Reviving civic associations that are not trivial, obsessed

books:

	• Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life Theda Skocpol University of Oklahoma Press, 2004 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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Reviving civic associations that are not trivial, obsessed

...

Many years ago, I fell into the habit of joining imaginary organizations. From time to time, depending on the pomposity level of the cocktail party I was attending, I have been:
President, STABB, Society for the Total Annihilation of Beanie Babies.
Executive Director, AAAAPM, "QuadrupleA/PM," the American Association for the Advancement of Applied PeripheroMetrics (Our motto: "If It's Far Enough Out, We'll Measure It").
Senior Logothete, Anarchic Chaotic Licentious Utopians, (ACLU).
And most recently, Associate Visiting Carnivore, Protesters Enjoying Talking Angry (PETA).
But now comes a new endeavor. APPROACH. Articulate Perceptive Persons Resolutely Opposed to American Civic Hypochondria.
Thanks, Theda. I couldn't have done it without you.
The Theda just acknowledged is the prolific and engaging Theda Skocpol, Harvard political scientist/sociologist and well-known commentator on American society, social policy, and all matters there unto pertaining. "Diminished Democracy" is not her best effort, if only because it started out in life as a University of Oklahoma lecture series, and lectures don't always transition well into books. Still, there is absolutely nothing wrong with "Diminished Democracy." It's clear, straightforward, solid, logical.
The problem is the (expletive deleted) genre.
It all seems to have started 50 years ago, with David Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd." Ever since, academics, pundits, and politicians have bemoaned the increasing isolation of Americans from each other, especially their ever-diminishing propensity to join the "voluntary civic associations" which, according to Tocqueville - Would congress please pass a 10-year moratorium on quoting Tocqueville? - provide the essential foundation of American democracy.
By the 1980s, bewailing the isolation had become a veritable fixture of American intellectual life. "Habits of the Heart," a multi-author sociological study that drew heavily on Tocqueville, provided the template. More recently, there's been another template, Robert Putnam's insanely over-statistical "Bowling Alone."
Meanwhile, any number of studies purport to prove that, not only are Americans no longer a nation of joiners, but when they do join (which they do avidly), it's the wrong kinds of groups - either self-interested, undemocratic advocacy organizations or trivial, self-obsessed "small groups" such as fundamentalist Bible study or ASAP, Adult Survivors of Adequate Parents, for people who can't blame it all on Mom & Dad.
Could we please stop all the kvetching and just take a look at what is?
Ms. Skocpol doesn't kvetch. At least, not much. And "Diminished Expectations" does indeed offer some worthwhile insights and prescriptions.
The writer starts with a bit of historical revisionism. Contrary to Tocquevillian myth, the American penchant for voluntary association was never exclusively, or even primarily, local. From the early national period on, most of the important local organizations were actually part of national and transnational federations: churches, lodges and fraternal organizations, unions, mutual-aid, charity, and reform groups. Many modeled themselves after the federal government; many arose and thrived in response to national crises, especially war; many even served as governmental adjuncts. Further, although these groups were officially nonpartisan and/or apolitical, they often took a lively interest in political affairs.
Then people stopped joining. From the 1960s to the 1990s, the size and power of these groups waned rapidly. To some extent, this may have been due to the fact that the Greatest Generation was "abnormally civically involved." But many other factors were involved, most notably the tandem of an ever-expanding federal government and the rise of a professional managerial/expert class.
To simplify: Mass membership institutions became less effective at getting things done than professionally-run, government and foundation-funded, mass mediated, hyper-marketed advocacy and lobbying groups. Memberships were reduced to mailing lists, and to less than mailing lists. When anybody could set up claiming to "represent" some group or some cause or other, real human beings often became more of a hindrance than an asset.
Ms. Skocpol deplores this devolution, but also finds the standard communitarian and political reform responses lacking. Her solution is not to return to some mythical past that never existed - local, apolitical involvement - nor to erect ever greater barriers to citizen participation in politics, but to reinvigorate the past that did exist. Three proposals seem especially striking. First, "memberless" organizations should consider becoming federated membership organizations with local chapters. Second, barriers between political and apolitical activity need to be lowered, not raised. And third, we need, somehow, to generate sufficient leaders who want to generate sufficient followers.
An intriguing idea, but not immediately practicable. I suggest therefore that Ms. Skocpol join my new outfit, APPROACH, the American Public Project to Restore, Orchestrate, and Achieve Civic Harmony.
It'll be a start.

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One of the finest books I've ever read

This book was incredible. I have never read anything so thought-provoking and well-written. I highly suggest that you read this book to fully understand the transition from membership to management in American Civic Life. Enjoy it.

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The Urge to Belong

A very nicely written book that raises several speculations. The author points out that in the 19th century, many of the local groups that people joined were chapters of national or transnational organisations. This was part of their attractiveness. Joining a local group gave comradely ties with others across the nation, that you had never met, and probably would never meet. How peculiar was this to the US, as compared with the European countries from which many of these people recently left? Is there any way to quantify this? A little unfair to ask, perhaps, because of the sheer amount of research needed to flesh it out. But the above questions arise naturally out of the research summarised in the book.

Historians have asked if the US was qualitatively different from other countries. ("Vineyard of liberty" etc.) The issues raised by the book give us another way to address the question. Perhaps Americans were more inclined to join such nation spanning groups because as an immigrant, footloose people, if they did not have centuries of binding to the same soil and neighbours, they wanted some other and multiple means of belonging? Was the striking success of the groups in some part due to such inchoate urgings?

Another way to test would be to look into the history of similar groups in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Skocpol also points out that from the 1960s onwards, the membership of such groups in the US fell significantly. She advanced several reasons. But there is one possible reason for some of the decline that she did not mention. From the mid 1950s, TV became pervasive. Remember that joining a volunteer group is done in your recreational time. TV is a notorious competitor for that time, due to its convenience and cheapness. Plus, and more specifically, if one of your reasons (possibly unconscious) for joining a national group is to be part of a larger world, then TV assuages that to some extent. Granted, some of this may be illusory, but so what?

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Pundits and social observers have voiced alarm each year as fewer Americans involve themselves in voluntary groups that meet regularly. Thousands of nonprofit groups have been launched in recent times, but most are run by professionals who lobby Congress or deliver social services to clients. What will happen to U.S. democracy if participatory groups and social movements wither, while civic involvement becomes one more occupation rather than every citizen's right and duty? In Diminished Democracy, Theda Skocpol shows that this decline in public involvement has not always been the case in this country-and how, by understanding the causes of this change, we might reverse it.

Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life is Volume 8 in the Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture Series.

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