Can People Handle the Power?
I’m taking a couple of political science seminars this semester, for various reasons too boring to go into here. Both focus on different dimensions of how the public makes its desires known and how government responds to those wishes. I’m probably going to do a set of posts musing about some of the things I read in the process, but for now I just want to pose a question that is the Achilles’ heel of my faith in democracy.
Does the average citizen have what it takes to make democracy work?
Do we know enough to make informed decisions? Do we have the temperament to make good decisions? Are we capable of expressing what we want? And if the answer to any of these questions is “no” right now, do we have a realistic chance of changing that?
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.
Thursday, February 23rd 2006 at 2:24 pm |
I think that is the question any informed citizen has to ask, but I also think it is the reason that we don’t live in a pure democracy, but rather, a republic. The founders themselves were weary of the intelligence of the masses, which is why they set up a representative democracy. They even went so far as to only give the people the direct vote on their representatives in the House. The representatives were the ones who were supposed to elect the senators, not the people; and the electoral college was supposed to vote on the President — I’m relatively sure that the electoral college should have been voted in on its merits, not the merits of the presidential candidate that they promised to vote for.
So I guess my answer is, “No,” the average citizen does not have the time nor the inclination to make democracy work.
What do we do, then? The answer is clear. Keep talking amongst ourselves, and welcome anyone who wants to join in the conversation. Democracy, at its root, means choice. And that includes the choice of whether to participate. Personally, I think the whole life thing is more interesting when I’m paying attention, but I’m not about to force that opinion on anybody.
Friday, February 24th 2006 at 4:39 pm |
Hey Kyle, thanks for the comment and the link.
I understand the whole “republic not a democracy” argument, but I’m not sure it really addresses the problem I’m getting at. The kind of awareness and decision-making skills I’m talking about are as vital to a functioning republic as to a more direct democracy. If we don’t have them, a republic’s going to run into trouble. If we do have them, well, maybe we should trust the public with more power. I’d argue that right now, people don’t have the knowledge and skills necessary. The question I have is, can this be fixed?
I’m also not sure that choice is at the root of democracy. At least not in the sense that choosing not to participate is an option. It’s a system whose benefits depend on the public fulfilling its responsibilities and taking part, and I don’t automatically rule out the notion that a democracy should try to avoid the free-rider problem.
Sunday, February 26th 2006 at 5:07 pm |
I think that in order to have a informed citizenry, that can make choices in a representative democracy, you need a media that actually informs people about what goes on. Unfortunatly we don’t have that right now. You also need people motivated enough to go out and learn on their own, which is something many Americans are not too good at. It also helps when people aren’t worried about living pay-check to pay-check. If people aren’t worried about money, they will proabably be more willing to learn and participate in a democracy.
Monday, February 27th 2006 at 7:18 pm |
Your site ate my first response. Feh. Let’s see, in summary:
I agree completely that this is the right question to ask and it’s been bothering me too. I soak up information like a sponge and there are ballots I leave blank for lack of information. I don’t feel qualified to vote on some topics. My solution? Every single individual is responsible to help educate the others in whatever field they feel they can. I’m currently looking to find funding to help bring scientists and philosophers to give free public lectures on the sorts of tough ethically related scientific questions that we DO vote on – stem cells, abortion, evolution, etc. I’ve never done anything like this, and I hardly know where to start, but I’m feeling the same irksome feeling as you that those people who have it at their disposoal to educate, should.
Tuesday, February 28th 2006 at 10:17 pm |
Hey Robn, welcome aboard! Sorry the site has such a finicky appetite. 🙂
I like what you’re saying about people with expertise having a responsibility to help out the rest of us. But it feels like there’s something larger going on. What about the people who don’t soak up information like a sponge? Is there something that we can do to improve the early education process to unlock their hidden sponge potential? And if we can’t. what are the implications?
Have you checked out the blog at bioethics.net? There may be some folks you can get in touch with there who could help out with your project. It definitely sounds like an important one. To a certain extent, it’s one of the things this site wants to accomplish, so I hope you continue to share your expertise here.
(And folks, by all means, go check out hyper-textual ontology!)
Wednesday, March 1st 2006 at 12:37 am |
I think you’re suggesting an entire overhaul of our educational system, since nothing less will change the attitudes we’re talking about here. (As a Deweyan, again, I agree completely).
And I do read the blog at bioethics.net very regularly, but not having any ins with those folks I don’t really know how to approach them. I’m going to check out NSF and even a few of the grant foundations for now, but I’m open to all suggestions! 🙂
Wednesday, March 1st 2006 at 12:55 am |
“I think you’re suggesting an entire overhaul of our educational system”
Who, me?
Seriously, you’re right. I’m talking about radical change to education, communications, media (as Andrew suggested above), probably political and social institutions to boot. And while I know none of it’s going to happen overnight – or even in my lifetime – I think the project at least has merit. But if I’m wrong about the average citizen’s potential, it’s all wasted effort.
OK, flip side question – are you familiar with the idea of deliberative polling at all? This is a total shot in the dark, but some of those pollsters might be interested in making use of your expertise for a deliberative meeting on one of thie issues you mention. And maybe they could help you with ideas for other outreach programs.
Wednesday, March 1st 2006 at 2:15 pm |
I’ve got to admit total ignorance here on deliberative polling!
Wednesday, March 1st 2006 at 4:07 pm |
Short version: instead of doing a standard public opinion poll where you call a bunch of people and ask them a bunch of questions and then move to the next one, deliberative polling is sort of a giant town meeting in which a representative sample of the country is brought together, polled, and then, over a period of time, they are briefed on numerous aspects of the issue through materials provided by experts. The panel then discusses the issue and their opinions are assessed again. The evidence suggests that there is considerable opinion change as a result of these gatherings. I imagine you would be interested in how such pollsters go about assembling the briefing materials for an issue like stem cell research. (If any have done that issue yet, I don’t know for sure.) There’s some more info at http://www.citsov.org although that site is still in something of a rough form.
Monday, March 13th 2006 at 12:01 pm |
Hi all,
I’m the person behind http://www.citsov.org. Google alerts brought this welcome thread (slowly) to my attention.
Jim Fishkin, the originator of deliberative polls, has shown in his repeated social science experiments that the public can master and make decisions on complex issues if people are put in situations where they believe their opinions will matter. The trick is to create political institutions that will bring those situations about. Jim presents one idea for that in his book, Deliberation Day, proposing (seriously) a pre-Election Day national holiday. More ideas and experiments are needed on how to meet the institutional challenge.
There’s a three page intro paper on deliberative polling at citsov.org (link on the left) or at http://citsov.typepad.com/an-intro-to-dps-rev-1.pdf
There’s also a chapter from Deliberation Day: http://citsov.typepad.com/presscommdpdday/bookdownloads/deliberationday.pdf
Last but not least, Jim’s website is http://cdd.stanford.edu/
Monday, March 13th 2006 at 11:17 pm |
Hey Bill, thanks for stopping by. The research on deliberative polling is one of those things that helps reinforce my faith in Deweyan democracy, and it’s a topic I hope to explore in more depth over the next month or two. (I hope my short version above was able to do justice to the concept.) I do wonder about the scalability of deliberative institutions, but if the principle’s there, at least that’s a starting point.
How exactly do you think blogging will fit into the Citizen Sovereignty project?
Wednesday, March 15th 2006 at 3:00 pm |
Dave, good question and yes, your description of deliberative polling hits the mark.
On the role of blogging in CitSov’s work, my short answer is that blogging should be integrated into localized deliberation efforts, as a tool for ongoing development of topics for deliberation. This gives the steering committee of community groups that runs the deliberation some data, other than their own constituency interests and biases, for deciding a topic. I am working now on a pilot in a nearby community that hopefully will integrate blogging that way.
The scalability of deliberative institutions really depends, I think, on popular familiarity with deliberative techniques. There’s a huge and very active deliberation “industry” out there, which has grown by helping solve problems — call them civic emergenices, like a downward spiral in community-police relations. The more the deliberation industry can bring deliberation into civic routine, and the less that deliberative tools are seen as useful solely for civic emergencies, the faster something called deliberative democracy can scale up.
I’ll keep looking in. Great to talk.