Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting

Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting. Brookings Institution. July 20, 2020

Imagine an American democracy remade by its citizens in the very image of its promise, a society where the election system is designed to allow citizens to perform their most basic civic duty with ease. Imagine that all could vote without obstruction or suppression. Imagine Americans who now solemnly accept their responsibilities to sit on juries and to defend our country in a time of war taking their obligations to the work of self-government just as seriously. Imagine elections in which 80 percent or more of our people cast their ballots—broad participation in our great democratic undertaking by citizens of every race, heritage and class, by those with strongly-held ideological beliefs, and those with more moderate or less settled views. And imagine how all of this could instill confidence in our capacity for common action.

This report is offered with these aspirations in mind and is rooted in the history of American movements to expand voting rights. Our purpose is to propose universal civic duty voting as an indispensable and transformative step toward full electoral participation. Our nation’s current crisis of governance has focused unprecedented public attention on intolerable inequities and demands that Americans think boldly and consider reforms that until now seemed beyond our reach. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 63 pages].

Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century

Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. June 2020.

Founded nearly 250 years ago, the United States of America is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. Its infancy, under the Articles of Confederation, was turbulent. Its early prospects, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, were very much uncertain. At the Convention, Benjamin Franklin—catalyst of the Revolution, leading citizen of the republic, enslaver turned abolitionist—wondered as he observed the conflicts, compromises, and contradictions of the process: was the young nation’s sun rising or setting? With the signing of the Constitution, he concluded, the sun was rising.
Today, the question of rise or fall is more pertinent than ever. In this age of globalization, centralized power, economic inequality, deep demographic shifts, political polarization, pandemics and climate change, and radical disruption in the media and information environments, we face these converging trends in a constitutional democracy that feels to many increasingly unresponsive, nonadaptive, and even antiquated. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 84 pages].

The Internet and Engaged Citizenship

The Internet and Engaged Citizenship. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. David Karpf. October 2019.

The Internet is everywhere. Years ago, it was limited to desktop computers, synonymous with the static and whir of a connecting modem. Today it is in our pockets, on our wrists, in our household appliances, and on the multitude of screens that we interact with daily. The old dividing line between online and offline has dissolved, taking with it simplistic comparisons between online and offline civic and political behavior. Questions regarding the state of engaged citizenship in the United States in 2019 inevitably become tied up with digital media, because digital media are now baked into how we learn about public affairs, voice our opinions, argue with our neighbors, and build political power. Civic participation, political polarization, public misinformation, and public accountability all have a digital element to them.

Is the Internet hurting or helping civic engagement and political participation? Who does it empower, and who does it disenfranchise? Is it leaving the public better or worse informed? Is it damaging media and political institutions, or promoting innovation and renewal? Despite decades of scholarship on the Internet and civic engagement, we have arrived at surprisingly few stable findings. Two limiting factors—the pace of Internet time and the proprietary data gap—have repeatedly gotten in the way.

This paper discusses these two limitations, and then details five thematic areas that touch on major trends in the state of knowledge within the field. The purpose of the paper is to make clear how the medium has changed over the decades, to highlight how today’s Internet in civic life differs from the civic Internet of decades’ past, and to capture the key puzzles that will drive research in the near future. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 40 pages].

City Service Corp: AmeriCorps Program Outcome Evaluation

City Service Corp: AmeriCorps Program Outcome Evaluation. Urban Institute. Nathan Dietz et al. April 18, 2019

New York City shows a tremendous need for robust social services. Nearly 3.8 million people (45 percent of residents) live in poverty or just above the threshold—and income inequality continues to rise. Approximately 1.4 million New Yorkers face food insecurity, and more than 400,000 people live in public housing. New York City has the largest number of youths disconnected from school and employment in the country, and fewer than three-quarters of the city’s youths complete high school.

These needs were recognized by the Office of the Mayor in its long-term strategic plan, One New York: The Plan for a Strong and Just City. The plan seeks to ensure all New Yorkers have access to “high-quality, conveniently located, community-based city resources that promote civic engagement.” With this goal in mind, NYC Service founded City Service Corps to unite a diverse group of AmeriCorps members to serve full time at city agencies and, in the program years studied for this report, community-based organizations to address pressing community needs and help make the City of New York more equitable.

The Urban Institute conducted an evaluation of the City Service Corps program to assess how much organizations benefit from the City Service Corps members’ service, the extent to which members gain valuable skills, and whether they continue to be civically engaged after completing the program. This evaluation focused on the first two program years, 2015–16 and 2016–17. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 121 pages].

Civic Engagement Strongly Tied to Local News Habits

Civic Engagement Strongly Tied to Local News Habits. Pew Research Center. Michael Barthel, Jesse Holcomb, Jessica Mahone and Amy Mitchell. November 3, 2016

In local communities, the civically engaged – the people who vote, volunteer and connect with those around them – play a key role in community life. Thus, how and to what degree they stay informed about their communities carries added weight.
A new study by Pew Research Center in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation reveals that, overall, the civically engaged are indeed more likely than the less engaged to use and value local news. But two particular aspects of civic engagement stand out as most closely associated with local news habits: a strong connection to one’s community and always voting in local elections. Americans with one of these two attributes, the study finds, consistently display stronger local news habits across a range of measures: news interest, news intake (the number and types of sources they turn to) and news attitudes – their views of local news organizations. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 37 pages, 949.49 KB].

Social Media and Political Engagement

Social Media and Political Engagement. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Lee Rainie et al. October 19, 2012.

The use of social media is becoming a feature of political and civic engagement for many Americans. Some 60% of American adults use either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, and the survey finds that 66% of those social media users, or 39% of all American adults, have done at least one of eight civic or political activities with social media. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 13 pages, 834.26 KB].