-
Title
-
Civic Engagement
-
Author
-
Levine, Peter
-
Research Area
-
The Individual and Society
-
Topic
-
Civic Engagement
-
Abstract
-
Civic engagement is usually measured as a set of concrete activities, from voting to protesting, that individuals undertake in order to sustain or improve their communities. Higher rates of civic engagement generally correlate with desirable social outcomes. Education and socioeconomic status predict whether individuals participate, but programs that recruit and organize disadvantaged people are effective at boosting their civic engagement. Although it is valuable to know the causes and consequences of these behaviors, the ideal of civic engagement is intrinsically normative, connected to basic debates about what constitutes a good society and a meaningful human life. In the future, civic engagement research should not only be an empirical investigation into concrete behaviors but also a reorientation of research throughout the liberal arts to serve civic ends. That will require more fruitful combinations of empirical, normative, and strategic thinking.
-
Related Essays
-
Party Organizations' Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H. Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
-
Identity Fusion (Psychology), Michael D. Burhmester and William B. Swann Jr.
-
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J. D'Amico
-
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J. D'Amico
-
Cities and Sustainable Development (Sociology), Christopher Cusack
-
Understanding the Adaptive Functions of Morality from a Cognitive Psychological Perspective (Psychology), James Dungan and Liane Young
-
Theorizing the Death of Cities (Political Science), Peter Eisinger
-
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help‐Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
-
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
-
The Roots of Moral Reasoning and Behavior in Infants (Psychology), J. Kiley Hamlin and Conor M. Steckler
-
Moral Identity (Psychology), Sam A. Hardy and Gustavo Carlo
-
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen Hawkes and James Coxworth
-
Presidential Power (Political Science), William G. Howell
-
Group Identity and Political Cohesion (Political Science), Leonie Huddy
-
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and Davin L. Phoenix
-
Political Psychology and International Conflict (Political Science), Rose McDermott
-
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian Wampler
-
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and Andrew Reeves
-
Information Politics in Dictatorships (Political Science), Jeremy L. Wallace
-
Identifier
-
etrds0041
-
extracted text
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Civic Engagement
PETER LEVINE
Abstract
Civic engagement is usually measured as a set of concrete activities, from voting
to protesting, that individuals undertake in order to sustain or improve their communities. Higher rates of civic engagement generally correlate with desirable social
outcomes. Education and socioeconomic status predict whether individuals participate, but programs that recruit and organize disadvantaged people are effective at
boosting their civic engagement. Although it is valuable to know the causes and consequences of these behaviors, the ideal of civic engagement is intrinsically normative,
connected to basic debates about what constitutes a good society and a meaningful
human life. In the future, civic engagement research should not only be an empirical
investigation into concrete behaviors but also a reorientation of research throughout
the liberal arts to serve civic ends. That will require more fruitful combinations of
empirical, normative, and strategic thinking.
INTRODUCTION
Civic engagement means all the ways that members of a community act to
define its goals and norms, to sustain and reform its institutions, and to produce public goods. It is usually measured as a set of concrete behaviors, such
as voting, attending meetings, following the news, belonging to voluntary
groups, and volunteering. It can be defined in a value-neutral way, so that
Mussolini’s Blackshirt paramilitaries were as civically engaged as the Freedom Riders of the American Civil Rights Movement. But more often, the
word “civic” gives the whole phrase a positive moral valence, and certain
norms are built into the definition and measures of civic engagement. For
example, civically engaged people may be defined as those who deliberate
respectfully with fellow members of their community and act voluntarily to
sustain a democratic political system. Because the phrase involves values, its
definition is perennially controversial.
Much of the available research is quantitative and explores who is civically
engaged, how levels of engagement have changed over time, what causes
people to engage, and what consequences follow from engagement. There
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
are debates about all of these questions, but substantial evidence suggest that
the traditional forms of engagement are in decline in the United States and
most other wealthy democracies, and the new forms (such as online groups)
have yet to compensate (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 2012). Civic engagement is correlated with socioeconomic advantage; poor and working-class
people have lost opportunities to engage since the 1970s. Finally, the existing
research shows many benefits from engagement. But the research does not
yet provide sufficient guidance to people who want to be responsible and
active citizens.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The foundations of research on civic engagement are very old. In Plato’s
Crito, Socrates argues for a certain kind of civic duty and engagement, and in
Plato’s Republic, probably written somewhat later, Socrates argues that average citizens are not up to the task of being citizens and need to be led by
philosopher kings. In the Politics, Aristotle defines a city state as an association of citizens who deliberate and judge, sharing in the administration of
the polity. For Aristotle, essential acts of civic engagement include service on
juries, participation in assemblies, and service in war.
The debate about whether citizens can and should engage has continued
since Plato argued against democracy and Aristotle took a more positive
view (albeit restricting citizenship to non-slave men). One way that the
debate is organized today is as a continuum between “civic republicans” and
“classical liberals.” The former believe that civic engagement is a good in
itself, an aspect of a fully satisfactory human life, or a necessary precondition
of a just polity. Thus, if actual citizens are not very competent or virtuous,
we must educate or engage them better. Important representatives of that
school include John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Benjamin Barber, Robert Bellah,
Michael Sandel, Harry Boyte, and Sheldon Wolin. Few of these authors
assume that actual citizens are very impressive; they argue instead for
improving the citizenry. The classical liberal position, on the other hand, is
skeptical of efforts to improve people—both because that may undermine
personal liberty and because it will not work. This position traces back to
Locke and Madison but remains current today. Classical liberals advocate
relying more on procedural safeguards (such as restrictive constitutions) to
achieve good political results.
Civic republicanism was revived in the 1970s and has led to a resurgence
of theoretical and philosophical debates about citizenship. The German
philosopher Jürgen Habermas has also contributed to the revival with his
influential work on deliberative democracy, as did the Nobel-Prize-winner
Elinor Ostrom, who studied how communities make and sustain public
goods.
Civic Engagement
3
But just as theorists were becoming more interested in civic engagement,
data suggested that Americans were engaging less. Robert Putnam’s scholarly work of the 1990s, summarized in the best-selling book Bowling Alone
(2000), set the tone for a vibrant debate in which some of the main questions
are: Is it really true that civic engagement is declining, despite the rise of new
online communities and new forms of association, such as self-help groups?
If civic engagement is too rare or unequal, what can be done about that? For
instance, is school-based civic education effective? And is civic engagement
necessarily beneficial? (Surely hate-groups count as voluntary associations,
yet fewer of them would be better.)
Putnam’s master-term is not “civic engagement,” but “social capital,”
defined as networks that people can draw on to solve problems (Putnam,
2011). His focus is not universal among scholars in this field. For Verba,
Schlozman, and Brady, the key question is which Americans are organized
to have effective influence on the government (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady,
1995). For communitarians, the question is whether Americans are isolated
and lonely instead of engaged with one another. Still other authors have been
concerned about political polarization and want to see more deliberation
among diverse citizens. In short, the debate is not just about trends and
correlations but also about what matters most. Civic engagement is intertwined with other terms, such as community, participation, membership,
deliberation, public work, the public sphere, civil society, the commons,
and social capital, none of which is perfectly coterminous with any of the
others.
Research that investigates the reasons for civic engagement usually finds
that it is strongly correlated with education and socioeconomic status, so
that inequality of engagement is a substantial problem. Education may confer skills and ideas that lead people to engage and also work as a proxy for
socioeconomic advantage. Civic engagement also varies both in quantity and
form by demographic group. For example, strong traditions of civic engagement among African Americans mean that voting and membership rates are
often as high for Blacks as for Whites, despite lower mean levels of education
and wealth. African-Americans also tend to engage in different ways, with
a strong contribution from politically conscious churches. That is just once
example of a demographic/cultural difference.
General educational attainment is correlated with civic engagement, but
a narrower question is whether specific educational programs can boost
civic engagement in a lasting way. Most scholars from the 1960s through
the 1980s doubted that civic education had much impact, but more recent
studies find substantial benefits from courses in civics as well as extracurricular programs, community service, and school policies that encourage
constructive participation by students.
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
This essay focuses on the United States, but the literature is global. The
United States traditionally has among the highest levels of engagement, leaving aside voter turnout, on which the United States ranks very low. However,
membership rates have long been always higher in the Nordic democracies than in the United States, and some countries in the Global South are
notable both for high levels of engagement and for influential innovations,
such as the “Participatory Budgeting” processes that originated in Brazil and
the very strong village council or Gram Sabha system in India. Those are
examples of official policy reforms that lead to more civic engagement. In
some countries, notably India, socioeconomic status is not correlated with
civic engagement, as it is the United States.
Research often finds benefits from civic engagement, albeit defined variously in different studies. For individuals, being engaged civically is often
found to confer skills, enhance motivation and satisfaction, and strengthen
networks. Thus, it is associated with lower rates of depression, better school
performance for adolescents, and better physical health. In politics, people
who engage have more power and influence. Finally, communities seem to
thrive better if more of their citizens are engaged.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Much of the debate prompted by authors like Putnam and Verba, Shlozman,
and Brady has used surveys of populations to measure levels of engagement.
The typical questions—such as “How many groups do you belong to?”—are
probably proxy measures for what really matters, which is the structure of
the working relationships in a community. That structure can be understood
as a network, with individuals and institutions as nodes, and relationships
as links. Authors like Robert Sampson and Sean Safford are using network
analysis to reveal what really matters for social outcomes (Safford, 2009;
Sampson, 2012).
Because civic engagement is strongly correlated with a host of desirable
factors, it has traditionally been hard to know what causes it. For example,
education may boost engagement, or the reverse may be true, or they may be
correlated because both reflect socioeconomic advantage. Increasingly, randomized field experiments have been used to test the impact of efforts to
enhance engagement. Randomized experiments helped show, for example,
that it is not difficult to persuade young people to vote. On the other hand,
Sampson argues that randomized studies of individuals have severe limitations for understanding effects that arise at the community level, including
the effects of “collective efficacy” in neighborhoods. (Collective efficacy is
closely related to civic engagement.)
Civic Engagement
5
Governments and other large institutions can either frustrate or encourage civic engagement, and some cutting-edge research asks what particular
tools and strategies are most effective if governments want to strengthen
participation.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Most research on civic engagement, like most academic research in general, is
rather impersonal. The key questions are who engages, why, and with what
consequences? The scholar is looking out on a population and asking questions about it. But imagine that you are an individual who wants to improve
the world. It may not matter to you if people in your situation typically do,
or do not, engage. You want to know how to engage in order to make things
better.
Empirical evidence, such as that summarized earlier, is relevant. It is
helpful to know, for example, that civic education programs can enhance
civic engagement. But empirical evidence does not suffice, because you (as a
would-be active citizen) also need two other things: strategic guidance about
how to change the world, and ethical guidance about which means and
which ends are best. These matters are closely integrated. For instance, an
excellent goal is of no value if the only means to attain that goal are harmful.
Thus, the research that is most urgently needed would combine philosophical, strategic, and empirical questions. It would be addressed to individuals but would not presume that individuals can address social problems
by themselves, so an important question would be: How can you get other
people and institutions to work with you to improve the world? This is not
so much research about civic engagement as research that improves civic
engagement.
Barriers to this kind of research are substantial. Pervasive positivism in the
social sciences separates facts from values, and treats the latter as subjective
opinions rather than assertions that can be vindicated. Disciplines such as
philosophy, political theory, and theology that address matters of value are
rarely concerned with strategy.
There is no coherent framework for research or education for citizenship.
In certain professional occupations, facts, values, and strategies are fruitfully
combined. For instance, prospective physicians learn anatomy, professional
ethics, and therapeutic techniques as part of their training. But there is no
comparable curriculum or research agenda for citizens.
Finally, social science tends to find that deliberate action by citizens (“civic
engagement”) has modest effects on social and political outcomes. For
example, citizens’ involvement with schools improves educational performance, but it is not the most important factor. Such findings limit the
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
amount of research conducted on civic engagement, especially in fields like
macroeconomics, which tend not to take citizenship very seriously as a
causal factor. Yet, a core purpose of research and education is to equip active
citizens with the knowledge they need to be as effective as possible (within
inevitable constraints). Doing one’s best as a citizen is the most important
thing we can do. Thus civic engagement should be a top priority across all
disciplines. It should move from being a specialized topic of study, mainly
involving surveys of people’s concrete behavior, to a core purpose of the
liberal arts as a whole.
REFERENCES
Putnam, R. D. (2001). Community-based social capital and educational performance.
In D. Ravitch & J. P. Viteritti (Eds.), Making good citizens: Education and civil society
(pp. 58). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Safford, S. (2009). Why the garden club couldn’t save Youngstown: The transformation of
the rust belt. Cambidge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Verba, S., Scholzman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism
in american politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (2012). The unheavenly chorus: Unequal
political voice and the broken promise of american democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
PETER LEVINE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Peter Levine is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs
at Tufts University and Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and
Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Levine is the author of the
forthcoming book We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Philosophy
and Practice of Civic Renewal (Oxford University Press, 2013), and six other
books.
RELATED ESSAYS
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Identity Fusion (Psychology), Michael D. Burhmester and William B. Swann
Jr.
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Civic Engagement
7
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Cities and Sustainable Development (Sociology), Christopher Cusack
Understanding the Adaptive Functions of Morality from a Cognitive Psychological Perspective (Psychology), James Dungan and Liane Young
Theorizing the Death of Cities (Political Science), Peter Eisinger
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
The Roots of Moral Reasoning and Behavior in Infants (Psychology), J. Kiley
Hamlin and Conor M. Steckler
Moral Identity (Psychology), Sam A. Hardy and Gustavo Carlo
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Presidential Power (Political Science), William G. Howell
Group Identity and Political Cohesion (Political Science), Leonie Huddy
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and
Davin L. Phoenix
Political Psychology and International Conflict (Political Science), Rose
McDermott
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and
Andrew Reeves
Information Politics in Dictatorships (Political Science), Jeremy L. Wallace
-
Civic Engagement
PETER LEVINE
Abstract
Civic engagement is usually measured as a set of concrete activities, from voting
to protesting, that individuals undertake in order to sustain or improve their communities. Higher rates of civic engagement generally correlate with desirable social
outcomes. Education and socioeconomic status predict whether individuals participate, but programs that recruit and organize disadvantaged people are effective at
boosting their civic engagement. Although it is valuable to know the causes and consequences of these behaviors, the ideal of civic engagement is intrinsically normative,
connected to basic debates about what constitutes a good society and a meaningful
human life. In the future, civic engagement research should not only be an empirical
investigation into concrete behaviors but also a reorientation of research throughout
the liberal arts to serve civic ends. That will require more fruitful combinations of
empirical, normative, and strategic thinking.
INTRODUCTION
Civic engagement means all the ways that members of a community act to
define its goals and norms, to sustain and reform its institutions, and to produce public goods. It is usually measured as a set of concrete behaviors, such
as voting, attending meetings, following the news, belonging to voluntary
groups, and volunteering. It can be defined in a value-neutral way, so that
Mussolini’s Blackshirt paramilitaries were as civically engaged as the Freedom Riders of the American Civil Rights Movement. But more often, the
word “civic” gives the whole phrase a positive moral valence, and certain
norms are built into the definition and measures of civic engagement. For
example, civically engaged people may be defined as those who deliberate
respectfully with fellow members of their community and act voluntarily to
sustain a democratic political system. Because the phrase involves values, its
definition is perennially controversial.
Much of the available research is quantitative and explores who is civically
engaged, how levels of engagement have changed over time, what causes
people to engage, and what consequences follow from engagement. There
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
are debates about all of these questions, but substantial evidence suggest that
the traditional forms of engagement are in decline in the United States and
most other wealthy democracies, and the new forms (such as online groups)
have yet to compensate (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 2012). Civic engagement is correlated with socioeconomic advantage; poor and working-class
people have lost opportunities to engage since the 1970s. Finally, the existing
research shows many benefits from engagement. But the research does not
yet provide sufficient guidance to people who want to be responsible and
active citizens.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The foundations of research on civic engagement are very old. In Plato’s
Crito, Socrates argues for a certain kind of civic duty and engagement, and in
Plato’s Republic, probably written somewhat later, Socrates argues that average citizens are not up to the task of being citizens and need to be led by
philosopher kings. In the Politics, Aristotle defines a city state as an association of citizens who deliberate and judge, sharing in the administration of
the polity. For Aristotle, essential acts of civic engagement include service on
juries, participation in assemblies, and service in war.
The debate about whether citizens can and should engage has continued
since Plato argued against democracy and Aristotle took a more positive
view (albeit restricting citizenship to non-slave men). One way that the
debate is organized today is as a continuum between “civic republicans” and
“classical liberals.” The former believe that civic engagement is a good in
itself, an aspect of a fully satisfactory human life, or a necessary precondition
of a just polity. Thus, if actual citizens are not very competent or virtuous,
we must educate or engage them better. Important representatives of that
school include John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Benjamin Barber, Robert Bellah,
Michael Sandel, Harry Boyte, and Sheldon Wolin. Few of these authors
assume that actual citizens are very impressive; they argue instead for
improving the citizenry. The classical liberal position, on the other hand, is
skeptical of efforts to improve people—both because that may undermine
personal liberty and because it will not work. This position traces back to
Locke and Madison but remains current today. Classical liberals advocate
relying more on procedural safeguards (such as restrictive constitutions) to
achieve good political results.
Civic republicanism was revived in the 1970s and has led to a resurgence
of theoretical and philosophical debates about citizenship. The German
philosopher Jürgen Habermas has also contributed to the revival with his
influential work on deliberative democracy, as did the Nobel-Prize-winner
Elinor Ostrom, who studied how communities make and sustain public
goods.
Civic Engagement
3
But just as theorists were becoming more interested in civic engagement,
data suggested that Americans were engaging less. Robert Putnam’s scholarly work of the 1990s, summarized in the best-selling book Bowling Alone
(2000), set the tone for a vibrant debate in which some of the main questions
are: Is it really true that civic engagement is declining, despite the rise of new
online communities and new forms of association, such as self-help groups?
If civic engagement is too rare or unequal, what can be done about that? For
instance, is school-based civic education effective? And is civic engagement
necessarily beneficial? (Surely hate-groups count as voluntary associations,
yet fewer of them would be better.)
Putnam’s master-term is not “civic engagement,” but “social capital,”
defined as networks that people can draw on to solve problems (Putnam,
2011). His focus is not universal among scholars in this field. For Verba,
Schlozman, and Brady, the key question is which Americans are organized
to have effective influence on the government (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady,
1995). For communitarians, the question is whether Americans are isolated
and lonely instead of engaged with one another. Still other authors have been
concerned about political polarization and want to see more deliberation
among diverse citizens. In short, the debate is not just about trends and
correlations but also about what matters most. Civic engagement is intertwined with other terms, such as community, participation, membership,
deliberation, public work, the public sphere, civil society, the commons,
and social capital, none of which is perfectly coterminous with any of the
others.
Research that investigates the reasons for civic engagement usually finds
that it is strongly correlated with education and socioeconomic status, so
that inequality of engagement is a substantial problem. Education may confer skills and ideas that lead people to engage and also work as a proxy for
socioeconomic advantage. Civic engagement also varies both in quantity and
form by demographic group. For example, strong traditions of civic engagement among African Americans mean that voting and membership rates are
often as high for Blacks as for Whites, despite lower mean levels of education
and wealth. African-Americans also tend to engage in different ways, with
a strong contribution from politically conscious churches. That is just once
example of a demographic/cultural difference.
General educational attainment is correlated with civic engagement, but
a narrower question is whether specific educational programs can boost
civic engagement in a lasting way. Most scholars from the 1960s through
the 1980s doubted that civic education had much impact, but more recent
studies find substantial benefits from courses in civics as well as extracurricular programs, community service, and school policies that encourage
constructive participation by students.
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
This essay focuses on the United States, but the literature is global. The
United States traditionally has among the highest levels of engagement, leaving aside voter turnout, on which the United States ranks very low. However,
membership rates have long been always higher in the Nordic democracies than in the United States, and some countries in the Global South are
notable both for high levels of engagement and for influential innovations,
such as the “Participatory Budgeting” processes that originated in Brazil and
the very strong village council or Gram Sabha system in India. Those are
examples of official policy reforms that lead to more civic engagement. In
some countries, notably India, socioeconomic status is not correlated with
civic engagement, as it is the United States.
Research often finds benefits from civic engagement, albeit defined variously in different studies. For individuals, being engaged civically is often
found to confer skills, enhance motivation and satisfaction, and strengthen
networks. Thus, it is associated with lower rates of depression, better school
performance for adolescents, and better physical health. In politics, people
who engage have more power and influence. Finally, communities seem to
thrive better if more of their citizens are engaged.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Much of the debate prompted by authors like Putnam and Verba, Shlozman,
and Brady has used surveys of populations to measure levels of engagement.
The typical questions—such as “How many groups do you belong to?”—are
probably proxy measures for what really matters, which is the structure of
the working relationships in a community. That structure can be understood
as a network, with individuals and institutions as nodes, and relationships
as links. Authors like Robert Sampson and Sean Safford are using network
analysis to reveal what really matters for social outcomes (Safford, 2009;
Sampson, 2012).
Because civic engagement is strongly correlated with a host of desirable
factors, it has traditionally been hard to know what causes it. For example,
education may boost engagement, or the reverse may be true, or they may be
correlated because both reflect socioeconomic advantage. Increasingly, randomized field experiments have been used to test the impact of efforts to
enhance engagement. Randomized experiments helped show, for example,
that it is not difficult to persuade young people to vote. On the other hand,
Sampson argues that randomized studies of individuals have severe limitations for understanding effects that arise at the community level, including
the effects of “collective efficacy” in neighborhoods. (Collective efficacy is
closely related to civic engagement.)
Civic Engagement
5
Governments and other large institutions can either frustrate or encourage civic engagement, and some cutting-edge research asks what particular
tools and strategies are most effective if governments want to strengthen
participation.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Most research on civic engagement, like most academic research in general, is
rather impersonal. The key questions are who engages, why, and with what
consequences? The scholar is looking out on a population and asking questions about it. But imagine that you are an individual who wants to improve
the world. It may not matter to you if people in your situation typically do,
or do not, engage. You want to know how to engage in order to make things
better.
Empirical evidence, such as that summarized earlier, is relevant. It is
helpful to know, for example, that civic education programs can enhance
civic engagement. But empirical evidence does not suffice, because you (as a
would-be active citizen) also need two other things: strategic guidance about
how to change the world, and ethical guidance about which means and
which ends are best. These matters are closely integrated. For instance, an
excellent goal is of no value if the only means to attain that goal are harmful.
Thus, the research that is most urgently needed would combine philosophical, strategic, and empirical questions. It would be addressed to individuals but would not presume that individuals can address social problems
by themselves, so an important question would be: How can you get other
people and institutions to work with you to improve the world? This is not
so much research about civic engagement as research that improves civic
engagement.
Barriers to this kind of research are substantial. Pervasive positivism in the
social sciences separates facts from values, and treats the latter as subjective
opinions rather than assertions that can be vindicated. Disciplines such as
philosophy, political theory, and theology that address matters of value are
rarely concerned with strategy.
There is no coherent framework for research or education for citizenship.
In certain professional occupations, facts, values, and strategies are fruitfully
combined. For instance, prospective physicians learn anatomy, professional
ethics, and therapeutic techniques as part of their training. But there is no
comparable curriculum or research agenda for citizens.
Finally, social science tends to find that deliberate action by citizens (“civic
engagement”) has modest effects on social and political outcomes. For
example, citizens’ involvement with schools improves educational performance, but it is not the most important factor. Such findings limit the
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
amount of research conducted on civic engagement, especially in fields like
macroeconomics, which tend not to take citizenship very seriously as a
causal factor. Yet, a core purpose of research and education is to equip active
citizens with the knowledge they need to be as effective as possible (within
inevitable constraints). Doing one’s best as a citizen is the most important
thing we can do. Thus civic engagement should be a top priority across all
disciplines. It should move from being a specialized topic of study, mainly
involving surveys of people’s concrete behavior, to a core purpose of the
liberal arts as a whole.
REFERENCES
Putnam, R. D. (2001). Community-based social capital and educational performance.
In D. Ravitch & J. P. Viteritti (Eds.), Making good citizens: Education and civil society
(pp. 58). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Safford, S. (2009). Why the garden club couldn’t save Youngstown: The transformation of
the rust belt. Cambidge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Verba, S., Scholzman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism
in american politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (2012). The unheavenly chorus: Unequal
political voice and the broken promise of american democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
PETER LEVINE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Peter Levine is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs
at Tufts University and Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and
Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Levine is the author of the
forthcoming book We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Philosophy
and Practice of Civic Renewal (Oxford University Press, 2013), and six other
books.
RELATED ESSAYS
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Identity Fusion (Psychology), Michael D. Burhmester and William B. Swann
Jr.
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Civic Engagement
7
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Cities and Sustainable Development (Sociology), Christopher Cusack
Understanding the Adaptive Functions of Morality from a Cognitive Psychological Perspective (Psychology), James Dungan and Liane Young
Theorizing the Death of Cities (Political Science), Peter Eisinger
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
The Roots of Moral Reasoning and Behavior in Infants (Psychology), J. Kiley
Hamlin and Conor M. Steckler
Moral Identity (Psychology), Sam A. Hardy and Gustavo Carlo
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Presidential Power (Political Science), William G. Howell
Group Identity and Political Cohesion (Political Science), Leonie Huddy
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and
Davin L. Phoenix
Political Psychology and International Conflict (Political Science), Rose
McDermott
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and
Andrew Reeves
Information Politics in Dictatorships (Political Science), Jeremy L. Wallace
Civic Engagement
PETER LEVINE
Abstract
Civic engagement is usually measured as a set of concrete activities, from voting
to protesting, that individuals undertake in order to sustain or improve their communities. Higher rates of civic engagement generally correlate with desirable social
outcomes. Education and socioeconomic status predict whether individuals participate, but programs that recruit and organize disadvantaged people are effective at
boosting their civic engagement. Although it is valuable to know the causes and consequences of these behaviors, the ideal of civic engagement is intrinsically normative,
connected to basic debates about what constitutes a good society and a meaningful
human life. In the future, civic engagement research should not only be an empirical
investigation into concrete behaviors but also a reorientation of research throughout
the liberal arts to serve civic ends. That will require more fruitful combinations of
empirical, normative, and strategic thinking.
INTRODUCTION
Civic engagement means all the ways that members of a community act to
define its goals and norms, to sustain and reform its institutions, and to produce public goods. It is usually measured as a set of concrete behaviors, such
as voting, attending meetings, following the news, belonging to voluntary
groups, and volunteering. It can be defined in a value-neutral way, so that
Mussolini’s Blackshirt paramilitaries were as civically engaged as the Freedom Riders of the American Civil Rights Movement. But more often, the
word “civic” gives the whole phrase a positive moral valence, and certain
norms are built into the definition and measures of civic engagement. For
example, civically engaged people may be defined as those who deliberate
respectfully with fellow members of their community and act voluntarily to
sustain a democratic political system. Because the phrase involves values, its
definition is perennially controversial.
Much of the available research is quantitative and explores who is civically
engaged, how levels of engagement have changed over time, what causes
people to engage, and what consequences follow from engagement. There
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
are debates about all of these questions, but substantial evidence suggest that
the traditional forms of engagement are in decline in the United States and
most other wealthy democracies, and the new forms (such as online groups)
have yet to compensate (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 2012). Civic engagement is correlated with socioeconomic advantage; poor and working-class
people have lost opportunities to engage since the 1970s. Finally, the existing
research shows many benefits from engagement. But the research does not
yet provide sufficient guidance to people who want to be responsible and
active citizens.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The foundations of research on civic engagement are very old. In Plato’s
Crito, Socrates argues for a certain kind of civic duty and engagement, and in
Plato’s Republic, probably written somewhat later, Socrates argues that average citizens are not up to the task of being citizens and need to be led by
philosopher kings. In the Politics, Aristotle defines a city state as an association of citizens who deliberate and judge, sharing in the administration of
the polity. For Aristotle, essential acts of civic engagement include service on
juries, participation in assemblies, and service in war.
The debate about whether citizens can and should engage has continued
since Plato argued against democracy and Aristotle took a more positive
view (albeit restricting citizenship to non-slave men). One way that the
debate is organized today is as a continuum between “civic republicans” and
“classical liberals.” The former believe that civic engagement is a good in
itself, an aspect of a fully satisfactory human life, or a necessary precondition
of a just polity. Thus, if actual citizens are not very competent or virtuous,
we must educate or engage them better. Important representatives of that
school include John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Benjamin Barber, Robert Bellah,
Michael Sandel, Harry Boyte, and Sheldon Wolin. Few of these authors
assume that actual citizens are very impressive; they argue instead for
improving the citizenry. The classical liberal position, on the other hand, is
skeptical of efforts to improve people—both because that may undermine
personal liberty and because it will not work. This position traces back to
Locke and Madison but remains current today. Classical liberals advocate
relying more on procedural safeguards (such as restrictive constitutions) to
achieve good political results.
Civic republicanism was revived in the 1970s and has led to a resurgence
of theoretical and philosophical debates about citizenship. The German
philosopher Jürgen Habermas has also contributed to the revival with his
influential work on deliberative democracy, as did the Nobel-Prize-winner
Elinor Ostrom, who studied how communities make and sustain public
goods.
Civic Engagement
3
But just as theorists were becoming more interested in civic engagement,
data suggested that Americans were engaging less. Robert Putnam’s scholarly work of the 1990s, summarized in the best-selling book Bowling Alone
(2000), set the tone for a vibrant debate in which some of the main questions
are: Is it really true that civic engagement is declining, despite the rise of new
online communities and new forms of association, such as self-help groups?
If civic engagement is too rare or unequal, what can be done about that? For
instance, is school-based civic education effective? And is civic engagement
necessarily beneficial? (Surely hate-groups count as voluntary associations,
yet fewer of them would be better.)
Putnam’s master-term is not “civic engagement,” but “social capital,”
defined as networks that people can draw on to solve problems (Putnam,
2011). His focus is not universal among scholars in this field. For Verba,
Schlozman, and Brady, the key question is which Americans are organized
to have effective influence on the government (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady,
1995). For communitarians, the question is whether Americans are isolated
and lonely instead of engaged with one another. Still other authors have been
concerned about political polarization and want to see more deliberation
among diverse citizens. In short, the debate is not just about trends and
correlations but also about what matters most. Civic engagement is intertwined with other terms, such as community, participation, membership,
deliberation, public work, the public sphere, civil society, the commons,
and social capital, none of which is perfectly coterminous with any of the
others.
Research that investigates the reasons for civic engagement usually finds
that it is strongly correlated with education and socioeconomic status, so
that inequality of engagement is a substantial problem. Education may confer skills and ideas that lead people to engage and also work as a proxy for
socioeconomic advantage. Civic engagement also varies both in quantity and
form by demographic group. For example, strong traditions of civic engagement among African Americans mean that voting and membership rates are
often as high for Blacks as for Whites, despite lower mean levels of education
and wealth. African-Americans also tend to engage in different ways, with
a strong contribution from politically conscious churches. That is just once
example of a demographic/cultural difference.
General educational attainment is correlated with civic engagement, but
a narrower question is whether specific educational programs can boost
civic engagement in a lasting way. Most scholars from the 1960s through
the 1980s doubted that civic education had much impact, but more recent
studies find substantial benefits from courses in civics as well as extracurricular programs, community service, and school policies that encourage
constructive participation by students.
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
This essay focuses on the United States, but the literature is global. The
United States traditionally has among the highest levels of engagement, leaving aside voter turnout, on which the United States ranks very low. However,
membership rates have long been always higher in the Nordic democracies than in the United States, and some countries in the Global South are
notable both for high levels of engagement and for influential innovations,
such as the “Participatory Budgeting” processes that originated in Brazil and
the very strong village council or Gram Sabha system in India. Those are
examples of official policy reforms that lead to more civic engagement. In
some countries, notably India, socioeconomic status is not correlated with
civic engagement, as it is the United States.
Research often finds benefits from civic engagement, albeit defined variously in different studies. For individuals, being engaged civically is often
found to confer skills, enhance motivation and satisfaction, and strengthen
networks. Thus, it is associated with lower rates of depression, better school
performance for adolescents, and better physical health. In politics, people
who engage have more power and influence. Finally, communities seem to
thrive better if more of their citizens are engaged.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Much of the debate prompted by authors like Putnam and Verba, Shlozman,
and Brady has used surveys of populations to measure levels of engagement.
The typical questions—such as “How many groups do you belong to?”—are
probably proxy measures for what really matters, which is the structure of
the working relationships in a community. That structure can be understood
as a network, with individuals and institutions as nodes, and relationships
as links. Authors like Robert Sampson and Sean Safford are using network
analysis to reveal what really matters for social outcomes (Safford, 2009;
Sampson, 2012).
Because civic engagement is strongly correlated with a host of desirable
factors, it has traditionally been hard to know what causes it. For example,
education may boost engagement, or the reverse may be true, or they may be
correlated because both reflect socioeconomic advantage. Increasingly, randomized field experiments have been used to test the impact of efforts to
enhance engagement. Randomized experiments helped show, for example,
that it is not difficult to persuade young people to vote. On the other hand,
Sampson argues that randomized studies of individuals have severe limitations for understanding effects that arise at the community level, including
the effects of “collective efficacy” in neighborhoods. (Collective efficacy is
closely related to civic engagement.)
Civic Engagement
5
Governments and other large institutions can either frustrate or encourage civic engagement, and some cutting-edge research asks what particular
tools and strategies are most effective if governments want to strengthen
participation.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Most research on civic engagement, like most academic research in general, is
rather impersonal. The key questions are who engages, why, and with what
consequences? The scholar is looking out on a population and asking questions about it. But imagine that you are an individual who wants to improve
the world. It may not matter to you if people in your situation typically do,
or do not, engage. You want to know how to engage in order to make things
better.
Empirical evidence, such as that summarized earlier, is relevant. It is
helpful to know, for example, that civic education programs can enhance
civic engagement. But empirical evidence does not suffice, because you (as a
would-be active citizen) also need two other things: strategic guidance about
how to change the world, and ethical guidance about which means and
which ends are best. These matters are closely integrated. For instance, an
excellent goal is of no value if the only means to attain that goal are harmful.
Thus, the research that is most urgently needed would combine philosophical, strategic, and empirical questions. It would be addressed to individuals but would not presume that individuals can address social problems
by themselves, so an important question would be: How can you get other
people and institutions to work with you to improve the world? This is not
so much research about civic engagement as research that improves civic
engagement.
Barriers to this kind of research are substantial. Pervasive positivism in the
social sciences separates facts from values, and treats the latter as subjective
opinions rather than assertions that can be vindicated. Disciplines such as
philosophy, political theory, and theology that address matters of value are
rarely concerned with strategy.
There is no coherent framework for research or education for citizenship.
In certain professional occupations, facts, values, and strategies are fruitfully
combined. For instance, prospective physicians learn anatomy, professional
ethics, and therapeutic techniques as part of their training. But there is no
comparable curriculum or research agenda for citizens.
Finally, social science tends to find that deliberate action by citizens (“civic
engagement”) has modest effects on social and political outcomes. For
example, citizens’ involvement with schools improves educational performance, but it is not the most important factor. Such findings limit the
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
amount of research conducted on civic engagement, especially in fields like
macroeconomics, which tend not to take citizenship very seriously as a
causal factor. Yet, a core purpose of research and education is to equip active
citizens with the knowledge they need to be as effective as possible (within
inevitable constraints). Doing one’s best as a citizen is the most important
thing we can do. Thus civic engagement should be a top priority across all
disciplines. It should move from being a specialized topic of study, mainly
involving surveys of people’s concrete behavior, to a core purpose of the
liberal arts as a whole.
REFERENCES
Putnam, R. D. (2001). Community-based social capital and educational performance.
In D. Ravitch & J. P. Viteritti (Eds.), Making good citizens: Education and civil society
(pp. 58). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Safford, S. (2009). Why the garden club couldn’t save Youngstown: The transformation of
the rust belt. Cambidge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American city: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Verba, S., Scholzman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism
in american politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (2012). The unheavenly chorus: Unequal
political voice and the broken promise of american democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
PETER LEVINE SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Peter Levine is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs
at Tufts University and Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and
Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Levine is the author of the
forthcoming book We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Philosophy
and Practice of Civic Renewal (Oxford University Press, 2013), and six other
books.
RELATED ESSAYS
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
Identity Fusion (Psychology), Michael D. Burhmester and William B. Swann
Jr.
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Civic Engagement
7
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Cities and Sustainable Development (Sociology), Christopher Cusack
Understanding the Adaptive Functions of Morality from a Cognitive Psychological Perspective (Psychology), James Dungan and Liane Young
Theorizing the Death of Cities (Political Science), Peter Eisinger
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
The Roots of Moral Reasoning and Behavior in Infants (Psychology), J. Kiley
Hamlin and Conor M. Steckler
Moral Identity (Psychology), Sam A. Hardy and Gustavo Carlo
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Presidential Power (Political Science), William G. Howell
Group Identity and Political Cohesion (Political Science), Leonie Huddy
Racial Disenfranchisement (Political Science), Vincent L. Hutchings and
Davin L. Phoenix
Political Psychology and International Conflict (Political Science), Rose
McDermott
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
The Politics of Disaster Relief (Political Science), Alexander J. Oliver and
Andrew Reeves
Information Politics in Dictatorships (Political Science), Jeremy L. Wallace
Civic Engagement