By Thomas Brister
October 2000
We can thank the classical Greeks for giving us the word “democracy.” To Plato and Aristotle, writing over 2,000 years ago, it meant literally the rule of “the many” (demos). Over the long course of recorded human history, democracy has triumphed around the world. From the American and French Revolutions of the late 18th century we derive the term’s modern conception — “rule of the people.” Modern liberal democracy, in turn, champions the ideals of individual freedom and equality, encourages tolerance, and advocates the maximum degree of self-rule consistent with practical limits of size and social complexity.
Modern democracy did not simply spring into existence. It faced enormous obstacles from the very beginning, and it still competes with a variety of authoritarian alternatives. It began as an idea confined to white property-owning males, and has evolved to embrace all people. Clearly, democracy comprises more than written constitutions and formal institutions. The former Soviet Union, for example, had a constitution offering rights and freedoms far beyond those in that of the American Constitution. It had a formal parliament and a legal system that resembled those in the Western democracies. Yet most observers would be forced to admit that words on paper and impressive chambers were insufficient to ensure the ideal of self-rule and individual freedom in that country. Obviously, something more constitutes a true democracy — and this “something more” is at the heart of today’s debate about civil society and civic renewal.
Civic Decline and Civic Renewal
Current debate and controversy about “civic renewal” are a response to a widespread perception that a number of public institutions have lost the trust and confidence of ordinary citizens, and that participation in public life has declined. Scholars, journalists, academics, and concerned citizens respond with dismay to a number of important negative social indicators. Citizens in the United States and other industrialized democracies do indeed report a loss of faith and trust in government institutions. Participation in organizations devoted to public causes has declined substantially. Dramatic increases in crime, divorce, alcoholism, suicide and drug addiction are indicators of what George Mason University professor of political science Francis Fukuyama calls “social dysfunction.” He refers to this complex of recent trends as the “Great Disruption.” (1) The National Commission on Civic Renewal has been measuring these trends as part of its attempt to define more precisely what has been lost as a result of this decline, and what can be done to address it. (2)
Experts Differ
While there is general agreement that we live in a world that has changed dramatically over the last thirty years, not all agree on either the causes — or even the seriousness — of this perceived civic decline. Scholars debate the causes, observing that we must be very careful in defining our terms in order to understand better what it is that we actually seek to address. Political ideology also plays a role in the debate. Liberals and progressives on the “left” often view the role of the government much differently than conservatives on the “right”. In addition, new ideologies like “communitarianism” attempt to bridge this left-right divide by reconciling the ideals of individualism and tolerance with the necessity and importance of “community.” How one defines and comprehends the problem will influence the policies and solutions one chooses to renew civic life. While in the end civic renewal demands “action,” action without informed understanding might be self-defeating. And understanding how educated, informed, and concerned citizens might reasonably differ can go a long way in making the response to civic decline itself more “civil.” Indeed, responsible self-rule demands such understanding.
Bowling Alone and Social Capital
We can begin with the controversial book Bowling Alone by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam. (3) While Putnam has not been the first or only authority to address the topic of civic decline, his 1995 article (now expanded and refined as a recently published book) has inspired wide-ranging debate and criticism, and it has helped to crystallize the variety of academic and ideological responses to the phenomenon. The title comes from his discovery that over the last half century participation in bowling leagues has fallen even as more and more people participate in the sport. Thus, more and more Americans are “bowling alone.” He uses this as a metaphor for the decline of citizen participation in public life, as well as the accompanying decay in levels of public “trust” and social cohesiveness. He refers to this as the “strange disappearance of civic America,” and argues that it is the loss of “social capital” that is behind this transformation.
Social Capital is thus one of the first and most important terms that we encounter in the debate. It is also one of the most difficult to define or measure precisely, and it has generated its own controversy among informed observers. Putnam defines social capital as “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” (4) Fukuyama defines it as a “society’s stock of shared values,” which serves as “the prerequisite for all forms of group endeavor that take place in a modern society, from running a corner grocery store, to lobbying Congress, to raising children.” (5) These scholars argue that it is these very rules and constraints arising from the density of social cohesiveness and trust that make liberal democracy possible–the same social system that encourages maximum individual freedom and self-rule. Might this social capital be that “something more” that gives life to democratic constitutions and institutions?
Civil Society
The idea of social capital is closely related to earlier notions of “civil society,” first discussed among German philosophers in 18th century Europe, and popularized by that perceptive early observer of American democracy, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville. (6) He was struck by the rich variety and activism of American democracy, and marveled over the young country’s commitment to the ideals of equality, albeit imperfectly realized at the time. Social capital, according to experts inspired by Tocqueville’s focus on American associational life, derives from the social trust and habits of cooperation that can only be learned through face-to-face interaction among individuals in a variety of public settings. Through learning to work together in these small groups, the habit of cooperation and trust spills over into wider circles of trust and cooperation. This trust and cooperation thus make government at the highest level much more effective and legitimate.
Such trust — according to those who hold this view — is best learned and nurtured in that realm of public life scholars refer to as “civil society” — a space between the market and the state, which is at once public and private. Political scientist Benjamin Barber refers to it as an “independent domain of free social social life where neither governments nor private markets are sovereign.” (7) Using more formal terms, Harvard Scholar Alan Wolfe calls it “those forms of communal and associational life which are organized neither by the self-interest of the market nor by the coercive potential of the state.” (8) It is that “third place” epitomized by the popular American situation comedy Cheers, where “everyone knows your name.” It is experienced through scouting groups, Little Leagues, fraternal organizations, political parties, churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples, charities, PTAs, and a myriad variety of other such groups.
A number of conservatives, liberals, and progressives have responded favorably to this focus on civil society. Many liberals have seen in this focus a possible way to both renew and reform governmental activism, as well as to address problems and issues that the free market of economic life has difficulty addressing. Conservatives — who have often mistrusted government or feared the power of a growing state — have seen a focus on civil society as a means of limiting government and finding other ways to address the problems of “social dysfunction” mentioned earlier. And a few skeptical scholars warn us that we must be careful to define our terms and understand all of the implications of civil society before wholeheartedly embracing it as an arena of activism.
Political Institutions and Civic Renewal: Does Government Still Matter?
Theda Skocpol, a Harvard University sociologist and scholar of American and comparative government, argues that government and civil society have in fact always been closely linked. From her “historical-institutionalist” perspective, civil society cannot replace the government, nor is social capital in and of itself sufficient for ensuring good governance. Its very smallness and fragmentation can even make it deficient and ineffective in addressing larger social problems. Thus, institutions still matter. Moreover, she notes that life in civil society has not always been harmonious. Americans have struggled and competed — often bitterly and violently — over differing perceptions of the public interest. Governmental institutions remain important in channeling and focusing public activism, as well as limiting arbitrary political power. Many liberals and progressives thus embrace social capital and civil society as part of a means of regenerating and refocusing government, rather than as a way of replacing or dismantling institutions and functions of the state. (9)
This academic approach also takes note of the changing institutional context and the historical evolution of social patterns over longer periods of time. Skocpol’s research has confirmed that public organizations and forms of activism have indeed changed over the past thirty years. While becoming in some ways more democratic and representative of a wider variety of groups within American society, many have also become more professional and centralized, comprising fewer actual active members and a far greater number of relatively passive, dues-paying members. In addition, political activism centered around “single issues” has increased dramatically over the same period in which social indicators have declined so dramatically. This phenomenon has led to a widespread perception that government has been taken hostage by “special interests” and ordinary citizens reduced to “spectators.”
Individuals and Civic Renewal: Is Activism Always a Good Thing?
University of California-Berkeley political scientist Morris Fiorina has argued that public activism in and of itself might, therefore, not always be advantageous or lead to actual civic renewal. Civil society, he notes, also includes groups like the Sicilian mafia, the Ku Klux Klan, and American right-wing militias. Moreover, he offers the rather paradoxical finding that American trust in government was actually greater when there was in fact far less actual public participation. Much of that participation — as Skocpol has observed — was also confined to a rather narrow segment of society and segregated by gender. He also cautions that we must widen our historical baseline of comparison. Participation has risen and fallen in cycles over the past two centuries, making the present decline perhaps more the “norm” and the activism of the post World War II period an exception. From his “rational choice” perspective, which focuses on how rational individuals respond to the incentives comprising their institutional and social environment, the intermediate level of participation that we see today might in fact be the worst of all worlds. Ruling out less participation as an unworkable alternative given today’s democratic ideals, he — like Skocpol — argues that encouraging more participation is the best way to overcome the dilemmas posed by the proliferation of the professional, single-issue forms of advocacy that have come to alienate so many Americans from the political process. (10) Thus, in spite of their different interpretations and calls for caution, they in fact appear to reach similar conclusions: civic renewal demands some form of increased participation by ordinary citizens.
Communitarianism: A “Third Way”?
“Communitarians” offer a perspective that claims to redress the imbalances that they argue arise from too much emphasis on the liberal htmlect of modern democracy — those ideals arising from the French and American revolutions advocating the expansion of individual freedom. George Washington University Professor Amitai Etzioni is perhaps the best known academic proponent of this viewpoint. He and other communitarians argue that liberalism has evolved to a point where an excessive focus on individualism itself has come to undermine the community that sustains civil society and nourishes social capital. They argue that a one-sided emphasis on individual “rights” has come at the expense of attention to “duties.” They assert, moreover, that “individuals” can never be separated from their communities, which play a powerful role in shaping our identities, imbuing us with values, and defining common culture. As one communitarian has put it, the “I” is constituted through the “We.” (11)
Sociologist Robert N. Bellah, author of Habits of the Heart, makes the case for a “democratic communitarianism,” which would acknowledge the importance of what German sociologist Juergen Habermas has defined as the actual “lifeworlds” of democracy: neighborhoods, ethnic communities, churches, cities, towns, and families. (12) Democratic communitarianism bases its ideals on the sacredness of the individual, but argues that we become who are through our relationships, which involve important virtues like reciprocity, loyalty, and shared commitment. Individuals in practice belong to a number of “communities.” Democratic communitarians have attempted to address critics who point to the dangers of small-scale, inclusive, “totalist” groups often at the heart of modern horrors like “ethnic cleansing,” genocide, and terrorism. Their pluralist view of “multiple belonging” would help to balance individual rights and duties, while avoiding the dangers of authoritarian or restrictive communities. Communitarianism remains controversial, however, because of the continued ambiguity of the concept, its commitment to an explicit moral language, and the problems of defining such abstract concepts like virtue and justice in a pluralistic, multicultural society with competing conceptions of the true and the good.
Technology and Civic Decline
Can civil society be built or renewed by fiat, however? What role might technology and free market capitalism play in the decline of public and civic life? Robert Putnam, for example, examines the role of television as a suspect in the decline of civic life. Simply put, television occupies the leisure hours formerly devoted to civic participation, which itself served as a form of “entertainment”, especially in isolated communities. Television also tends to be a solitary, or at least isolating, form of social activity. In addition, television has tended to substitute for newspapers and books as sources of information, and critics argue that the medium in fact — to paraphrase the late Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan — does determine (or in the case of TV), distorts the message. On the other hand, some scholars argue that the Internet, with its many-to-many connectivity, might contribute to increased participation and even novel forms of political association and activism. Marcella Ridlen Ray, a doctoral student in the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University, has looked at how technological change has impacted associational life in the United States, including ways that the combined impact of technologies like the telephone, the automobile, television, radio and the Internet have encouraged both individualism and social connectedness. (13) And, finally, a number of conservative and radical critics have concurred that some htmlects of free market capitalism — that domain of the market, where individuals buy and sell as consumers and producers — might be destructive of some htmlects of traditional community and ideas. From this perspective, governments, markets, and certain forms of technology like television, have expanded and intruded into spaces formerly occupied by civil society, contributing further to the loss of social capital.
Civic Renewal and Public Policy: From Ideas to Action
If reasonable people can disagree in so many ways, how do we find our way forward to systematically address the problem of civic decline? How does one translate the scholarly and ideological debate into action? What are the consequences of these varying ideas for actual policy?
The recent change of presidential administration in the United States demonstrates very clearly the powerful impact of ideas on policy problems. President George W. Bush’s “faith-based initiatives,” for example, have been described as inspired by communitarianism, and as representative of a communitarian approach to public policy. These ideas are controversial because they bring into question the exact nature of the separation of church and state, and the role of religion in public life (a topic to be addressed in the Fall 2002 Center for Civic Renewal Symposium, entitled “Religion in the Public Square.”)
Thus, the policies that result from civic renewal will undoubtedly provoke as much debate as the topic of civic renewal itself. Yet, if these debates are civil, if they engage citizens and rouse them from their spectatorship, then we will have made measurable strides toward renewing our civic culture.
NOTES
- Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order, Free Press, 1999.
- National Commission for Civic Renewal Web Page
- Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000.
- Ibid., p. 21
- Fukuyama, p. 14.
- See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Signet Classic, 2001.
- Benjamin Barber, “A Place for Us”, in E. J. Dionne, ed., Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America, The Brookings Institution, 2000, p. 3. See Also Benjamin Barber’s fascinating account of globalization and civil society in his Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping Public Life, Ballantine Books, 1996.
- Quoted in Theda Skocpol and Morris P. Fiorina, ” Making Sense of the Civic Engagement Debate”, Theda Skocopl and Morris P. Fiorina, eds., Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Brookings Institution Press, 1999.
- Theda Skocpol, “Advocates Without Members: The Recent Transformation of American Civic Life”, in Ibid, pp. 461- 509.
- Morris P. Fiorina, “Extreme Voices: a Dark Side of Civic Engagement”, in Ibid., pp. 395-425.
- See Amitai Etzioni, ed., The Essential Communitarian Reader, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
- See Robert N. Bellah, ed., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, University of California Press, 1996.
- Marcella Ridlin Ray, “Technological Change and Associational Life”, in Skocpol and Fiorina 1999, pp. 297-329.