Frontiers of Democracy 2013: Innovations in Civic Practice, Theory, and Education

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 July 18-20, 2013, Medford, MA

Conference Framing and Session Formats

Both in the US and around the world we find ourselves in a dramatic period of civic awakening. We know this work and ideas under different names: public engagement, deliberative and participatory democracy, collaborative governance, educating for democracy and civic learning, public work, building social capital, and strengthening democracy. We promote it using diverse means; we think about it in diverse ways.

With a civic awakening all around us, in US, in the Arab world, in Russia and Burma, in India, Greece, Spain and Hungary, in many countries in Africa and Latin America, it is a good time to rethink what we have been doing and to formulate how it fits into and contributes to this larger effort. At this year’s Frontiers of Democracy conference, we considered a wide picture of work and ideas that support and promote civic vitality.

Frontiers of Democracy is sponsored by the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, the Democracy Imperative, and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.

You can register for the conference here. If you just want to add your name to the “Frontiers” email list for very occasional updates, you may enter your information here.

This year, the Center for Engaged Democracy is joining with Frontiers to offer its fourth annual conference on the Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education – from 5:00 pm on Wednesday, July 17 to 4:00 pm on Thursday, July 18, immediately prior to the start of Frontiers of Democracy. We encourage attendees to take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about developing academic programs focused on civic engagement, Core Competencies in Civic Engagement, and on-line civic engagement.  To learn more about and see the agenda for The Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education, click here.

Members of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation are invited to join NCDD’s director and several Board members for an informal afternoon meet-up on Thursday, July 18, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm, also immediately before Frontiers begins.  Network, talk about the New England region’s most exciting D&D projects, and explore what is and can be done to strengthen the region’s civic infrastructure.  To register, please visit this page.

In this 4th year of the Frontiers of Democracy conference, we have once again worked to design a program responsive to the times and to the interests of participants. This year’s conference offers four kinds of sessions:

  • Learning Exchanges in Civic Practices (plenary & concurrent sessions, 8 am – 4 pm, Friday, July 19):

Multiple plenary and concurrent sessions intended for both academics and practitioners

Democratic and interactive discussions, rather than traditional academic panels, on topics likely to move the needle on civic renewal. For learning exchanges, the assumption is that everyone has valuable experiences and knowledge to share, and the sessions are designed to shift from the descriptive to the strategic.

  • Mini-Conference in Civic Studies (8 am – 4 pm, Friday, July 19)

One day-long, academic-style conference

Panels in a more traditional academic format, but with a focus on debates of key issues, not the reading of academic papers.

  • Short Takes (four sets – on each day of Frontiers)

Provocative, 10-minute presentations by invited speakers, some live and some via videos pre-recorded for this event. The speakers’ topics will be diverse. Instead of following their presentations with Q&A and plenary discussion, we will go directly into small-group conversations that will be generally inspired by the speakers but not limited to their remarks.

  • Open Space (Saturday, July 20):

Throughout the conference, we ask participants to be thinking about topics that you would like to learn more about, areas of interest that call for more discussion, and strategic alliances and working groups.  On Saturday, participants can convene a group.  Watch for sign-up sheets located in the main rooms of the conference.

the politics of TED

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Last year, a minor controversy erupted when liberal millionaire investor Nick Hanauer claimed that his TED talk on economic policy had been banned as too “political.” Chris Anderson, the “curator” of TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), replied that Hanauer’s talk had not been censored. Rather, it wasn’t chosen for the TED homepage because it was not among the strongest talks available; and one of its flaws was its “explicitly partisan” perspective.

I am inclined to think that this particular dispute is a classically fruitless one about whether an individual’s work should be published in a specific private venue. But it raises a broader issue about the implicit politics of TED. To be sure, individual TED talks range very widely. Some address political issues, and famous politicians have given them. And yet I think the dominant view goes like this:

Lots of important problems could be solved by better design. One person can explain the core of a new design proposal in ten minutes. If the idea is good, it will be persuasive, and so listeners will share it, invest in it, adopt it, or otherwise support it. A lot of what’s wrong with the world today is stupid design and the failure of better design ideas to be heard. Because the Internet lowers the cost of distribution, better ideas will now prevail.

Contrast this to the conception of politics that began with the ancient Athenian assemblies and that is still seen today in legislatures, courtrooms, and meetings convened by community organizers:

People have conflicting values and interests, and they need a place to air their differences so that the community has an opportunity to make binding decisions. Everyone has a right to express his own interests. Adversaries should meet in public so that they answer each other and can be held accountable by the whole community. Politics will be contentious and emotional, but it’s also important to maintain constructive relationships and a common commitment to the process, because we will have to address many more disputes after the one that currently confronts us.

If this were your idea of politics, you would never think to “curate” selected 10-minute talks without Q&A or rebuttals. You’d build a space–physical or virtual–in which people could interact as peers.

Now, there is room for more than one mode of communication in our complex world. I like TED talks and see their value for public debate. Also, they are not necessarily about common or public problems; politics is not even relevant to all of them. You’d sound like a curmudgeon if you challenged TED’s credo: “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.”

But I have met people who see controversial politics as stupid and wasteful and think that there could be a TED-like solution (an “idea worth spreading”) for almost every problem. I was at a meeting in California some months ago in which every participant except me thought that a better design (broadly defined) could solve any social issue. As an example, one person suggested that Nike had done more that any other organization to fight obesity–by making cool sneakers that encouraged running. This was in Santa Monica, where indeed, people run a lot. But see the US obesity trend (left). Nike hired its first ad agency in 1976 and attained 50% of the US market share in 1980. The correlation with obesity does not look too promising (not to mention those sweatshops).

This was only a stray comment, and no doubt, better examples could be cited. Design does relate to obesity in some ways–for example, better urban planning encourages walking. But to implement a better urban plan, you need more than a good idea. You need power, money, and other forms of support. Some of the groups that have power and money right now are manufacturers of heavily subsidized, high-calorie, low-fiber drinks and snacks. They need to be held accountable by old-fashioned politics.

This post relates to the Obama Administration’s preference for “social innovations” over traditional entitlement programs. To be fair, the Administration wants both, but they are willing to trim entitlements at the margin to fund more social innovation, and that seems consistent with the politics of TED.

on saying that you are NOT a victim

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Since we live very near Boston, friends are writing to inquire about our safety and to commiserate. A colleague from Mexico writes, “Dear Peter, I am so sorry for what happened. My Solidarity with you and all the people of Boston.” Official emails from our various schools and workplaces warn us that we may feel traumatized and we should be on the lookout for signs of depression and panic. Facebook has provided a steady stream of compassionate thoughts. National groups send blast emails of support to “members in Boston and throughout Massachusetts during this difficult time” (quoting from Gov. Dean’s message a few minutes ago).

If you or a person you care about was directly hurt or terrified yesterday, I am very sorry. And if you feel part of a community under attack, then I sympathize. But I would like to state that I was not attacked. I am not in danger. I was not even inconvenienced. And I think it is important to make those points because I don’t want the terrorists to count me as a victim. I don’t want to act in disproportionate or unwise ways out of a sense of threat, and I would rather not contribute to that feeling in the community at large.

After all, we are prone to make very stupid decisions when we feel threatened and violated. Already, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), has used the Boston bombings to argue against immigration reform. Senator McConnell (R-KY) has claimed that we’ve become too “complacent” about domestic terrorism and should now “recommit ourselves to the fight against terrorism at home, and abroad.” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has cited the attacks as “proof, … if proof is needed” that sequestration is bad policy because it cuts funds for law enforcement.

Actually, we spend $43 billion per year on Homeland Security, we have engaged “in the practice of torture” against suspected terrorists, we have redesigned our public spaces and put ourselves to incredible inconvenience to prevent terrorism at home, and yet it has posed an unimaginably low risk to Americans over the last decade. We invaded two countries supposedly in response to 9/11, and just yesterday, 30 Afghans were killed by one US bomb at a wedding.*

I understand that one might feel Boston itself was the victim yesterday. Our State Representative emailed: “As a marathoner and also someone who has long loved Copley Square, I feel deeply the violation of a holy space by senseless violence.” I understand his feelings and I see some benefits to this kind of statement. Unlike philosophical cosmopolitans, I believe in loyalty and commitment to groups, including geographical communities. I must admit that I do not happen to identify with Boston, the Marathon, or Copley Place as our State Rep. does. That is a subjective difference that results from our relatively recent move here. I can sympathize with his feelings, which many neighbors, friends, and colleagues share.

Yet the best way to respond is to count on Boston to bounce back. Monday’s attacks were cowardly murders of individuals, but they did no permanent damage to our metro area of 4.6 million people. Boston was founded in 1630 and has survived many worse events. The attacks could ruin the Marathon and harm the city more generally–but only if we allow them to do so.

*This turns out to have been a hoax. Apologies.

envisioning morality as a network

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Let us posit that a person’s moral worldview is a network. The nodes are commitments, beliefs, principles, and other moral ideas. The connections are logical. But, since we are thinking about morality and not mathematics, our criteria for valid connections must be loosened. Two moral ideas are connected not only in cases when A implies B, but also if A sets a precedent for B, A is analogous to B, A is a compelling example of B, or A and B came together harmoniously in the life of a person we admire. We can examine any moral network map and ask whether it has desirable features as a whole. Improving our own map becomes a method of introspective self-improvement.

Many works in the philosophical tradition push us to ask whether all the nodes in our own maps are mutually consistent and whether all the connections are logically tight. But those are only two virtues of a moral worldview, and they are easily overrated. A moral monster could have a consistent network in which all his concrete beliefs followed from a few premises by adamantine chains of logic. This evil person might hold horrible premises, or his assumptions might be wonderful (e.g., “Freedom for everyone!”), yet his whole system could be fanatically simplistic. Although moral networks vary in quality, and we should strive to improve them, coherence is not their main virtue.

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cutting entitlements to make room for innovation

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The administration’s decision to cut entitlements in its proposed budget has mostly been interpreted as a tactical political move (whether smart or foolish). It’s treated as a pure compromise, the president giving up his real preference in order to achieve a deal with the Republicans or to make them look bad for not negotiating. In other words, it is interpreted as a shift rightward, either for tactical reasons or because the president is just wobbly as a liberal.

But there are hints that the administration sees longer-term entitlement cuts as good for their version of liberal priorities. The Times’ Jackie Calmes reports:

But to Mr. Obama, cost-saving changes in the nation’s fastest-growing domestic programs are more progressive than simply allowing the entitlement programs for older Americans to overwhelm the rest of the budget in future years.

Even so, he emphasized that his support is contingent on Republicans agreeing to higher taxes from the wealthy and new spending, in areas like infrastructure, to create jobs.

The president’s views put him at the head of a small but growing faction of liberals and moderate Democrats who began arguing several years ago that unless the party agrees to changes in the entitlement benefit programs — which are growing unsustainably as baby boomers age and medical prices rise — the programs’ costs will overwhelm all other domestic spending to help the poor, the working class and children.

Many contemporary liberals are struck by the effectiveness of particular programs that can be rigorously evaluated. They know about these programs because they are wonks who read research, and also because nonprofit leaders advocate effectively. This advocacy is not merely special-pleading, but involves real evidence of need and positive impact. Just for instance, see the dozens of educational interventions that have been found effective in randomized controlled studies, as collected by the US Department of Education. But the really big policies are usually not evaluated at all. For instance, there is no official evaluation of federal farm subsidies, although independent economists would almost all oppose them.

This combination leads to a sense that the government could be much more effective at achieving liberal ends if it could invest in innovation. That is the theory behind the White House Social Innovation Fund, which operates much like a private foundation. Its style of governance as investment/innovation fits the Zeitgeist. The same philosophy is taught in policy schools and learned on the job in the nonprofits, businesses, and foundations from which today’s government leaders usually come.

This worldview makes liberal policymakers want to hold money for discretionary federal  programs that are smart, accountable, innovative, and otherwise “21st century.” Given the aging of the US population, those programs will be squeezed by the older entitlement payments that were launched in the 1930s-1960s, unless the latter are trimmed. So the administration proposes $200 million in a competitive pool for state governments that cut energy use, while it reduces farm subsidies by $38 billion over ten years. The administration proposes to expand HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation and Enforcement scheme), which is officially an “evidence based program,” but it cuts Social Security by $130 billion and Medicare by $380 billion.

What should the government be: a check-writing operation or an incubator of social innovations? It could be both, but given limited funds, choices must be made.

On one hand: it is possible that taking money from Social Security to spend on HOPE would maximize the net human benefits. Deep cuts in Social Security would reduce human welfare and also violate a promise, but modest cuts could pay for more effective programs.

On the other hand: I am worried about biases that result from (1) too much attention to data and advocacy in favor of small, evaluatable programs that are almost inconsequential compared to the entitlements; and (2) class backgrounds that make our liberal political leaders very interested in entrepreneurial innovations and not adequately concerned about the boring old check-writing operations.

See also: “the proper role of experimentation in social reform.”