Monthly Archives: September 2019

Syllabus of Introduction to Civic Studies, fall 2019

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Fall 19 Civic Studies 0020-01 Intro to Civic Studies

Instructors: Peter Levine, Brian Schaffner. TA: Gene Corbin

Sept 4: Introduction

Introduction to the course and the instructors.

In class exercise: “The “Christmas Tree Crisis” at Sea-­?Tac Airport” (handout in class)

Sept 9: Problems of collective action

(In class, we will simulate a collective action problem.)

Sept 11: Elinor Ostrom’s solutions to the Tragedy of the Commons

Sept 16: Ostrom continued

Sept 18: Ostrom Continued

Sept 23: Social capital as part of the solution

Sept 25: Why do people voluntarily participate?

Sept 30: Discussing good ends and means

Reading assignment: the Harvard Pluralism Project’s case entitled A Call to Prayer (Links to an external site.).  In the discussion sessions this week, students will deliberate what the people of Hamtramck, MI should do. In the class session on Sept 30, additional discussion of deliberation (what it is, what it can accomplish, and what else is needed for good decision-making).

Oct 2: Habermas and Deliberative Democracy

Oct 7: Does deliberation work?

Oct 9: Other forms of discourse: 1) testimony and empathy

[Oct 14: vacation day]

Oct 15 (Tuesday): Other forms of discourse: 2) dissent

  • Tommie Shelby, “Impure Dissent” from Dark Ghettoes: Injustice, Dissent and Reform (2016)

Oct 16:  How can we design for deliberation?

Oct 21: Midterm in class

Oct 23: Exclusion and Identity

Oct 28: What happens when people experience diversity?

Oct 30 Guest lecture on political hobbyism (Eitan Hersch) 

Social Movements 

Nov 4: Identity and the Common Good

Nov 6: Social Movements 

(Nov 11: no class)

Nov 13: Community Organizing

Nov 18: Nonviolent Campaigns

Nov 20:  Gandhi 

Nov 25: Gandhi continued

  • Gandhi, Notes, May 22, 1924 – August 15, 1924, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes, vol. 28, pp. 307-310

[Nov 27: no class]

Dec 2: Does nonviolence work? Does violence work?

Dec. 4: Student presentations in class

Dec 9: Student presentations in class

Dec 17: Final exam (3:30-5:30 in the Rabb Room)

Conceptual Outline of the Course
(click for more information)

voter suppression shows we have a democracy

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An interesting panel at the American Political Science Association conference explored whether the conceptual distinction between democracy and authoritarianism is (still) useful. In arguing against this distinction, some panelists cited ways that a particular democracy–the USA–fails to honor democratic norms. An example of our failure (which didn’t provoke any overt dissent on the panel) was voter suppression.

To be clear, I oppose the policies that are described as voter suppression. I was deposed and testified as an expert witness in the successful federal lawsuit against North Carolina, and I have done other work to promote access to voting and to attack restrictions.

However, I would make the conceptual distinction in a different way from several of the panelists. “Democracy” is not the name for a just or fair society. A democracy is a society in which majorities govern (for better or worse). Having a democracy opens vistas for developing human potential and for improving the world. But it also presents characteristic challenges.

Two endemic challenges of democracy are relevant to voter suppression. First, when the majority of people hold problematic views, we get problematic policies. For instance, requiring photo identification for voting is unnecessary and creates a barrier, but it is highly popular among a broad spectrum of Americans. Second, because majorities are powerful in a democracy, you can expect bare-knuckled struggles over who actually turns out. When such struggles go well, they become competitions to boost turnout. But you will predictably see efforts to keep the other side home.

Precisely because it matters who votes in the USA, political actors play rough here. Conceptually, that just reinforces the thesis that the US is a democracy. Nobody would bother to erect subtle impediments to turnout if the vote didn’t matter.

These examples raise the normative question of whether a democracy is the ideal system. Most people would say no, at least insofar as they would want to modify the core idea of democracy with one or more adjectives: liberal, classically republican, social, deliberative, or otherwise.

Given my way of thinking, was the US a democracy before the Civil War, before women’s suffrage, and under Jim Crow? Is it a democracy now, when more than two million people are incarcerated?

These are profound injustices, but democracies can be–and frequently are–unjust. To the degree that large numbers of people are officially excluded from the polity, the system is undemocratic. Therefore, the US was not a full democracy until the Voting Rights Act. Yet a diagnosis of these past and current injustices must put some of the blame on the democratic aspects of our system. A reason for racist policies has been the racist views of many in the white majority. A major reason for mass incarceration is popular support (across racial groups) for draconian punishments. A motive for disenfranchising women and African Americans is that voting matters.

In short, I am against saying, “We are not really a democracy and should stop congratulating ourselves on being different from authoritarian regimes.” Instead, I favor saying: “We are a democracy, and that is why we (the people) must fight–constantly, effectively, and hard–for fairness.”

See also: do we live in a republic or a democracy?; from modest civic reforms to a making a stand for democracy; what does it mean to say democracy is in retreat?; “Habermas with a Whiff of Tear Gas.”