|
Rebuilding
Civil Society
A
Symposium from: The New Democrat, volume 7, number 2 March/April
1995. Publisher: Al From. Editor-in-Chief: Chuck Alston. Editor:Tom
Mirga.
Published six times a year by the Democratic Leadership Council
518 C Street N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002. Phone: 202-546-0007.
The Progressive Policy Institute is a project of the DLC, and
Will Marshall, its president, is one of the founders of the American
Civic Forum, and helped fashion the Civic
Declaration: A Call to a New Citizenship.
Index
Introduction
The New Citizenship by Will Marshall.
The Search for Civil Society by Benjamin Barber.
Up From the Ashes by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Power to the People by Sara Jackson-Han.
The Good Work by Harry Boyte and Nancy Kari.
Are You Being Served? by Ed Kilgore.
More information
Introduction
Writing
in the January issue of the Journal of Democracy, Robert Putnam
documented the sad state of our civic bonds in the pithily titled
article, "Bowling Alone." The article drew its title from the
following fact:
- The number
of bowlers in America rose by 10 percent between 1980 and 1993.
The number of people who belong to bowling leagues, however,
dropped by nearly 40 percent during the same period.
- This
off-beat indicator of Americans' slow withdrawal from society
at large is bad news for bowling-lane proprietors, Putnam writes,
because league bowlers "consume three times as much beer and
pizza as solo bowlers." But the broader point, he continues,
is that it is further evidence that our social capital is dwindling.
The empirical evidence for his conclusion is startling:
- Voter
turnout in national elections declined by nearly one- quarter
between the mid-1960s and 1990.
- The number
of people who say they have "attended a public meeting on town
or school affairs" within the past year declined from 22 percent
in 1973 to 13 percent in 1993.
- Though
we're considered a highly "churched" society, "net participation
by Americans, both in religious services and church-related
groups," has declined by nearly one-sixth since the 1960s.
- Parent
participation in parent-teacher organizations has declined by
more than 40 percent since 1964.
- Since
1970, participation in the Boy Scouts has dropped by one fourth
and in the Red Cross by nearly two thirds.
These trends
should alarm anyone who cares about America's future. For the
less we participate in society at large, the more tenuous our
bonds- indeed, the more tenuous our democracy. To withdraw from
civic life is to cede control of our lives to the state and the
marketplace.
It wasn't
always so, of course. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy
in America, Americans were the original joiners; a robust civil
society was a distinguishing feature of American life.
In the package
of cover stories that begins on page 10, we explore the decline
and what we hope is the rebirth of civil society. And we're pleased
to tell you that, along with Putnam, four of the authors in this
month's magazine-Benjamin R. Barber, Will Marshall, Harry C. Boyte,
and Al From-were among those President Clinton summoned to Camp
David to discuss this and related topics in preparation for his
State of the Union Address.
Boyte, Marshall,
and Barber also coordinated the Civic
Declaration: A Call for a New Citizenship a project of the
American Civic Forum issued as a Kettering Foundation paper. Copies
are available from the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Humphrey
Institute, 301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minn. 55455.
New Democrats
belong in the forefront of this nascent movement, for the notion
of citizenship is central to our view of the relationship between
government and citizens; our opportunities are paid for with responsibility,
for ourselves and our community.
Citizen. It's
an old word that's due for a comeback.
More
Information
Democratic
Leadership Council
518 C Street N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
Phone: 202-546-0007; fax: 202-544-5002.
The Progressive
Policy Institute is a project of the DLC.
Phone 202-547-0001;fax: 202-544-5014.
Chuck Alston
is Editor-in-Chief of The New Democrat, and can also
be reached by e-mail:
calston@dlcppi.org
Tom Mirga, editor: tmirga@dlcppi.org
Subscription
to The New Democrat is $18/year.
Unconventional
Wisdom: A Catalogue of Publications of the DLC and PPI (21
pages) is available upon request.
Index
Introduction
The New Citizenship by Will Marshall.
The Search for Civil Society by Benjamin
Barber.
Up From the Ashes by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Power to the People by Sara Jackson-Han.
The Good Work by Harry Boyte and Nancy
Kari.
Are You Being Served? by Ed Kilgore.
More information
Back
to Parties & The Public Index
|
