Lars Hasselblad Torres
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lhtorres@americaspeaks.org
Apr 30, 2003, 6:19 AM
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What do citizens want?
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This is a great question, because while there are alot of us running around out here saying, "Citizens want to be engaged in national governance," some evidence suggests otherwise. A recent book, Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work by Profs. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (University of Nebraska) points to two flaws in the the argument for greater involvement. The first is that very little empirical evidence exists to justify claims for greater involvement. Everyone knows that citizens are generally bowing out of our formal democratic duties; these profs take a look at why. The second point they make is that their research suggests that the solution to the sloughing of democratic participation is better government, not greater citizen participation.
Anyone have some good evidence to counter their arguments?
lars
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