Monthly Archives: October 2018

youth on the brink of a watershed election

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My CIRCLE colleagues are on a roll. Since October 9, they have released three reports based on their original national survey of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24:

In addition, based on an entirely separate survey conducted with Opportunity Youth United (OYU) of 1,200 youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, they have released:

Some highlights, for me:

It doesn’t make sense to vote as a complete individual. If 100 million others will also vote–your voice is too small. But it does make sense to vote if you see yourself as part of a group that has a voice. CIRCLE asked whether “you are part of a group or movement that will vote to express its views.”  Just 37.2% of White men said yes, versus 59.5% of young Latinas, 54% of Black men, and 46% of White women. White men were also the one group of youth who plan to vote Republican.

Women and youth of color held views that could be described as more cynical about politics and politicians. But cynicism predicted higher turnout.

We find that young people who reported feeling more cynical are actually more likely to say they are voting than those who are not: 40% vs. 26%. Importantly, being cynical about politics is not preventing young people from recognizing its importance. More than half of youth in our poll (54.8%) agree that the outcome of the 2018 elections will have a direct impact on their everyday lives, only slightly lower than 60.0% in 2016, which is remarkable given that presidential elections are generally seen as much more consequential.

These findings would suggest that young women and people of color are more energized and motivated to vote than young white men are–and that may be true overall. But the barriers to voting fall most heavily on poor youth and youth of color:

Young people, especially those from low-income backgrounds, face logistical barriers to voting, each of which may seem small, but together can make voting difficult. These barriers include having to find out where their polling place is located, not having transportation to the polling place, and having to work around their job schedule—an obstacle compounded by the fact that many have more  than one job.

… For instance, a quarter of our participants had moved within the last 12 months, but of those, only 40% had changed their voter registration address. At the same time, laws and tools designed to facilitate voter participation, such as online registration and text reminders for voting, are not widely used by low-income youth.

… Many of our participants assumed (mostly incorrectly) that a variety of minor criminal offenses and past convictions would bar them from voting. For instance, when asked if someone who has a suspended driver’s license would be able to vote, 24% wrongly believed they could not, and another 42% did not know.

Some young people are apprehensive about going to the polling place because they rarely see people there that they can identify with 74% said they don’t see poll workers that “look like them,” and 87% said they do not see young people working at the polls. Relatively few actually experienced harassment at the polls, but 59% do not believe that election officials make an effort to ensure that people like them can vote.

Overall, it looks as if youth turnout will be a contest between motivated, angry, energized young people and our sometimes inaccessible and alienating electoral systems. I predict some improvement in youth turnout compared to recent midterm elections–with lots of room to improve in future years.

two approaches to social capital: Bourdieu vs. the American literature

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The phrase “social capital” is used in (at least) two very different senses and discussions.

One is an Anglophone discussion among social scientists who seem generally comfortable with a liberal market order. Important participants include James Coleman, Robert Putnam, Elinor Ostrom and (using the related phrase “collective efficacy”) Robert Sampson and Felton Earls. These social scientists understand social capital as the value that derives from collaborating and solving collective-action problems together. It’s measured by rates of joining, socializing, participating in the institutions of civil society, and trusting one’s peers. It can exist in any group, regardless of wealth and prestige. For instance, Sampson, Earls and their colleagues found that levels of collective efficacy varied greatly among Chicago neighborhoods, independent of race and class.

The central hypothesis in this literature is that higher social capital predicts better outcomes (safety, education, health, employment). This hypothesis is often proven in empirical studies. The deepest explanation is that these desirable outcomes are public goods, subject to problems of collective action, and social capital is the capacity—inherent in a group—to address problems of collective action successfully. For instance, safe streets represent a public good, and when people voluntarily maintain order, the streets are safer.

The other discourse is loosely Marxian and of Continental European origin; the most influential theorist is Pierre Bourdieu. For Bourdieu, social capital can only be understood in relation to economic capital and cultural capital. All three forms are the result of past labor, which accumulates or materializes in forms that can then be owned and by–and used to the advantage of–specific individuals or closed groups, such as firms.

Economic capital means ownership, or the ability to own, the means of production (factories, offices, farms, mines). Cultural capital means personal characteristics that you can learn in order to set yourself apart as a member of an advantaged group. For example, if you know how to dress for and behave at a corporate job interview, you have acquired cultural capital. And social capital means membership in any group that has value for those who belong.

Thus a paradigm case of social capital for Bourdieu is being connected to specific aristocrats in a way that puts you within the group known as “the nobility.” You might be a poor and boorish noble: then you would have social capital without much economic or cultural capital. Still, each of the three pays off in ways that are fundamentally economic.

For Coleman et al., the effort required to build social capital is at least partly altruistic. When you try to help others around you, it turns out that you benefit as well from the public resource of social capital. Social capital is non-rivalrous or win/win. If poor people in Chicago build more social capital, that does no harm to Lake Shore millionaires. It might even reduce their tax burdens by boosting graduation rates and cutting crime in the city as a whole.

The Bourdieuian form of social capital is competitive and maybe even zero-sum. If you form a connection to an aristocrat that gives you a leg up in society, I am less advantaged. According to Bourdieu, people build social capital to advance their own interests, strategically targeting others who have various forms of capital to add to their networks:

The existence of a network of connections is not a natural given …  It is the product of an endless effort at institution. … In other words, the network of relationships is the product of investment strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciously aimed at establishing or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in the short or long term. …

The reproduction of social capital presupposes an unceasing effort of sociability, a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed. … This is one of the factors which explain why the profitability of this labor of accumulating and maintaining social capital rises in proportion to the size of the capital. Because the social capital accruing from a relationship is that much greater to the extent that the person who is the object of it is richly endowed with capital (mainly social, but also cultural and even economic capital), the possessors of an inherited social capital, symbolized by a great name, are able to transform all circumstantial relationships into lasting connections. They are sought after for their social capital and, because they are well known, are worthy of being known (‘I know him well’); they do not need to ‘make the acquaintance’ of all their ‘acquaintances’; they are known to more people than they know, and their work of sociability, when it is exerted, is highly productive.

Although these theories are different, they could both apply in a society as a whole. After a discussion with students last week, I am inclined to the following hypotheses:

  1. Access to the highest rungs of socioeconomic advantage requires (or at least benefits from) Bourdieu-style social capital. If you want to get a seat on the Supreme Court, it seems almost necessary to attend Harvard’s or Yale’s law school, partly because of who you know as a result. Social capital may also get you into those law schools in the first place. For instance, I can think of someone who attended Law School on his way to federal judicial appointments; his mother had also been a judge, and his grandfather had attended Yale.
  2. Well-being in the middle and lower rungs depends on social capital in the Coleman/Putnam sense. If you are trying to get through high school and obtain some post-secondary education, get a job, stay out of jail, and live to the median age, it’s very helpful to be embedded in networks of cooperation and mutual support. Those networks have value even if the other members are not rich and powerful.

See also: David Brooks/Pierre Bourdieu, Bourdieu in the college admissions office, Chua and Rubenfeld, The Triple Package, social capital and economic mobility, “social capital”: political and apolitical and when social advantage persists for millennia.

curiosities from Wikipedia (an occasional series)

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From the entry on Norfolk Island, pop. 1,748, which lies 877 miles from mainland Australia:

This common heritage has led to a limited number of surnames among the islanders – a limit constraining enough that the island’s telephone directory also includes nicknames for many subscribers, such as Cane Toad, Dar Bizziebee, Lettuce Leaf, Goof, Paw Paw, Diddles, Rubber Duck, Carrots, and Tarzan.

From the entry on the Scots Language:

The results from a 1996 trial before the Census, by the General Register Office for Scotland, suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding “Yes” to the question “Can you speak the Scots language?”, but only 17% responding “Aye” to the question “Can you speak Scots?”.

From the entry on Isaac Newton:

As Warden, and afterwards Master, of the Royal Mint, [Sir Isaac] Newton estimated that 20 percent of the coins taken in during the Great Recoinage of 1696 were counterfeit. … Convicting even the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult. However, Newton proved equal to the task. Disguised as a habitué of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. … Newton had himself made a justice of the peace in all the home counties. … Then he conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers, and suspects between June 1698 and Christmas 1699. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners.

See also: strange lives; the European country that spoke Esperanto; and Anson Burlingame and the duel that never happened.

new CIRCLE youth survey: high youth engagement in the 2018 election

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From today’s CIRCLE release:

The 2018 midterms have the potential to be historic for youth political participation, with young people receiving campaign outreach, paying attention, and intending to vote at unusually high levels (34% “extremely likely” to vote) that come close to the levels of engagement seen in the 2016 presidential election. Young people who report being actively engaged with the post-Parkland movement for gun violence prevention are even more likely (50%) to say that they’re extremely likely to vote. Our poll reveals strong support overall for Democratic candidates in Congressional elections (45% plan to vote for Democrats, versus 26% for Republicans), but large disparities among different demographic groups of young people, with Black and Latino youth much more likely to support Democratic candidates, young white men actually favoring Republicans, and unaffiliated white youth spreading their support across various parties and ideologies. We also find that, for all the focus on young people’s engagement with political content online, family remains the most important way for youth to learn about the election and the most influential in their engagement and participation.

Much more is here, and this is just the first in a series of analytical posts drawn from a new survey of 2,087 people aged 18 to 24 in the United States, with representative over-samples of Black and Latino youth, and of 18 to 21-year-olds.

reforms for a broken Supreme Court

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In the Republic of A, the highest appeals court may overturn legislation based on the text of an idealistic but short and vague constitution (without further appeal to the legislature), that court consists of just nine justices appointed for life, appointment requires an agreement between the president and the Senate, and those two bodies are separately elected and can belong to different parties. This sounds like … a royal mess.

You’d predict that Supreme Court appointments in this republic would be another form of regular legislative politics, but with higher stakes and less accountability. When one party controlled both the executive branch and the Senate, they would appoint a justice to promote their agenda for the rest of her or his life. When the branches were split, they would be unable to make appointments at all, unless as part of elaborate horse-trades. If the public did not accept these realities, then politicians would attempt to conceal the underlying situation by endorsing justices with appropriate judicial “temperaments” and sterling resumes, trying to avoid discussing the nominees’ positions on issues.

The actual record in the Republic of the USA is a bit more complicated. There have been long periods of rocky confirmations–especially 1800-1870–as well as lulls in that strife.

Note also the waning public confidence in the Supreme Court. Here I show the trend for younger adults separately, because early-adult experiences are formative, and youth have lost a lot of confidence since ca. 2000.

One explanation for the lulls could be a degree of consensus about the issues coming before the court, but that can’t explain why Taft could appoint five conservative justices, and FDR, eight liberals. Throughout that period, there was a bitter debate about the role of government, yet presidents were successful at appointing justices who shared their views.

A different explanation is that our two parties were divided internally on ideological lines from about 1890-1980. Thus any president could almost always assemble a majority by combining his whole party with the faction of the opposition that was aligned with him ideologically. That situation only ended ca. 1990, when the parties polarized in Congress. Note the resulting turbulence since then.

The Supreme Court is not simply a machine for implementing partisan policy preferences. Justices are also guided by legal principles, considerations that arise in the specific cases or controversies that come before them, constitutional texts and interpretations, precedents, deliberations among the Nine, and concern for the institution of the court. They may reach unexpected conclusions.

Yet we see generally different results from justices appointed by Democrats versus Republicans. That means that the Supreme Court represents at least a big dose of legislative politics by other means. The small number of justices, their life terms, and the randomness of who can appoint and confirm new members all raise the stakes and lower our confidence in the fairness of the process.

From this perspective, the familiar list of grievances (Bork, Thomas, Garland, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh) is predictable and only likely to worsen. If we are open to alternatives, we might begin to consider:

  1. Weakening judicial review so that the Court is less likely to be the final arbiter of deeply contested issues. That would be a democratic reform but not a liberal one, and it could be dangerous for minorities of all kinds.
  2. Strengthening advice and consent by developing a norm that the president should choose from a short list acceptable to members of both parties. That reform has a centrist bias that may not be desirable.
  3. Constitutional reform. For instance, imagine that justices hold rotating nine-year terms. Then every year at least one vacancy would arise (more if someone resigned or died). Debates over confirmation would be constant, but the stakes would fall. Each new president could count on four chances at appointments, followed by the referendum of a national reelection campaign. A two-term president with a Senate majority could entirely reshape the court, but her successor could change it back.

[Confirmation data from the Senate. See also: is our constitutional order doomed?, are we seeing the fatal flaw of a presidential constitution?,  two perspectives on our political paralysis,  and the changing norms for Supreme Court nominations.]