Small businesses and volunteer associations have long been engines of the local community dynamism for which the United States is known. In recent years though, an inchoate movement has emerged nationwide to act locally driven in no small part by growing consumer desire to eat locally. In an age of globalization and social mobility though, this movement raises three important questions worth addressing:
1) How much do people actually know about their local communities?
2) What should they know?
3) How might local learning be nurtured?
I don’t profess to know all the answers to these questions, but as a sociologist, a long-time community organizer and the founder of Learning Life, I have some ideas.
To the first question, I suspect that most people know more about their communities as consumers than as citizens. Consumers need and want products and services of all kinds, and businesses have a vital interest in attracting consumers. Community non-profits and volunteer groups likewise desire to engage residents, but they don’t typically have the resources businesses have, nor do they usually so directly aim to meet people’s material needs and wants. Thus, we are likelier to know where to find good food, clean our clothes and fix our vehicles than where to mentor and tutor children, care for the elderly, or just learn local history. Similarly, when it comes to engaging with local government we are likelier to know where the public parks and playgrounds are, how to call the police, or get a license renewed or replaced than who our local government representatives let alone how to participate in government.
This matters because there is ample evidence linking knowledge and engagement. That is, people who know more about a given topic are more likely to be interested and involved in that topic, be it astronomy, politics, or their local community (e.g., on the connection between political knowledge and political engagement, see, for instance, Delli Carpini & Keeter 1997, Galston 2001 and Torney-Purta et al. 2001). Also, as I noted in a previous post, cognitive research shows that the more one knows about a given topic, the better one remembers, comprehends and problem solves on that topic. Thus, people who know more about their local communities are more likely to be better local citizens: more active, interested, intelligent and better problem-solvers.
To the second question, accordingly, local citizens should know more about local history, avenues for government participation, and the local individuals and groups that make their communities better places to live. Local citizens should also know more about the economy (e.g., what are the major local industries, who are the largest employers, how does local government constrain and enable the local economy?), environment (e.g., where does our water come from, what is the quality of the air we breathe, and how do business and government affect these?) and demographics of their community (e.g., what is the ethnic, racial and religious make-up of the community, what are the most common languages spoken at home, what are residents’ income and education levels?). Such local knowledge strengthens residents’ capacities to understand, appreciate and help their communities.
To the third question, I propose that community advocates and stakeholders need to think in terms of building a local learning infrastructure (LLI). Such infrastructure consists of a community’s means for informing and engaging its residents about things that matter locally, from emergencies to public meetings to local history. Currently, municipal and county governments provide much of that infrastructure with varying degrees of quality and quantity. In many if not most localities there is plenty of room for improvement, and partnerships with local businesses and non-profits can help.
Twenty years ago, Carol A. Twigg, current President of the National Center for Academic Transformation and former Vice-President of Educom (now EDUCAUSE), declared “The Need for a National Learning Infrastructure” in an essay by that name. Responding in part to the Clinton Administration’s call for an “information superhighway,” Twigg’s essay correctly identified a then nascent movement toward more online, networked and independent learning that is now revolutionizing higher education. She concluded her essay with the following statement: “It is time to move beyond the walls of our individual colleges and universities to join forces with other institutions, with corporations, and with public policy makers to revitalize American higher education.”
A similar call can and should be raised in communities across the United States and the world: given the dominance of consumerism over citizenship, and the ways globalization and mobility can distance people from their local communities, it is time for governments, non-profits and businesses to work together to systematically develop local learning infrastructures. LLIs can help inform and mobilize more residents to address community issues, whether these be environmental, economic, political, and/or social.
To this end, Learning Life partners with government agencies, businesses and nonprofits to spread signia or significant information on napkins and coasters in restaurants, bars, cafes and other eateries in metro D.C. This work follows on my belief in the strength of “big bits,” that is, bits of information that can effectively inform and engage people. It also advances our mission to inform and engage more people by spreading knowledge on everyday surfaces, whether these be phones, tablets and PCs, or napkins, posters and placemats. Such work is not a panacea, but we hope it becomes part of a wider creative effort to develop local learning infrastructures in communities in the United States and abroad.
Many if not all Americans are aware that money plays a large role in American elections, but fewer people know exactly how. Check out these five facts on election campaign finance to check your knowledge, or learn more.
Thanks to Learning Life intern Samantha MacFarlane for helping to research and write these facts.
Federal Election Spending More than Triples in 14 Years
Spending on election campaigns has increased substantially nationwide. In federal elections (i.e., elections for Congress and the President), total spending by candidates, parties and interest groups increased from $1.6 billion to $6.3 billion from 1998 to 2012. The split between Democrats’ and Republicans’ spending fluctuates between 40% and 60%, often leaving 1% just to third party spending.
Below are the spending totals during the last four presidential elections. Click here for the spending totals during mid-term Congressional elections in 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010.
There are spending limits for individuals but not for all organizations. For 2015-16 federal elections, individuals can give up to $2,700 to a candidate per election, and PACs (political action committees) and parties can give up to $2,700 or $5000 depending on the type of organization.
However, due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United v. FEC decision in 2010, political organizations can, separately, collect and spend an unlimited amount to attack or support any federal candidate, so long as these organizations do not formally coordinate with any particular candidate (see below for more on Citizens United v. FEC).
Less than one-third of one percent of Americans (0.31%) give $200 or more to a political candidate, party or PAC, and this tiny minority is responsible for 67% of all individual contributions.
Federal elections are largely financed by special interest groups trying to promote their own goals and ideologies. Among the many special interests putting money in politics, finance (banks, investment firms, insurance companies, real estate investors) give the most.
The financial sector often splits contributions between the two major parties, leaning slightly towards the party in power. Most business groups give more to Republicans, but unions, lawyers, lobbyists, and communications & electronics industries tend to give more to Democrats.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)
In this landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the way for even more money in politics. The Court’s majority ruled that the First Amendment, which asserts the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition, protects, as a form of speech, independent organizations’ (e.g., businesses, labor unions, political action committees) right to produce media supporting or opposing particular candidates. These groups can now spend unlimited amounts to broadcast political messages supporting or opposing candidates as long as they are not collaborating with a candidate or party and no financial transactions between the two are involved. Following this case, some groups became “Super PACs” — political action committees that can engage in political advertising without limits on their income and spending.
It’s presidential election season in America. If there is a time when more Americans pay attention to politics, it is now. Now is thus perhaps the best time to challenge how Americans think about democracy. More often than not, the word “democracy” conjures electing representatives to govern. As important as that is, there is more to democracy, and that “more” is well worth pondering.
The influential 20th century American philosopher, John Dewey was one of democracy’s most ardent proponents. But his view of democracy was broad and participatory, not limited to electing politicians to govern (Dewey 1927, Morris & Shapiro 1993). As historian James Kloppenberg explains, summarizing the work of one of Dewey’s intellectual chroniclers, “First, Dewey believed that democracy is an ethical ideal rather than merely a political arrangement. Second, he considered participation, not representation, the essence of democracy. Third, he insisted on the harmony between democracy and the scientific method: ever-expanding and self-critical communities of inquiry, operating on pragmatic principles and constantly revising their beliefs in light of new evidence, provided Dewey with a model for democratic decision making…Finally, Dewey called for extending democracy, conceived as an ethical project, from politics to industry and society” (Kloppenburg 1992).
To Dewey then, democracy is an ongoing way of being that involves participation in learning and decision-making in most if not all domains of life, including family, work, associations and government. Dewey is, of course, not alone in advocating a more “participatory” version of democracy (e.g., see Pateman 1970, Mansbridge 1983, Barber 2004, Fishkin 2011), but this version is not what prevails in the United States and other modern democracies.
What prevails political observers commonly call representative democracy, or a republic. In contemporary republics, democracy is like a gladiator’s contest, as the political scientist Lester Milbrath (1965) aptly described: at any given time, about 5-7% of citizens are the gladiators who run for office and lead political campaigns and organizations. The spectators, who comprise 55-65% of the public, pay attention, express support and vote. The rest, whom Milbrath called “the apathetics,” comprising 30-40% of citizens, don’t bother to come to the show — they don’t pay attention, let alone act politically, and thus know little about politics. This republican democracy is associated with greater inequalities in participation and power as well as greater apathy and partisanship.
Some political scientists claim that republican democracy is inevitable, that one cannot realistically expect citizens to be engaged in the same way all the time, and that more engagement may only lead to more conflict and crisis from competing citizen demands. These claims though generally assume that democracy should be limited to government, and that active citizens are partisans rather than deliberators.
Dewey, like other participatory democrats, contends that all organizations – governmental, business and nonprofit – engage in decision-making, and that decision-making can be made more democratic, involving more people rather than habitually delegating to executives or representatives. Further, whether citizens become rigid, self-interested partisans or flexible, public-interested deliberators depends in no small part on the rules of engagement organizations establish, including the ideal citizens organizations uphold.
Clearly, as numerous notable political observers (e.g., more recently, Haidt 2012, Fukuyama 2014) remark, drawing on evolutionary science, humans are inclined to be self-interested, but we are also routinely cooperative when it suits us, and for better or worse, even self-abnegating when moved by another individual or group to whom we feel committed. As social scientists know well, how we act depends a lot on our social circumstances, and the organizations in which we live and work every day play a large role in defining those circumstances.
The implications are that (a) more participatory democracy is possible, and (b) democratic organizations can make it happen. Indeed, there are plenty of contemporary examples, including organizations like Voice of the People, Healthy Democracy and the Center for Deliberative Democracy. Groups like these get diverse citizens involved in local to international dialogues that nurture more equitable, tolerant, informed and public-spirited decision-making among citizens and policymakers alike. Yet to make democracy a routine practice, as Dewey envisioned, rather than a periodic choice, calls for imagining, discussing and enacting models that democratize not only government, but also society.
Barber, Benjamin. 2004. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dewey, John. 1927. The Public and its Problems. New York: Holt.
Fishkin, James. 2011. When the People Speak. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fukuyama, Francis. 2014. Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books.
Kloppenberg, James T. 1992. Book review of John Dewey and American Democracy, by Robert B. Westbrook in American Historical Review, p.919-920.
Mansbridge, Jane. 1983. Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Milbrath, Lester. 1965. Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics? Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.
Morris, Debra, and Ian Shapiro, eds. 1993. John Dewey: The Political Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. London: Cambridge University Press.
Mass Shootings in the USA
Mass shootings are more common in the United States than many other developed countries. When mass public shootings occur, they often attract national attention, and lead some to wonder whether Americans are becoming more violent. The following five facts highlight the types of mass shootings as well as their violence, and answer whether mass shootings are on the rise.
What Is a “Mass Shooting”?
Criminologists typically define crimes by type (e.g., murder, arson, burglary), style (e.g., number of offenders, weapons used, time frame, locations) and victim counts.
Mass shooting = 4 or more victims murdered with firearms, in one incident, in one or more locations in close proximity. (The offender is not counted as a victim if he/she dies.)
Note: Definition matters because it specifies what one is talking about, and is one key to determining whether or not mass shootings are on the rise. A word of caution though: definitions can vary and change. The above definition comes from Krouse & Richardson 2015.
What Are the Kinds of Mass Shootings?
Krouse & Richardson distinguish three kinds of mass shootings:
Public shootings occur in one or more public places (e.g., streets, churches, schools, workplaces) and are not “attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle).”
Familicide mass shootings in which most or all victims are family members (most commonly an intimate partner and children), and are not “attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (e.g., armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle)
Other felony mass shootings are “attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle).”
Mass Shootings on the Rise
1970s: 1.1 mass shootings per year, with 5.5 victims murdered, 2 wounded per incident.
1980s: 2.7 mass shootings per year, with 6.1 victims murdered, 5.3 wounded per incident.
1990s: 4.0 mass shootings per year, with 5.6 victims murdered, 5.5 wounded per incident.
2000s: 4.1 mass shootings per year, with 6.4 victims murdered, 4.0 wounded per incident.
2010-3: 4.5 mass shootings per year, with 7.4 victims murdered, 6.3 wounded per incident.
Thus, the number of incidents has consistently risen decade by decade since the 1970s, but the deadliness has not. Given the small number of mass shootings (small relative to the total number of firearm murders) per year, one particularly violent mass shooting (e.g., the 2012 Newtown, CT school shooting) can bump up the yearly average number of killed and/or wounded.
Note: The vast majority of mass shootings are committed by one person. An incident can last minutes, hours, or days.
Most Common Mass Shootings: Familicides
Between 1999 and 2013 in the USA, familicide mass shootings were the most common, accounting for 40% (127 incidents) of all mass shootings over the period, compared with 39% (124 incidents) for other felony mass shootings, and 21% (66 incidents) for public ones.
Most Violent but Least Deadly Mass Shootings: Public Shootings
Attempts to kill are generally more successful with guns rather than knives, fists, or other weapons. But among mass shootings, in 1999-2013 in the USA, familicides were the most deadly, ending in 576 total killed vs. 37 wounded. Other felony mass shootings are also deadly (532 killed vs. 75 wounded). Public mass shootings are least deadly (446 killed vs. 329 wounded).
In short, in 1999-2013, among the three types of mass shootings, public shootings involved the most dead and injured combined, but the least dead.
Source
Krouse, William J., and Daniel J. Richardson. 2015. “Mass Murder with Firearms: Incidents and Victims, 1999-2013.” Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service.
To the first question, I suspect that most people know more about their communities as consumers than as citizens. Consumers need and want products and services of all kinds, and businesses have a vital interest in attracting consumers. Community non-profits and volunteer groups likewise desire to engage residents, but they don’t typically have the resources businesses have, nor do they usually so directly aim to meet people’s material needs and wants. Thus, we are likelier to know where to find good food, clean our clothes and fix our vehicles than where to mentor and tutor children, care for the elderly, or just learn local history. Similarly, when it comes to engaging with local government we are likelier to know where the public parks and playgrounds are, how to call the police, or get a license renewed or replaced than who our local government representatives let alone how to participate in government.
