Obama, I would assail him for unprincipled caution rather than arrogance.

My actual views are more ambivalent. I do understand that it’s hurtful to give a ceremonial role at a public event to a person who is not only against gay marriage, but who compares legalizing it to legalizing incest. I suppose a rough equivalent would be an anti-Semitic speaker–but gays are far more victimized by discrimination and violence than Jews are in modern America. So that’s a big argument against inviting Rick Warren.

On the other hand:

1. The political advantages are considerable, since evangelicals really could splinter, and liberals could pick up their votes. The Bible is not for tax cuts; the Bible is for stewardship, education, and the poor.

2. Warren used words about gay marriage that are indefensible (and that he apparently regrets), but his actual position cannot be considered beyond the pale. Most Americans share that position. Warren also shares with most Americans the opinion that religious scriptures are authoritative. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are pretty strongly against gay marriage. I could make a theological argument in favor of gay marriage, basing my position on a certain reading of the whole biblical canon. That reading would be tendentious, although sincere. I think Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor, is entitled to his more traditional and more straightforward reading of a text that he is entitled to use as his guide.

3. This invitation has hurt people, and I am sorry about that. It has also opened some healthy conversations, such as the one between Rick Warren and Melissa Etheridge. Bishop Gene Robinson and others have noted that an invocation is not a dialog or a deliberation. Robinson said, “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table, … but we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” I would respond that Warren shouldn’t be excluded for praying to the wrong God (if that even makes sense); and that asking him to speak was an indirect way of bringing him to the table on this issue.

There are several kinds of politics at work here. Gays are rightly trying to develop a public identity and asking for it to be favorably received. From the perspective of that “politics of identity and recognition,” Warren’s invitation is harmful. Meanwhile, Obama is trying to develop and expand social programs. For that “politics of distribution,” the Warren invitation is smart. And various people are discussing a controversial issue: gay marriage. The Warren invitation is a spur to that “politics of deliberation.” Much depends on which we think is most important. It’s not surprising that Frank Rich would opt for the first choice, since he is an almost perfect representative of liberal identity politics. What I do find surprising is his failure even to notice the other kinds of politics in this case.

work, not service

Candidate Barack Obama, July 2:

    “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 one program—this will be a central cause of my presidency.”

President Elect Barack Obama, Nov. 22:

    “We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels; fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

These two statements seemed to be about different topics. The first was an argument for increasing the number of federally-funded civilian “service” slots to as many as 250,000; the second announced a plan to create or save 2.5 million full-time jobs, mostly in the private sector. The first makes us think of unpaid volunteering or short-term, low-paid positions in nonprofits and government agencies. The second conjures images of permanent, salaried employees in labs or on corporate assembly lines. “Service” is about personal values: patriotism, civic virtue, caring, or helping–a “thousand points of light.” Job programs are about macroeconomic growth and take-home pay for hard-working Americans.

I think the two ideas should be combined, and “work,” not “service,” should be the hallmark of “active citizenship” in the Obama Administration. I have never been very enthusiastic about service on its own. It is marginal–a lower priority than one’s job or family, something to do after work, on special occasions, or during adolescence or retirement. People involved in service tend to be congratulated and thanked regardless of their impact, whereas workers are expected to get the job done. Service makes the recipients look weak and needy, whereas work is an exchange for mutual benefit.

Service programs, such as Americorps, can certainly be great for the volunteers and the community. But that is because they provide work, albeit with a strong and commendable element of civic education for the workers. Meanwhile, a full-time, paid job in the private sector can also be “active citizenship,” if we allow, support, and encourage the employees to work on public problems (such as modernizing schools or building wind farms).

As I wrote here recently, the Obama Administration can restore a New Deal version of liberalism whose central task is to put people to work for the public good. Private sector jobs are part of that, especially if federal subsidies, incentives, or mandates steer these jobs toward public purposes. Public sector careers at every level, military service, and civilian service programs such as Americorps are also important. So is an educational system that prepares people for public work. Students will need a strong dose of civic education so that they can discuss and define the public problems that they choose to address as workers. It is not enough to prepare them for an increasingly competitive job market; they also need to shape that market for public purposes.

I would admire this form of liberalism at any time, because of its ethical conception of the citizen as an active, creative agent. But today seems an especially appropriate moment to bring back the New Deal conception. We need jobs programs for standard economic reasons; and our newly elected president has pledged to make “active citizenship … a central cause.”

the core principle of a presidential administration

(On the USAir Shuttle to DC) I think the most important question about presidential candidates is not what kind of people they seem to be or what they promise to do if elected, but rather how they view the relationship between individuals and the government. Their characters are hard to assess from afar and will change in office; their policy proposals will also shift. But poor presidents always have vague, incoherent, or downright bad ideas about how citizens and the government should relate. Great presidents are elected with compelling new visions of this relationship, and they make those visions real.

Ronald Reagan’s core idea was that the valuable aspects of life were private and voluntary. The most salient fact about the government was that it compelled people to pay for it. So compulsion was at the heart of the relationship. Soldiers and police officers had moral standing because they put their lives at risk to protect the American private sphere. Their use of force and tax money was therefore legitimate. Otherwise, “government is not the solution to our problem[s]; government is the problem.”

Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush on the platform that government should help people who were suffering economically. So helping was central to the relationship. As Clinton said in his 1992 acceptance speech, “We have got to … give our people the kind of government they deserve, a government that works for them. A President, a president, ought to be a powerful force for progress.” Government could best help if it were efficiently and skillfully managed. Clinton was a generally successful manager and employed a lot of smart people to help Americans lead safer and more prosperous private lives. He also created new ways for citizens to engage–through AmeriCorps–but the work volunteers were called to do was almost always “service” in the sense of helping the unfortunate.

For Jimmy Carter, in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam, the salient aspect of the relationship between citizens and the government was trust. Trust had been violated; Carter promised to restore it by acting honorably in the White House. “I will never lie to you” was his signature campaign line.

For FDR, I think an essential aspect of the relationship was work. People were literally without work in 1932, and FDR offered to hire many of them. From the WPA and CCC to the US Military in World War II, the New Deal was government-as-employer. Even those Americans who were never paid by the government (the vast majority, of course) were supposed to work on public problems. That was the New Deal ideal.

Barack Obama launched his campaign by addressing citizens’ relationship with government and he never stopped talking about it. It even came up in his 30-minute TV ad. I thought this theme was under-reported, even though it is always the most important question about a presidential candidate, and Obama has a distinctive view.

Obama’s core idea is that citizens are at the center of politics. Not private individuals, not the government, not politicians, but people working together in public, on public matters. Campaigning in New Hampshire in 2006, he said, “There’s a wonderful saying by Justice Louis Brandeis once, that the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen. … All of us have a stake in this government, all of us have responsibilities, all of us have to step up to the plate.”

Obama broke away from the helping model that still guided Hilary Clinton and from the privatism that was the main theme of modern conservatism. On the campaign trail, he modeled his new conception in two important ways–by making his campaign maximally participatory (pushing power out to the network) and by lowering the partisan temperature a notch. He is a Democrat and he was willing to debate and compete with Republicans. But he never seemed to relish this difference. The reason is that citizens are both liberal and conservative, and they need to work together to solve any serious problems. Competition is appropriate in a campaign, but campaigning is a role for politicians, and they are not the heart of politics.

There is a good fit between Obama’s vision and the New Deal, insofar as Roosevelt supported “public work” (in my friend Harry Boyte’s phrase). That is why national and community service programs may play a role in today’s financial crisis like the CCC and WPA in the early thirties. Obama talks more about listening and collaborating than Roosevelt did; FDR was a happy warrior on the campaign trail. But the country is different now. The Internet is the guiding metaphor instead of the factory floor. It will be fascinating to see what citizen-centered politics and public work mean in the Internet age.

a new progressive era?

A reporter asked me yesterday whether a hypothetical Obama victory might mark the beginning of a “new progressive era” (which happens to be the title of my 2000 book). It occurs to me that, yes, we might see a new progressive era, as long as we understand that phrase in a certain way.

In my view, the original Progressive Era was not defined by one agenda or set of policies, such as the launch of new federal regulatory agencies. It was defined by some very vigorous debates among people who called themselves progressives but had quite different orientations. They all agreed about some problems, such as the human suffering and environmental degradation that accompanied industrialization. But they disagreed profoundly about such essential matters as the role of expertise versus citizen participation; the conflict between centralized and local power; the value of cultural pluralism as opposed to some kind of unified natural culture; the organization and methods of the press; and the proper role of “special interests” (including unions, parties, and ethic associations) versus nonpartisan “public interest” associations such as the League of Women Voters. People who called themselves “progressives” could actually take diametrically opposite positions on these issues.

So a New Progressive Era would mean a reopening of such debates among people who were generally dissatisfied with the performance of the market but who disagreed about other important matters. Like their Progressive forebears, they would have to invent or develop new institutions and modes of social organization appropriate to a new economy. In general, these new institutions should be flatter and more open than the bureaucracies of the mid-20th century.

It’s my sense–perhaps it’s only my hope–that Barack Obama would stand on the side of his Midwestern Progressive forebears, people like Jane Addams and Robert LaFollette, as opposed to the technocrats of the Progressive Era (most of whom happened to be Easterners). One could trace a lineage from Addams to Obama, two organizers of Chicago neighborhoods, although obviously Obama has had many other influences.

I thought that the central questions of the Progressive Era figured in the primary campaign between Obama and Clinton. Obama took the populist side when he expressed skepticism about a national health system and when he argued that it was the grassroots Civil Rights Movement that had achieved voting rights in the 1960s, from the bottom up. Clinton, in contrast, had tried to create a complex, expert-driven, national health-care system in the 1990s. She dropped that goal only for pragmatic reasons. In debating the Civil Rights Era with Obama, she argued that professional politicians had played an essential role. Neither position is obviously wrong; but I found the difference interesting.

In the 1912 presidential campaign, the progressives were Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Robert M. LaFollette. All three went on the record decrying centralization, arrogant professionalism, bureaucracy, and the loss of neigbourly community. But Wilson’s administration (1913-1921) permanently increased the power of experts and bureaucrats in Washington. LaFollette criticized this trend from the Senate, but he had lost the presidential campaign, and his own home state of Wisconsin drifted in a technocratic direction while he worked in Washington. We never had the opportunity to see what a Midwestern populist pluralist would do if he actually won the White House.