A discourse on civic engagement

THE PARADOX
OF CITIZENSHIP

We can increase political involvement by limiting the size and scope
of government. That's something Thomas Jefferson understood

Essay by Michael J. Bakalis

The date was November 5,1996. Throughout the nation Americans went about their daily routines. They rushed to work; they got children ready for school. Some volunteered at libraries or hospitals; others vacuumed and dusted at home; and millions watched the daily talk shows. What far too many failed to do was participate in electing the most powerful person on the planet: the president of the United States.

Indeed, it was as though Americans were seeking to set some new record: Cities like Chicago experienced the lowest voter turnout in more than 50 years. Not only did many citizens fail to vote, but the majority expressed little or no interest in following the election. The Associated Press reported that network news divisions spent far less time covering campaigns than before, the presidential debates and the national party conventions had poor viewer ratings, and on election night all the networks reported a sharp drop in viewership.

America had figuratively and literally tuned out politics.

These developments are not, unfortunately, an aberration. They reflect a gradual erosion of national civic participation. In fact, that trend has attracted the attention of many writers and commentators and has recently led to the formation of yet another national commission, this one co-chaired by former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn and former Education Secretary William Bennett, to determine the causes and seek possible remedies.

The possible causes are many, but a few might be considered prime suspects. One might argue, for instance, that people are generally content. We know they often vote against candidates or policies rather than/or someone or something. Perhaps disengagement is a good sign: no discontent, no mass movements or Election Day revolts. Yet, the Louis Harris public opinion firm, which has determined the "index of public alienation" for more than 30 years, finds that the level of the country's alienation doubled in the late 1960s, doubled again in the 1970s and has been continually rising ever since.

Such alienation is connected to Americans' attitudes toward institutions. When asked how often they trust their government, about 75 percent of Americans said "just about always" in 1958; by 1993 that same percentage responded, "only some of the time." When asked about their confidence in American life in 1993, 13 percent said they had a "great deal" of confidence in the presidency; 10 percent had such confidence in Congress. The Supreme Court rated 25 percent, educational institutions 21 percent, medicine and doctors 23 percent, labor unions 17 percent.

Societal demands and a changing economy also are offered as partial explanations for our current civic alienation. People are simply too busy, most men and women work, many hold more than one job. The stress and strain of work and family obligations, with perhaps a little leisure thrown in, leave little time to take part in our nation's civic life. Yet here, too, we are confronted with a curious set of facts. In the fall of 1996, the Independent Sector, a national coalition of philanthropic organizations, reported that for the first time since 1990 the amount of time Americans volunteered for various causes had increased. The National Commission on Philanthropy and Civic Renewal reported similar increases — not only in time spent volunteering but in financial giving for philanthropic purposes. In fact, in inflation-adjusted dollars, nearly twice as much was given in 1995 as in 1963. Thus it is difficult to argue that Americans have become preoccupied or self-centered. In many ways we still exhibit those characteristics Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 19th-century America: a generous people with a passion for joining in association.

As Harvard scholar Robert Putnam has pointed out, however, there does seem to be one major difference. Americans today seem less inclined to join established institutions and organiza-

32 / March 1997 Illinois Issues

tions. Thus, in a series of influential articles, Putnam has traced a 25-year decline in membership in organizations such as the PTA, the League of Women Voters, the Red Cross, the Elks, labor unions — and even bowling leagues.

Nevertheless, while Americans may be volunteering more, they are not directing their energies toward politics. Of 12 broad areas of volunteering identified by the Independent Sector, politics registered the lowest level of involvement. Further, only 4 percent of Americans have contributed money at some time to political campaigns. It's little wonder then that, as Americans pull away from involvement in organized associations, special interests have begun to take control of the civic arena. In turn, seeing the hold organized — and monied — interests have on public life, Americans pull back further. And so, the ever-enlarging cycle of citizen disengagement continues.

Putnam, in his most recent exploration of what he categorizes as the decline of "social capital" or civic involvement and participation, identifies the major culprit as television. Television viewing, Putnam says, can be associated with low social capital and is the only leisure activity that inhibits participation outside the home. Putnam contrasts the active civic involvement of the generation that came to maturity prior to the dominance of television with the low involvement of those who grew up with television.

Yet, while the profound impact of television cannot be dismissed or underestimated, it is an inadequate explanation. How does television viewing explain the growth in volunteering and philanthropy in so many nonpolitical arenas? How can we reconcile the decline in confidence in our formal structures and institutions with an increasing involvement of citizens through such nonformal means as alternative medicine, charter schools, private social service agencies and citizen referendums? Clearly, something else is at work here — and clearly the necessary conditions of citizenship are not in place.

If people are to be engaged productive civic endeavors, a number of those conditions are necessary. Education is high on the list. As Jefferson put it, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." While we can proudly claim that we are among the most "schooled" people in the world, whether we are truly educated is open to considerable debate. Countless surveys report an appalling lack of knowledge among our citizens of the most elementary facts and concepts regarding our political and governmental system. And in too many of our schools, the serious study of government and politics has been diluted, absorbed and dissolved into that nondescript category called "social studies."

Citizens also need the physical time to be involved. Most Americans believe that time is the commodity they have less of than ever before. Economic stakeholdership is another key ingredient because those who are economically connected to or invested in the larger society would naturally have a greater interest in giving direction to that society. Consequent with reports of growing economic disparity in the nation, more people have come to believe they have little or no economic stake in their society.

People also must believe that there are important and worthy causes in which to be involved. Our political leadership has failed to frame issues in ways that can energize the electorate. The recent well-publicized battle between Gov. Jim Edgar and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley over the fate

Illinois Issues March 1997 / 33

of Meigs Field is a case in point. Surely, citizens thought, there are more critical issues than the tiny air strip. Nationally, there are no trumpet calls for space exploration, for attacking the problems of the underclass, for creating a new public education system geared to the needs of a new economy, for creating a high-tech, 21st-century transportation system, for reducing the scourge of drugs and crime or for adapting to the realities of an aging America. No common purpose stirs our blood.

There is no magic solution to citizen disenchantment and disengagement. But a first step is to overhaul the way we elect our leaders.

Political parties, which have historically relied on patronage to involve people, must understand that an increasingly educated population will not be moved by such an antiquated system. Parties must stand for something and forcefully sell their message through qualified men and women of integrity and character. Nor can voter interest be sustained in an environment in which campaigns for one election begin immediately upon the completion of a previous one; thus it is important that we shorten our election cycles.

Further, the obscene cost of campaigning for public office must be addressed. The fact that races for the Illinois General Assembly have surpassed the $1 million level discourages citizens of average means from running and sends a clear message to voters that the special interests and not the general public own the government. The only effective solution is to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that limiting campaign spending is the only worthwhile way to rid our politics of the corrupting influence of money.

And if, as Jefferson believed, an informed electorate is the key to a viable democracy, at least two other steps must be taken. Political advertising on radio and television should be limited or even prohibited, and the media should be required to extend time to candidates to discuss issues with voters instead of airing meaningless 30-second sound bites.

At the same time, we should implore the news media to discontinue reporting and promoting polling. What civic purpose do these polls serve? The answer is that they serve no civic purpose. While they help sell newspapers and boost TV ratings, they may discourage voters from voting for a candidate who has been declared a "loser."

The most significant condition for civic participation is one that is seldom discussed: a smaller government.

Civic participation requires "know-how" and available channels for involvement. The current experience in former Communist nations should remind us that effective participation is not an inherent trait. It must be learned through practice and trial and error. And there must be places where this experience can be obtained.

Oddly, as government has become more pervasive in American life, civic awareness of and participation in public life has plummeted. As government has become larger, civic engagement has become smaller. Thus, government must be redefined, reduced and restricted if citizen participation is to increase. This is the paradox of citizenship.

Perhaps no American thinker better understood the nature of this paradox, or gave us a more workable formula to resolve this dilemma, than Jefferson. He believed in the Aristotelian view of politics, which holds that a citizen is one who has a share in both ruling and being ruled. Humans are social beings who inevitably reside in a political community, and true freedom does not consist of private liberty and detachment from community but rests in the realization of the individual's noblest qualities and in adherence to the laws each person has had a hand in creating. Like the ancient Greeks, Jefferson believed that participation in self-governance is not only practical and good, it carried with it an element of "virtue."

For Jefferson, happiness was the aim of life and virtue was the foundation of happiness. And that virtue, at least in part, was to be achieved by participation in the political society in which each person is a member. This cannot be accomplished through large, distant and intrusive government, but rather by a small, localized and restricted government that gives people incentives to participate in solving their own problems and pursuing their greatest hopes.

Jefferson's vehicle for doing this was what he called "ward-republics," or subdivisions of county government in which citizens would participate in real ways to solve meaningful problems. It was within these ward-republics that

34 / March 1997 Illinois Issues

citizens could find an arena in which to learn democracy and to practice and refine it.

Today, we have the opposite scenario. In the past three decades we have witnessed the growth of large and centralized federal and state governments, along with huge bureaucracies that purport to address every problem from the cradle to the grave. But as government claimed to be able to solve our every problem, citizens stopped thinking and acting. As government grew, citizenship declined.

Some may reasonably argue that this Jeffersonian vision may have been appropriate in 18th-century America, but is unworkable as we approach a new century. Jefferson, after all, lived in an agrarian society with small communities separated by long distances. Travel and communication were slow and difficult. The country had a homogenous population.

Yet, new opportunities provided by our high-tech society may make Jefferson's 18th-century vision a 21st-century possibility.

In his book, Global Paradox, trend tracker John Naisbitt argues that the more complex the economy becomes and the more international it becomes, the greater is the opportunity for the smallest player to have an impact. Success, Naisbitt says, will come to the small entrepreneurial players who can utilize technology as well as the large corporate giants, can maneuver quickly and are not burdened by bureaucratic baggage.

A similar phenomenon is developing in our political arena. The more political issues are defined as national or international in scope and complexity, 'the more appealing local issues become. Global trade, federal deficits calculated in trillions of dollars — and the complicated problems surrounding our Medicare and Social Security systems — are outside the scope of the average citizen's comprehension, and certainly beyond the scope of what that citizen believes he or she can do as an individual. Such issues as school uniforms, potholes, crime and the affordability of college are more relevant. President Bill Clinton's call for an education crusade underscores the point, for virtually everything he has outlined is historically the charge of the states and communities, not the federal government.

Today, unlimited possibilities exist to increase meaningful civic involvement. Through the Internet, citizens have instant access to policy positions of legislators and are able to convey their own opinions to officials. Citizens can be informed instantaneously by E-mail and fax machine. Satellite communications and teleconferencing allow for the rebirth of the New England town meeting. And the available technology makes it possible for the voter of the near future to vote from home as easily as purchasing products from the home shopping network. Our technology affords us few excuses for an uninformed and inexperienced citizenry.

Advanced technology, however, cannot alone stimulate a civic renewal and will have limited impact if citizens have little of consequence to do at the local level.

It may well be that we have sacrificed citizenship at the altar of so-called efficiency and economy. What we never ask is where men and women will have the opportunity to deal with the problems they care about and experience the deliberative decision-making process that is the true essence of democracy. We never ask where citizens will find the training ground to serve in the public sector if the training grounds are being eliminated.

Instead, we seek to reform government by eliminating or consolidating local government units. We push to consolidate school districts, while the evidence is that the largest districts do no better academically, have less parent participation and greater customer dissatisfaction. We crusade for the elimination of township government, without bothering to ask what its original purpose was or how it could be made a vital avenue for civic involvement.

The corporate world is awash in experiments in downsizing, flattening bureaucratic structure and empowering employees, while we ignore the possibilities for decentralizing government and empowering people at the community level.

There is no good reason why every ward in every major Illinois city could not have an unpaid volunteer mini-legislature to bring citizens' issues to their council members. There is no good reason why the majority of the functions of the Illinois State Board of Education could not be dispersed to the more accessible regional education officials.

We must take a second look at the conventional reform wisdom, which looks to eliminate and consolidate more localized government institutions in the name of efficiency, and begin to view local government institutions as those arenas and stages where citizenship can be learned and acted out in ways that people truly care about. It is here where we must begin the process of rebuilding the institutional trust that has eroded to such dangerously low levels.

Such actions will, of course, require some new thinking regarding the division of responsibilities among federal, state, county, municipal and township governments. We must decide who can do what best, pare down the size of governments generally and eliminate those unnecessary and duplicative government functions, while concentrating power closer to the people.

Such a monumental, but not impossible, task ought to be high on the agenda of the next governor of Illinois.

The problem of civic renewal is not an insolvable one. Some version of Jefferson's ward-republics, thought to be idealistic values of an agrarian America, could stimulate a renaissance of citizen activism at the local level. Many steps are necessary, but by far the most important is to recognize that there exists still in the nation a democratic participatory yearning that must be afforded the opportunity to express itself.

That expression will come only when we fully recognize, accept and act on the great paradox of our citizenship.

Michael J. Bakalis is professor of public management and policy at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston. In the 1970s, he served as Illinois comptroller and as state superintendent of public instruction. His book. Where Have You Gone Thomas Jefferson? Rethinking Public Policy for a New Century, is out this month.

Illinois Issues March 1997 / 35