Two friends have recently published HuffingtonPost articles that testify to the importance of civic relationships. I’ve argued that civic relationships form between people–not close friends or relatives–who talk, listen, and work together on public issues or problems, demonstrating a degree of loyalty (which means a commitment to collaborating with the other person, notwithstanding differences of interests and values).

Dorothy Stoneman, founder and CEO of YouthBuild USA (whose leadership programming we recently evaluated), writes:

Xavier Jennings, a graduate of the YouthBuild program sponsored by Mile High Conservation Corps in Denver, funded by the Department of Labor, vividly described the difficulties of his life living in public housing with his grandmother who was sick with heart disease and had lost her food-stamps because she could no longer travel to renew them. Surrounded on the streets by opportunities to make money selling drugs, he entered the lifestyle, got in trouble with the law, and was expelled from school. Nobody moved to help him, until a friend told him about YouthBuild, where he could earn money building affordable housing in the neighborhood while earning his diploma and preparing for college. A way to earn money, a diploma, and skills, sounded good. He joined.

He described a transformative moment that occurred in the first couple of weeks. He went with a crew of YouthBuild AmeriCorps students to renovate the back yard of a senior citizen. She didn’t welcome them warmly. He was sure their baggy pants caused her to stereotype them. But after the young people had restored her yard, she came out the back door with tears in her eyes, carrying a tray of cookies she had just made for them, thanking them from the bottom of her heart. Xavier also began to tear up, experiencing for the first time appreciation and respect rather than blame and rejection, from the same woman who seemed to scorn them when they arrived. That moment triggered his decision to seize the opportunity to turn his life around and become a person who helped others.

And Harry Boyte, National Coordinator of the American Commonwealth Partnership, writes with  graduate student Hunter Gordon:

Grant Stevensen, former president of ISAIAH, a broad-based community organization in the Gamaliel Foundation network for which Obama worked 30 years ago, directs faith-based organizing for MN United. He thinks polarizing politics reflects patterns that are hard to break. “There used to be mediating institutions like union locals, neighborhood schools, PTAs, or congregations where people interacted with a lot of diversity. Now we’ve lost them. People’s public identities are thin. I think that’s why they are held to so strongly.”

But campaign organizers knew polarizing politics had been proven ineffectual by a string of defeats. “There was a lot of soul searching” about changing the approach, said one. Stevensen believes that “just about every aspect of our life drives us away from relationship and deep conversation, but we are very frustrated with being ‘talked at’ by campaigns. For starters, in developing a more people-centered politics, MN United talked to people on the other side to find out why they opposed gay marriage — for the first time in any of the controversies.

They discovered that the language of “rights” and “benefits” and “discrimination” used in earlier efforts had done little to change undecided voters. They also discovered that faith communities were full of diverse views on this issue — and none of the earlier efforts had organized among them.

This is one last session outline from the Summer Institute of Civic Studies. The course covered roughly 18 separate topics, and I blogged about half of them. The topic of this post is changing conceptions of citizenship in the US.

In the mid-1800s, 80 percent of eligible men might vote. Popular movements were loud, boisterous, and effective. Today, we have many more means of engaging with government, but we don’t use the old ways as much. Even a very good year sees turnout only around 60%.

Two perspectives on this change in our assigned readings

• Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen, introduction and chapter 5
• Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined its Citizens and Privatized the Public, pp. 1-46

Michael Schudson argues that the definition and content of citizenship has changed many times in American history. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions about whether the changes are good or bad, because they are embedded in different cultural moments. Crenson and Ginsberg paint a highly critical picture of the present.

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This afternoon, the Summer Institute of Civic Studies (a seminar of about 18 people) expands into a public conference: Frontiers of Democracy II: Innovations in Civic Practice, Theory and Education.  The conference will be live-streamed this Thursday through Saturday so you can watch it at your desk. At its heart will be a diverse set of rehearsed 10-minute talks on aspects of civic studies and democratic renewal, all of which will be live-streamed.

Speakers include grassroots practitioners, elected officials, scholars, civic advocates, a tech developer and more, from the U.S. and abroad. The entire schedule can be seen here.

You can watch and listen online here, as well as participate in the conversation by using the Twitter hashtag #demfront.

Frontiers of Democracy is a collaboration between the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, and the Democracy Imperative.

I am co-teaching the Summer Institute of Civic Studies and blogging about roughly half of the 18 topics on our syllabus. This post summarizes an important debate about the structure and ethic of government that also influences how citizens should see their roles. The readings are:

• Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism (second ed., 1979), pp. 42-63; 295-313
• Michael C. Dorf and Charles F. Sabel, “A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism,” with a focus on pp. 270-338

Consider two radically opposed perspectives on democracy (in general) and the American republic (in particular):

1. The essence of government is deliberation, leading to law.

Deliberation is about principles. It can be conducted by citizens or by legislators, or both. There should be one discussion within each polity, and it should be open to and followed by all.

Law means general, durable, consistent, equitable rules that are predictably and efficiently enforced.

Public deliberation should be about law and should result in the passage of major statutes that widely effect society.

Meanwhile, ordinary life in society can involve particular people and firms that make their own decisions, changing their minds, acting according to self-interest, and negotiating with others. The framework for their free action is set by law.

The problem with our republic is that we have lost the distinction between society and government. Government is now a venue for endless negotiation among interest groups about malleable policies (not about law, in the classic sense.) Private interests are too influential, and government behaves too much like a private interest or like a manager of interest-group negotiations. The rule of law, deliberation, and equity are lost.

2. Governance means all the ways we shape our common world. It involves (and ought to involve) constant experimentation, learning and adjustment, negotiation, compromise, and the use of many tools to influence society, including moral persuasion, information, monetary incentives, prizes, rules, punishments, etc.

The government is part of that; it is one instrument of governance. Far from unitary, it consists of many levels, agencies, branches, and offices. They inevitably negotiate and compromise with each other. People who work for the government also wear other hats, as activists, taxpayers, residents, etc. Successful government employees are “policy entrepreneurs,” selling their ideas in the marketplace.

The problem with our republic is the excessive distance between the government and other entities that affect our common life. That gap causes inefficiencies and mistrust. We need more public/private partnerships, more flexibility in government, and more market-like methods.

Theodore Lowi argues for the first perspective; Dorf and Sabel, for the second.

A specific problem has arisen that feeds this controversy. Whether we think of it as the problem of the regulatory state, administrative discretion, or delegation, this is the concern: our constitution invests all legislative authority in the Congress and envisions the president debating with Congress and then implementing the law. But in reality, a modern Congress uses law to create administrative or regulatory agencies with broad discretion and autonomy. Congress passes statutes, but regulations, administrative law decisions, and government contracts are pervasive aspects of governance, composing a “fourth branch.”

Laissez-faire conservatives oppose that whole system because of their economic theory, but they support the same style of governance in their own favored areas. Theodore Lowi argues that the emergence of the Fourth Branch is a symptom of deep corruption that undermines liberalism.

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