the military, and the media. Drawing on the pluralist theory of democracy, another explanation claims that Americans don’t need to participate individually because their views are represented in government sufficiently through their membership in various groups. For instance, a citizen may make her views heard through membership in an environmental group, a professional association or labor union, a parent-teacher organization, a veterans’ group, a church, or a political party.
By contrast, some educators and social scientists argue that falling levels of involvement, interest, and trust in politics signal a true civic crisis in American politics. They see a swing from the collectivist citizens of republican virtue to the self-interested, individualistic citizens of Madisonian theory so severe that the fabric of American political life is threatened. For instance, Benjamin Barber, discussing the tendency of Americans to take their freedoms for granted and to assume that since they were born free they will naturally remain free, says that citizenship is the “price of liberty.”21 For all the importance of presidents and senators and justices in the American political system, it is the people, the citizens, who are entrusted with “keeping the republic.”
The question of how democratic the United States is may seem to be largely an academic one—that is, one that has little or no relevance to your personal life—but it is really a question of who has the power, who is likely to be a winner in the political process. Looked at this way, the question has quite a lot to do with your life, especially as government starts to make more demands on you, and you on it. Are you likely to be a winner or a loser? Are you going to get what you want from the political system? How much power do people like you have to get their way in government?
In Your Own Words
Describe the role and responsibilities of citizens in American politics.
Let’s Revisit: What’s at Stake . . . ?
We began this chapter by looking at the power of hashtag activism in response to the phenomenal effort of the Parkland students to change the prevailing narrative about guns, increase the involvement of young people in politics, and bring about political change. We asked whether Benjamin Franklin would consider such movements as fulfilling his admonishment to keep the republic. Since then, we have covered a lot of ground, arguing that politics is fundamental to human life and, in fact, makes life easier for us by giving us a nonviolent way to resolve disputes. We pointed out that politics is a method by which power and resources get distributed in society: politics is who gets what and how they get it. Citizens who are aware and involved stand a much better chance of getting what they want from the system than do those who check out or turn away. One clear consequence when young people disregard politics, then, is that they are far less likely to get what they want from the political system. This is exactly what happens.
But the hashtag activists we met in this chapter have been instrumental in changing the narrative of contemporary American politics. As Occupy protester Matt Brandi says:
The objective of Occupy was to change the direction of the national dialogue and debate. . . . By appearing in strong numbers and generating media interest (both new/social and commercial/mass), Occupy was able to influence the national dialogue. We protested about inequality and exploitation, the corruption of our government by wealth and influence; and while we did not make “demands,” people began to talk about inequality, exploitation, and the corruption of democracy. The very way people talked and thought about these issues changed.
What Matt is suggesting was at stake for the Occupy protesters was, in the language of political scientists, agenda setting. A problem not defined as a problem, or not on the national agenda, cannot be solved by public action. It worked for the Occupy protestors who saw income inequality become a major issue between President Obama and his 2012 Republican challenger, Mitt Romney
It was that effort to change the narrative, and to put real political effort behind it, that encouraged the kids in the March for Our Lives project to spend the summer registering young people and getting them fired up to vote for changes in the gun laws. Although the gun laws remain stubbornly the same, the narrative has begun to change. Young people voted in huge numbers for a midterm election and the policy change is likely to follow the change in narrative.
In the same way, the It Gets Better Project helped change the narrative on both bullying and gay rights. In the years since the movement began in 2011, as more and more “mainstream” people have posted videos promising LGBT youth that it does indeed get better, the world in fact has gotten better. Certainly, the It Gets Better Project was not solely responsible for these changes, but in significant ways it helped change the narrative that made the changes possible.
And the debates over systemic racism and intersectionality in the 2016 election, at least on the Democratic side, make clear that Black Lives Matter had changed the narrative on race, too. President Obama had been cautious about making race a centerpiece of his administration, but his presidency and the BLM movement freed Hillary Clinton, as candidate, to address it in a more comprehensive way.
These movements highlight the value of grassroots action, and the power of stepping outside the system to put pressure on the status quo to respond to unmet and even previously unvoiced needs. It might not have been what Benjamin Franklin had in mind, but occupying the republic may very well be another means of keeping it.
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Review
What Is Politics?
Politics (6) is the struggle for power (6) and resources in society—who gets what, and how they get it—including control of information via the media (6). We can use the tools of politics to allocate scarce resources and to establish our favored vision of the social order (6).
Government (7) is an organization set up to exercise authority (7)—power that citizens view as legitimate (7), or “right”—over a body of people. It is shaped by politics and helps provide the rules (8), norms (8), and institutions (9) that in turn continue to shape the political process. Control of political information—that is, defining the political narrative (9) or acting as a gatekeeper (10)—is also a crucial form of power.
Politics is different from economics (11), which is a system for distributing society’s wealth. Economic systems vary in how much control government has over how that distribution takes place, ranging from a capitalist economy (12) (or regulated capitalism [12], like that of the United States), where the free market reigns but government may provide procedural guarantees (12) that the rules are fair, to a socialist economy (12), where government makes substantive guarantees (12) of what it holds to be fair distributions of material resources. Social democracy (13), a market economy that aims to fulfill substantive goals, is in the middle.
Political Systems and the Concept of Citizenship
Economic systems vary according to how much control government has over the economy; political systems vary in how much control government has over individuals’ lives and the social
