Monthly Archives: April 2015

America’s Civic Renewal Movement: The View from Organizational Leaders

With support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Eric Liu—the founder and CEO of Citizen University and executive director of the Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program—and I interviewed 20 key organizational leaders about strategies to expand civic engagement in the United States. Our new paper is: Peter Levine and Eric Liu, “America’s Civic Renewal Movement: The View from Organizational Leaders” (Medford, MA: Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship & Public Service, 2015).

Interviewees agreed that the nation faces polarization, corruption, and weakened civic capacity. David McKinney from the Alliance for Children and families observed: “Everyone is sick-and-tired of hyper-partisanship,” and we need “stories of leaders and their lives, folks that are doing the work in ways that are trying to cut through.” Anna Galland from MoveOn said, “Right now, our government is captive to lobbyists with money to spend.” Paul Schmidt of Ducks Unlimited observed that “the need and desire for affiliation has eroded.”

Most interviewees thought that citizens would have to play a major role in reversing these declines. John Bridgeland of Civic Enterprises said that we need civic engagement “now, more than ever” because of the paralysis and dysfunction of government and changes in society such as emerging conflicts, gaps in education and social mobility, racial conflict, and divides over immigration.

Some organizations included in this study are large, some are ideologically diverse, some have a coherent and focused agenda, and some are deep (engaging their members in learning, growth, leadership, and voice). But no organization has managed to be large, deep, diverse, and focused.

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Furthermore, despite some working connections among these organizations, they do not yet form a coherent network. A simple network analysis of the connections that were either mentioned explicitly in the interviews or implied by the interviewees’ bios (for instance, when an individual holds leadership positions in two or more organizations) yielded the diagram below.

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In exemplary episodes from American history, such as the Civil Rights Movement, networks of organizations have managed to be large, deep, diverse, and focused.

The paper concludes with some recommendations for research and convening to strengthen today’s network for civic renewal. You can download the full report here.

Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg to lead CIRCLE

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I am thoroughly delighted about this announcement:

Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg has been named the new director of Tisch College’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

Dr. Kawashima-Ginsberg served as deputy director of CIRCLE since 2013, and has been a senior researcher with the team since 2008. She will be the third director in CIRCLE’s 14-year history, succeeding Peter Levine, who will remain active with CIRCLE while overseeing all of Tisch College’s research in his role as Associate Dean, and founding director William A. Galston, now of the Brookings Institution.

“It’s truly a privilege to serve as CIRCLE’s next director. I look forward to helping deepen our collective expertise and impact on opportunities for civic and political development among young people who are marginalized or disadvantaged,” said Kawashima-Ginsberg. “These young people are virtually shut out of public life, and our research can help identify barriers, test solutions, and transform the dialogue about the engagement of young people in our country.”

Kawashima-Ginsberg brings her extensive experience overseeing CIRCLE’s core research projects and producing resources, scholarly works, and reports for practitioners and researchers alike. With a background in positive youth development and an interest in diverse and marginalized youth, Kawashima-Ginsberg is primed to bring a sharpened focus to this important dimension of CIRCLE’s work. She is ideally prepared to provide organizations, communities, and the public with research that will increase civic and political learning and engagement opportunities.

Among her research projects at CIRCLE, Kawashima-Ginsberg has led studies on the leadership and political development of women and girls, the social class divide in the extracurricular experiences of youth, and the diversity of Millennials.

“Kei is the perfect choice to lead the next phase of CIRCLE’s development,” said Levine. “Her impressive background in youth development brings an important perspective to our work. She has been our lead researcher since 2008 and played an essential role in all of our activities. Many colleagues, both practitioners and scholars, already know her as a superb scholar and leader. I am excited to continue to work with her as she takes CIRCLE in important new directions.”

As Tisch College’s Associate Dean for Research, Levine will remain active in CIRCLE’s research and will support the organization.

Kawashima-Ginsberg earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with Specialization in Children and Families from Loyola University Chicago and has extensive experience in working with youth of diverse backgrounds both as a researcher and practitioner.

As it says above, I will remain deeply involved with CIRCLE–and more broadly with the research of Tufts’ University’s Tisch College of Citizenship, of which CIRCLE is a key part. In fact, my time commitment will not diminish. At the same time, Kei will be the true leader of CIRCLE, and that represents an enormous opportunity to develop and strengthen the organization in the service of youth civic engagement.

Hillary Clinton should name a VP nominee soon

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The 2016 Democratic nominating contest looks unprecedented so far. The party has neither an incumbent president with a VP already in place, nor a competitive field of potential nominees, each ready to step up if anyone else falters. Instead, the Democrats have one candidate who is so far ahead in her own party’s primary race that she resembles an incumbent president, but no one is obviously ready to replace her should she hit a major obstacle.

By the way, I am not predicting that anything will happen to her. She seems healthy enough, and most of her past has already been relentlessly vetted. But she is human and she could face a crisis in the 19 months before Election Day. Democrats have serious grounds to worry that if something does happen to Clinton, they would be left without a plausible nominee at all.

If, on the other hand, she were to name a VP candidate soon, then a strong replacement would be ready should she have to withdraw for any reason. Meanwhile, she would have a second Democratic heavyweight to campaign with her for 19 months (possibly someone who would otherwise have been a competitor). Finally, the announcement could counteract any drawbacks to Clinton’s candidacy, such as her age and her reputation as a classic insider.

There are obvious drawbacks to naming a VP more than a year before the customary date:

1. It would look arrogant. It would indicate that Clinton thinks she is positioned like an incumbent president. But she could address that impression directly, saying that she learned the hard way in 2008 that her nomination is hardly inevitable. There are other likely Democratic candidates, and she realizes that one of them could defeat her. She has simply chosen to share her VP choice with the public early; other candidates can do the same.

2. She would miss the “bounce” that usually follows a VP announcement roughly five months before the election. That is correct, but it’s called a “bounce” for a reason. It doesn’t last. VP nominations have only mattered in a negative way; a few choices have hurt the ticket on Election Day. No one had gotten a clear benefit that has lasted until November.

3. She might make a bad choice. Her prospective VP might prove a weak candidate or have a major vulnerability. But that would also be a problem if she made the choice in the summer of 2016. There is no substitute for choosing wisely.

Finally, a disclaimer: This is a tactical suggestion. It is not an endorsement. I have serious misgivings about Hillary Clinton and am hoping for a real choice in the primary campaign. Here I simply suggest that it’s in her own interest for Clinton to make a VP choice soon.

alienation from politics in Europe

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I have been invited to speak in Spain on “youth alienation from politics” this June. I have no doubt that if you ask young people in any of the wealthy democracies what they think of politics, you will get negative responses. But the question remains whether that is a special phenomenon of youth in the present moment, of youth at all times, or of all people in the present moment.

The European Social Survey asks respondents whether they trust politicians. Respondents are offered a 10-point scale, and after some experimentation, I have divided the subjects into those who gave scores between 0-5 and those who said 6-10. The available data come from even-numbered years between 2002 and 2012:

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Note, first, that not many people rate politicians 6 or higher on a 10-point scale. That is not exactly startling news. Second, all age groups were more positive in 2002, less so by 2010, and somewhat more trusting again in 2012. Finally, the four major age groups show the same trends. If you wanted to identify a generational difference, you might note that seniors lost less trust between 2002 and 2004–possibly buffered from the recession by national retirement programs. The young are currently the most trusting, albeit not by much.

This graph is evidence that there isn’t really a phenomenon of youth distrust in politics in Europe. The distrust is shared. That said, I should note two caveats. First, the span of years shown above is short; it would be interesting to know how a similar question would have been answered in 1988 or 1966. Second, I didn’t track the same birth cohorts over time. People aged 14-29 in 2002 were 24-39 a decade later. It is conceivable that tracking birth cohorts would reveal a significant difference between those born in 1982 versus 1992–but that seems unlikely given the lack of a relationship between age and trust.

Frontiers of Democracy 2015

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Frontiers of Democracy 2015
June 25-27
145 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111

To register and hold a place at the 2015 conference, please use this form. The conference venue is in downtown Boston, easily accessible from hundreds of hotels. Participants are responsible for arranging their own lodgings.

While powerful forces work against justice and civil society around the world, committed and innovative people strive to understand and improve citizens’ engagement with government, with community, and with each other. Every year, Frontiers of Democracy convenes some of these practitioners and scholars for organized discussions and informal interactions. Topics include deliberative democracy, civil and human rights, social justice, community organizing and development, civic learning and political engagement, the role of higher education in democracy, Civic Studies, media reform and citizen media production, civic technology, civic environmentalism, and common pool resource management. Devoted to new issues and innovative solutions, this conference is truly at the frontiers of democracy.

Most of Frontiers is devoted to interactive discussions and learning exchanges, but we do offer very short, provocative, invited talks. The “Short Takes” speakers for 2015 will include, among others:

Harry Boyte leads the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College. Boyte has been an architect of a “public work” approach to civic engagement and democracy promotion, a conceptual framework on citizenship that has gained world-wide recognition for its theoretical innovations and its practical effectiveness.

Hahrie Han teaches political science at Wellesley College. His two most recent books are How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century and Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.1 Million Activists Transformed Field Campaigns in America (co-authored with Elizabeth McKenna)

Diana E. Hess is Senior Vice President of the Spencer Foundation and Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her most recent book, with Paula McAvoy, is The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education.

Caroline W. Lee teaches sociology at Lafayette College. Her most recent books include Do-it-Yourself Democracy, based on her ethnography of the public engagement industry, and Democratizing Inequalities, an edited volume with Ed Walker and Mike McQuarrie about the dramatic expansion of democratic practices in an era of stark economic inequalities.

Abhi Nemani is currently the first Chief Data Officer for the City of Los Angeles. Formerly, he helped build, launch, and run the national non-profit, Code for America.

Ajume Wingo teaches philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder. His last book is entitled Veil Politics in Liberal Democratic States, and he is collaborating with Michael Kruse on The Citizen, a book about how Africans can move beyond where their history has put them and begin to make their own future and secure their own political freedom.

Brenda Wright is Vice President of Legal Strategies at Demos. She has led many progressive legal and policy initiatives on voting rights, campaign finance reform, redistricting, election administration and other democracy and electoral reform issues and is a nationally known expert in these areas.

Frontiers is sponsored by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship at Tufts University, which is the host, along with the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and The Democracy Imperative.