I just want to put in a plug for Tony Judt’s book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which I finished a few weeks ago. It’s a sweeping, comprehensive essay about politics, economics, popular culture, high culture, diplomacy, and society in Europe from Ireland to Belarus, from 1945 to 2005. Judt provides no references and quotes relatively sparely, so the narration is uncluttered and un-academic; it moves along at an exhilarating pace. Judt long ago abandoned the grand theoretical frameworks of Marxism and Zionism that he held in his youth, and Postwar is a model of history as a set of concrete, particularistic, contingent episodes (one damn thing after another). Many of the trends in modern European history emrge as fairly accidental–political integration is the best example.

Judt is certainly not value-neutral; in fact, he is a firm moralist with humane and classically liberal judgments–and no tolerance for the deeply intolerant.

A few large conclusions surprised me. Mikhail Gorbachev emerges as a pivotal figure, whose discretionary choices as General Secretary sent Europe on one course when it could have gone in quite different directions. I don’t think Judt subscribes to a Great Man Theory of History–no other individual in the book plays a similar role. But Judt does deny that the peaceful collapse of communism was inevitable, or that it was brought down by US policy or anti-Communist dissidents. He thinks Gorbachev took it down, which would make the former Soviet leader one of the great figures of all time.

The differences among European social welfare states emerged as more important than I had realized. The French nationalized major industries to control employment and wages (and then privatized once they had an officially Socialist government). The Scandinavians, on the other hand, never nationalized but taxed income and spent liberally on individual entitlements. The British government directly provided health care when the Germans and most other continentals relied on private delivery.

On the other hand, certain similarities between communist states and western democracies struck me. Judt is unsparing in his criticism of the purges, the environmental devastation, the human waste, and the general tyranny of communism. But the Warsaw Pact states operated in the same financial and commodities markets as the West and experienced some of the same ups and downs. They also experienced similar generational changes. They were governed until the sixties by old men who had been formed before World War One, and then changed when a new cohort of people took over whose formative experiences had been in the fifties.

Judt’s wide scope takes in parts of Europe often ignored (by people like me), such as the southern Balkans, the eastern Slavic lands, Portugal, and southern Italy. Postwar is partly the story of amazingly rapid modernization, spreading from northwest Europe outward. A comparison to contemporary China seems appropriate.

Postwar ends with a thoughtful essay about what Europe is like today and where it seems to be headed. Judt is aware of the frailties of the European Union and the challenges of the present, including how to deal humanely and justly with immigration and how to serve the young appropriately when populations are predominantly old. Yet he sees tremendous potential in this huge zone of economically integrated democratic states. For all the talk of China (or India) as the great power of the next century, I would not be surprised if Old Europe actually dominates.

(This is piece originally ran today on the Huffington Post.)

About one in five young citizens (20% of those between the ages of 18 and 29) voted in this year’s election. About nine million young citizens voted. Their turnout rate and sheer number of youth votes is down somewhat from 2006–a statistically significant decline but not one of tremendous magnitude.

If you care about youth voting–as a manifestation of democracy and a bellwether of future participation–you should take some comfort in the fact that young adults voted at roughly the same rate as usual in a midterm election. You should reject exaggerations about the size of the decline, especially after four consecutive federal elections in which youth turnout rose.

On the other hand, youth turnout is low compared to what we should want in a great democracy. At best, about one in three young adults vote even in the most engaging midterms, and they skew toward the most privileged youth. Arguably, we need a game-changing event or movement to increase turnout to a whole different level. If you were hoping that 2008 was such an event, yesterday’s results may be discouraging. It is time to ask whether the millions of young people who were deeply engaged in the 2008 campaign could have been invited to engage more in governance once the election was over. I offered some suggestions about how to do that in a January Huffington Post piece.

If you are excited about the Millennial Generation (those born after 1984), you should stay excited. They are an appealing group, with high levels of volunteering and a record of strong turnout in 2004 and 2008. They are already producing creative and skillful leaders. They are the most diverse generation in American history and they have other important assets, such as skills with media and technology. They certainly care about issues and the future of their country. Significant numbers of them specifically care about political participation and worked round the clock to mobilize their peers.

On the other hand, yesterday’s election (with its 20 percent turnout rate) reminds us that generational change cannot explain everything. Participation rises and falls from one election to the next. Members of the same generation vote very differently depending on their state, their race, class, and gender, and their politics. As a whole group, today’s young people are not sharply different from their predecessors. The arrival of the Millennials will not restore American democracy, although it provides opportunities.

If you are a Democrat, you should not blame young people. They did turn out at fairly typical rates and they supported Democratic candidates, on the whole. Nationwide, in House races, 56% of young people voted for Democratic candidates and 40% voted for Republican candidates. Republicans did somewhat better than in 2008 but much worse than in 1994, 1998, 2000, and 2002, when they ran neck-and-neck with Democrats for the youth vote. Earlier today, Bill Wimsatt wrote on the Huff Post, “for four national elections in a row, young voters continue to be the most progressive segment of the population — and the most progressive generation on record since exit polling began in 1972.”

In virtually every state, young adults were the most Democratic age group. For example, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) won 58% of the under-30 vote but only 44% of seniors. Ron Paul (R) won the Kentucky Senate race easily, but he lost the under-30s by three points. Indiana and Louisiana are exceptions: the Republican Senatorial candidates in those states won the youth vote and performed better with young adults than they did with Gen-Xers (ages 30-44).

If you are a Republican, you are entitled to celebrate the election as a whole, but you should give some thought to youth. They represent the future and they did not vote Republican except in the reddest of red states. Even though some young people lean libertarian, the Kentucky results suggest that libertarian Republican candidates have gained little traction so far with the younger generation. The Tea Party is probably a turnoff for young people–if not because they disagree with its policy positions, then because it doesn’t reflect a diverse and future-oriented image of America.

If you are any kind of political leader, you should think hard about the way the last election was played: with a barrage of expensive, negative advertising targeted to specific demographic groups, especially the elderly, and encouraging fear. That style can sometimes win elections but it is no way to engage young Americans.

Here are some preliminary figures on campaign spending for 2010: numbers will rise with the next round of disclosures.

Independent expenditures are those disclosed to the FEC through Oct. 31 and compiled by the Washington Post. TV spending is based on actual purchases of advertising time, as measured by Kantar Media (inc.) and reported in The New York Times. The bars for campaign spending refer to disbursements reported to the FEC as shown on the FEC’s website today. These categories are not mutually exclusive: TV spending is a subset of campaign spending.

Note that both the Democrats and the Republicans are spending right about 37% of their campaign money on television. It’s interesting to compare that strategic choice to the pre-Internet era. According to the Congressional Research Service (PDF), “major-party Senate candidates in 1992 spent 42% of their funds on electronic media advertising. … Major party House candidates that year spent 27% of their resources on electronic media. These percentage levels were similar in both 1990 and 1994.” These estimates from the 1990s include TV and radio air time, plus production costs and media consultants, whereas I show only TV time above. Thus it appears that candidates are now spending a higher proportion of their money on TV than they used to, but not a much higher proportion. That may surprise people who believe that TV has decreasing importance–or perhaps campaigns are misspending their money.

It may also surprise many Democrats that their side is ahead in independent expenditures and not far behind in total campaign expenditures (i.e., Senate and House campaigns combined). Putting those two categories together, Democrats and pro-Democratic groups are $36 million behind the Republicans, which is equivalent to about five percent of their total resources.

In today’s New York Times, Damien Cave quotes me:

“[Young voters] were emotionally invested,” said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. “Somehow that should have been turned into, for Democrats, a revival of progressive policy, and in a neutral way, a revival of democracy starting with young people.”

“So far, it hasn’t happened,” he added.

I agree with my own quote, but I’d broaden the picture with some additional points:

• The youth turnout rate (which CIRCLE will calculate by 10 am on November 3) will not prove that there was anything wrong with the administration’s policies and strategies. We don’t know if it will be higher or lower than the average for midterm elections, but it will probably be in the usual range. If it happens to be down from 2006, that can be explained in many ways, including economic factors.
• Some young people are engaged, perhaps more than usual for a midterm election (although that remains to be seen). And there is a robust and skillful movement of nonprofits, mostly non-partisan and mostly led by young adults, that has been working like mad to energize young people and that uses smart, tested strategies. So nobody should be saying that there is anything wrong with young people today or with youth voting organizations.
• But the US has the worst turnout of any major democracy, and the Americans who vote (regardless of age) are unrepresentative of the population. That is a serious problem that demands the attention of major institutions, which should employ creative, innovative solutions. Roughly $4 billion will be spent on this election, and very few of the people and companies behind that spending are trying to engage young people.
• The Obama Administration, to its great credit, expanded AmeriCorps and kept it strictly and truly nonpartisan. That’s great, but it doesn’t increase political participation. The administration has also done things for young people, like allow them to stay on their parents’ health insurance. And the president has tried to talk to young people, on the Daily Show and elsewhere.
• But the Obama Administration has not tried to govern with young people, even though the Obama campaign won an election with young people. The lack of creativity, innovation, and investment seems disappointing.

Cave astutely notes, “Indeed, a look back at e-mails from Organizing for America as health care legislation developed does show a general approach that did little to focus on young people. E-mails dealt with telling supporters what to say, rather than asking for input — and as a result, many young people said, they stopped reading them.” (That was also true of some of us not-so-young people.)

Young activists would have been, in general, considerably to the left of the president on health care, climate change, and Afghanistan. That means that empowering them politically would have posed a risk for the White House. If they had been asked for input, they would have said, “Single Payer!” and that wasn’t going to pass.

On the other hand, there is a political risk to not getting pressure from your left flank if you’re a Democrat. FDR said that leadership is deciding which pressure to cave to, and the lack of pressure from the left has hurt this president’s ability to lead. Besides, I think the administration could have risked a dialogue with activists. Young people are fully capable of listening.

My final point: It’s not over yet. Young people can vote on Tuesday—they have that power and that right, regardless of what polls may predict. And after the election, they can still play a powerful role in governance.