Attention Deficit Democracy

Abstract

Handwringing about political apathy is as old as democracy itself. As early as 425 BC, the playwright Aristophanes ridiculed his fellow Athenians for gossiping in the market instead of voting. In more recent decades, calls for greater civic engagement as a democratic cure-all have met with widespread agreement. But how realistic, or helpful, is it to expect citizens to devote more attention and energy to politics? This book provides a surprising new perspective on the problem of civic engagement, challenging idealists who aspire to revolutionize democracies and their citizens, but also taking issue with cynics who think that citizens cannot, and need not, do better. “Civic engagement” has become an unwieldy and confusing catchall, the book argues. We should talk instead of political, social, and moral engagement, figuring out which kinds of engagement make democracy work better, and how we might promote them. Focusing on political engagement and taking Alexis de Tocqueville and Hannah Arendt as guides, the book identifies ways to achieve the political engagement we want and need without resorting to coercive measures such as compulsory national service or mandatory voting. By providing a realistic account of the value of political engagement and practical strategies for improving it, while avoiding proposals we can never hope to achieve, the book makes a persuasive case for a public philosophy that much of the public can actually endorse.

Luottamuksen kääntöpuoli

“…Tutkimuskirjallisuudessa demokraattisten järjestelmien kansalaisten tuntema luottamus päätellään usein aika minimaalisesta lähtökohdasta, kuten muun muassa James Bovard (2005) on todennut. Se, että joku ei aktiivisesti yritä aseellista vallankumousta tai heittele polttopulloja hallituksen rakennuksiin, tulkitaan tyytyväisyydeksi ja luottamukseksi.…”

“…Poliitikkojen valheita ja korruptiota hiljaisesti suvaitaan ikään kuin se kuuluisi demokratiaan (emt). Osa kirjoittajista on liberaaleista (tai libertaareista) lähtökohdista sitä mieltä, että valtio on paisunut tai kasvanut (Bovard 2005;Higgs 1987) osa toisista lähtökohdista sitä mieltä, että demokratia on tyhjentynyt kun valtaa on siirretty konsulteille (Burnham 1941;Crouch 2009).…”

Riittääkö liberaali kansalaisuus?

“…Political engagement can be messy and inefficient but remains vital to democracy's long-term interests. 62 At the outset this essay argued that liberal citizenship is inadequate because it lacks the directive element; in other words because it is incapable of guiding our eyes toward the common good. To add something to this, we would propose that the inadequacy of liberal citizenship consists of its incapability to resuscitate the very dichotomy, and the very duality, on which it is based -namely the homme and the citoyen.…”