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Kettering Foundation - David Mathews

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149 pages

English

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The Ecology of Democracy: Finding Ways to Have a Stronger Hand in Shaping Our Future is for people who care deeply about their communities and their country but worry about problems that endanger their future and that of their children. Jobs are disappearing, or the jobs people want aren't available. Health care costs keep going up, and the system seems harder to navigate. Many worry that our schools aren't as good as they should be. The political system is mired in hyperpolarization. Citizens feel pushed to the sidelines.Rather than giving in to despair and cynicism, some Americans are determined to have a stronger hand in shaping their future. Suspicious of big reforms and big institutions, they are starting where they are with what they have.This book is also for governmental and nongovernmental organizations, as well as educational institutions that are trying to engage these citizens. Their efforts aren't stopping the steady erosion of public confidence, so they are looking for a different kind of public participation.The work of democracy is work. Here are some ideas about how it can be done in ways that put more control in the hands of citizens and help restore the legitimacy of our institutions.

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Publié par	Kettering Foundation
Date de parution	01 janvier 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780923993566
Langue	English

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THE ECOLOGY OF DEMOCRACY
THE ECOLOGY OF DEMOCRACY
FINDING WAYS TO HAVE A STRONGER HAND IN SHAPING OUR FUTURE
DAVID MATHEWS
The Ecology of Democracy: Finding Ways to Have a Stronger Hand in Shaping Our Future is published by the Kettering Foundation Press. The interpretations and conclusions contained in the book represent the views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, its directors, or its officers.
© 2014 David Mathews
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to:
Permissions Kettering Foundation Press 200 Commons Road Dayton, Ohio 45459
This book is printed on acid-free paper. First edition, 2014 Manufactured in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-0-923993-53-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2013955704
CONTENTS
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introducing the People Who Make Our Democracy Work as It Should
PART I. DEMOCRACY RECONSIDERED
1. Systemic Problems of Self-Rule
2. Struggling for A Citizen-Centered Democracy
3. The Political Ecosystem
PART II. CITIZENS AND COMMUNITIES
4. “Here, Sir, the People Govern.” Really?
5. Putting the Public Back in the Public’s Business
6. Citizens: Involved and Informed?
7. Public Deliberation and Public Judgment
8. Framing Issues to Encourage Deliberation
9. Opportunities in Communities
10. Democratic Practices
PART III. INSTITUTIONS, PROFESSIONALS, AND THE PUBLIC
11. Bridging the Great Divide
12. Experiments in Realignment and Possibilities for Experiments
13. Reflections
Notes
Bibliography
Index
DEDICATION
THIS BOOK IS AN EXAMPLE of maximum feasible peer review, and it’s dedicated to all the reviewers.
My colleagues at the Kettering Foundation read and commented on innumerable drafts. So did the foundation’s associates, research deputies, and research assistants. I would guess that the manuscript had close to a hundred handprints on it before it left our building. In addition, the last draft was reviewed by more than a hundred other people who gave us much of the information used in the book. The book is both about them and for them.
I wish I could say that I took full advantage of all the reviewers’ good advice. Regrettably, I didn’t. Yet the book profited greatly from what I learned from their comments, even if I failed to take every suggestion.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY NAME APPEARS ON THE COVER, and I take responsibility for all of the words. However, the research and writing that produced the book has been a collaborative effort of a small team at the Kettering Foundation known as the Cousins Research Group. Laura Carlson, Paloma Dallas, and Melinda Gilmore worked on countless drafts, and, along with Kristin Cruset, fact checked the book. Alex Lovit offered historical detail, and Ekaterina Lukianova reviewed my description of what happens in public deliberation. Kathy Heil typed the manuscript, with back-up assistance from Angel George Cross and Margaret Dixon.
When we moved to final production of the book, Melinda Gilmore oversaw that process. She was ably assisted by artists and designers who helped to elevate the ideas visually. Mia Roets did a first take on illustrating the wetlands analogy for the cover. Her early work helped us to move toward the final design, which was created by Matt Minde. Where we couldn’t find an existing cartoon to lighten the text, Jennifer Berman added original illustrations. The interior design of the book was created by Steve and Heidi Long, Joey Easton O’Donnell did the copy editing, and Lisa Boone-Berry provided the index.
As always, I am grateful to my wife, Mary, who has been a great sounding board and a wellspring of good advice.
I am deeply indebted to everyone—and happily admit it.
INTRODUCING THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE OUR DEMOCRACY WORK AS IT SHOULD
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT PEOPLE who are trying to help our country realize its dream of democracy with freedom and justice. However, they would never describe themselves that way: it would be far too grandiose. They would just say they are trying to solve a problem or make their community a better place to live.
Ruth was director of programming at a public radio station. I met her as a young woman, before her life was tragically cut short. She lived in Ohio and later in South Dakota with her son, Gabe, and her husband, Jim, a Native American artist. For Ruth, there was no division between her professional and her community life, and she was an early member of the Miami Valley Issues Forums, moderating deliberations on contentious community issues. A well-known radio personality, she pioneered using the airwaves to hold public forums. One issue that she was passionate about was juvenile crime, and she partnered with a number of different groups to help spark a civic response. The larger effort was dubbed “Kids in Chaos,” but Ruth—conscious of the power of a name—called the radio segment “Peace in the Valley.” When Ruth moved to South Dakota in 1996, she cofounded the Indigenous Issues Forums, which built on traditions of deliberative decision making in Native American culture. Although Ruth didn’t always have an official position, she had considerable authority in the communities where she lived and an enormous impact on them.
When I met Gene, he was an athletically lean and wiry senior citizen with an infectious smile who lived in Pennsylvania. He was almost always in positions of authority, notably serving two terms as mayor of his hometown. Before that, he had taught math at the high school and college levels, coached track and cross-country teams, and managed an athletic department. No wonder he was always trim. Over the course of his life, he was involved in more than 25 civic groups. At 77, after leaving the mayor’s office, Gene became president of a public access television station where he hosted an interactive community program that encouraged intergenerational deliberations on hot-button issues. In 1983, he moderated forums on security and nuclear arms and shared the results at a national teleconference at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in 1984. Although not a policy expert, he could explain how citizens make up their minds on complex, controversial issues.
To me, Ruth and Gene represent the kind of neighbors, friends, and colleagues that Newsweek called the “real fixers” who make our country work better. “From keeping kids in school to rebuilding devastated cities, they’re rolling up their sleeves and getting things done.” 1 Let me introduce you to a few more of these problem solvers to illustrate the kinds of things they do, not as lone leaders, but always with others. 2
LIVING ORDINARY LIVES: DOING EXTRAORDINARY THINGS
Sandy went back to her small, rural hometown after retiring from a successful career in an urban center miles away. She still wanted to contribute, so she took a job teaching math in the school she had attended as a youngster. But shocked by what she found, she left the school after a year. Students were ill prepared; many had been passed up the ladder without having learned to read, write, or do the simplest arithmetic. Their parents didn’t appear to care; many of them had left school by the eighth grade. Other than the mayor, few of the town’s leaders seemed upset by how bad conditions were in the schools. Sandy decided the remedy wasn’t in the schools but in the community, yet she wasn’t sure what she could do in the face of what appeared to be widespread indifference.
She sensed that the indifference was a symptom of a deeper problem: the public had become disconnected from the public school. When they drove by the building, they would call it the school, not our school. Sandy saw her job as rebuilding a sense of ownership. 3 However, she realized she couldn’t start with the school and its problems. She had to begin with the things everyone, not just parents, really cared about. Many were concerned that young people were having trouble finding jobs, and, with nothing to do, were getting into trouble. So, Sandy decided to start with people’s concerns about both their future and the future of the next generation. She went from being a teacher to being a community builder, which meant creating a citizens’ coalition to combat some of the problems in the community that were spilling over into the schools. Curbing alcohol abuse was the coalition’s first issue.
Max, a public health professional, was dismayed by the political polarization that quickly stymied his agency’s efforts to deal with sensitive issues like reducing pollution and creating landfills for garbage. Unresolved, these problems ended up in the courts, and delays there meant that health hazards went unattended while lawyers wrangled. Max decided that the only way to break the logjams was to go to the people before the polarization set in. But how? Nothing in his training or career provided an answer.
Then Max realized that issues were seldom described in ways that resonated with people’s deepest concerns. The descriptions coming from his agency were usually highly technical. Water quality reports, for example, listed possible contaminants by their scientific names and their presence by parts per million. People wondered what all the numbers meant. Furthermore, the options for solving problems quickly became polar opposites—add fluoride to the water or ban all additives. Maybe these ways of identifying and presenting issues were contributing to the divisiveness. Max began working with his community to rename issues to include more than just technical data and to lay out a wider ranger of options to consider. He started holding community forums that changed the way his agency related to the public.
From a Typical Water Quality Report 4 Regulated Substance Highest Level Allowed (MCL) Ideal Goals (MCLG) Highest Level Detected Regulated at the Treatment Plant Flouride (ppm) 4 4 1.19 Nitrate (ppm) 10 10 1.87 Turbidity (NTU) TT=1