POWERFUL MOBILIZER

In my evaluation of the several constructs this blog has presented, I’ve used Eugene Meehan’s criteria.[1]  Those criteria were developed to analyze social science theories and models.  The criteria are made up of eight elements:  comprehension, power, precision, consistency or reliability, isomorphism, compatibility, predictability, and control.  I used the criteria to look at the three mental constructs I claimed can be used in choosing content for a civics curriculum.  Those three are the natural rights construct, the critical theory construct, and the liberated federalism construct (a.k.a. federation theory).  Each element of the criteria has a question which can be asked of any theory, model or construct; for example, using the criterion, comprehension, one can ask:  does the theory, model, or construct explain as many phenomena which are related to the area of concern as possible?  In my evaluation, given that I was concerned with a construct not to conduct academic research, but for curricular purposes, I added the criteria abstraction level and motivational level.  In this posting, I want to focus on one of Meehan’s criterion.  I am looking at power and revisiting the question:  does federation theory control its explanatory aspects by being valid and complete in its component parts and in the relations between those parts?

Using power, one can ask whether federation theory’s support of communal strategies is functional; that is, do groups that are noted for having viable bonds of partnership experience more efficacious performance?  This blog has dedicated a lot of space to describing these modes of operation.  I just completed a series of postings that reviewed change strategies that pick up on this view.  Those would be normative-re-educative strategies which I contend are based on federalist principles and values.  In short, I want to address whether such an approach is powerful.

Hahrie Han has recently looked at this concern.[2]  She conducted research on the effectiveness between transactional mobilizing and transformational mobilizing among community based organizations.  Transactional mobilizing relies more on reward and punishment strategies while transformational mobilizing relies on altering the attitudes, perceptions, biases, and even values of people to become active and effective community workers.  This latter technique gets at issues of legitimacy, reference, and expertise rather than punishments and rewards.  Using observations and interviews, she took a highly in-depth view of members in two national organizations.  The main independent variable was the level of engagement one could detect among the chapters of these organizations.  She distinguished high and low levels of engagements.  She then tested whether transactional or transformational techniques could be associated with each level.

Han found that transformational mobilizing was associated with high level engagement.  Most interesting is that the chapter that opted to develop transformational strategy was deemed more successful than the chapter that attempted to find talented and interested individuals as their main approach.  While in using transformational techniques was more expensive – especially in terms of time and effort – the results were characterized by organizational workers who exhibited higher levels of self-motivation for longer periods of time.  The organization’s “mobilizers,” who were charged with recruiting and used the transformative approach, would “allow people to self-select the level of activity they desire … [Organizers] seek to transform people’s interests as they recruit them for action.”[3]  In Han’s accounts of how each of the two types practiced recruitment, transactional mobilizers would seek those workers who would come to the organization ready to function.  On the other hand, transformational mobilizers would invest a great deal of time using one-on-one techniques to train and mentor individual workers so they could develop those leadership skills that could then operate independently within communal arrangements.  This “training” would emphasize the emotional and cognitive elements of a worker’s perspective.  In short, it would be of a normative-re-educative type of strategy.  A noted difference between the two approaches is that the transactional mobilizer type is more successful if highly talented and self-motivated personnel are recruited initially.  It also demands less time and effort to implement.  If people are self-motivated and can see themselves as determining such factors as time, they can be very productive at low costs; i.e., contributing to higher productivity.  Otherwise – and what is usually the case – higher levels of engagement are secured by implementing transformational mobilizing strategy.  In addition, while relying on promoting a communal sense and social capital, there is the added benefit that related attitudes, emotions, and values which are akin to healthier citizenship are enhanced.

I believe this research attests to the power of federalist values.  As such, it adds to the supportive literature that helps warrant the implementation of federation theory in our efforts to develop civics education curriculum.

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[1] Meehan, E. J. (1969). Explanations in social science: A system paradigm. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.

[2] Han, H.  (2014).  How organizations develop activists:  Civic associations and leadership in the 21^st century.  New York, NY:  Oxford University Press.  AND thanks to Michelson, M. (2015).  Political Science Quarterly, Book Review, Fall, pp. 559-560.

[3] Ibid., p. 15.

IS THE LOVE REAL?

Why are we so in love with democracy?  I think our most ardent concern over the question of whether we should be a democracy or not is the vision of the most notorious examples of non-democratic regimes.  Images of Nazi atrocities or stories of Stalinist Russia are conjured up in popular media – films, books, magazine articles – and that is probably what first comes to mind if the question of supporting our democratic government is voiced.  A second point is the whole defiant strain we might harbor; we just want to have a say in what we collectively are going to do.  Or stated another way:  no one is going to tell us what to do!  The implied notion is that we, united, are in charge.  So it’s not just a matter of fearing those nightmarish potentials of dictatorship, but the prideful sense that we are responsible enough to determine these things.  And yet how many among us avoid political talk or keeping up with the news in order for us to be viable in any role we might assume in this process of collective decision-making? 

One of the current conditions I have cited in this blog to justify shifting our current views of civics content is that currently we have sufficient data to conclude that too many of us choose to ignore knowing and/or participating in this process.  This is true from the act of voting to writing to government officials or otherwise voicing our standing on questions of governmental policy or pending laws.  If you ask the average American if we should just leave the process of devising and deciding public policy to the experts, most would respond, of course not.  Yet, in actuality, that is exactly what seems to take place most of the time.

My advocacy of federation theory, in part, has been that the content we choose to present young people in secondary school, under the dominance of the natural rights construct, has basically led to a detached disposition toward policy formulation and implementation.  In its overly structural approach and amoral (not immoral) normative posture, our civics and government classes go a long way in promoting this hands off attitude.  In a recent academic study by Paul Burstein[1] we have more evidence of this indifference.  In this study, there are a couple of takeaways that are worth considering.  Let me explain.

Burstein basically asks the question:  do citizens of our democracy get what they want from their government?  He asks this in terms of policies and bills that are being considered for passage.  He breaks down the question in terms of both what regular folks want, as measured by opinion polling, and in terms of the activities of organized interest groups.  What he found, to me, is a bit surprising.

To begin with, as indicated above, he distinguishes between policy proposals and proposed bills in Congress.  By designating Congress, the study is about national issues and proposals, not local or state concerns.  He makes the distinction between policy and bills because policy proposals are expressed in a variety of ways among different bills.  So to add to the study’s clarity, he identified 60 policy proposals as expressed in a much larger number of bills.  He then analyzed the process by which the proposals were handled by asking and investigating how public opinion polls and lobbying behaviors promoted, fought against, or otherwise reacted to the proposals.  Of the sixty policy proposals, public opinion polls were silent on 40% of them.  Of the 60% that had polling information, Congress seems to abide by public sentiment 50% of the time.  As for the “silent” 40% percent, there is no reaction to whether the proposals should be considered, much less as to whether the policy proposal should be adopted or discarded or adopted in a modified fashion.  As for soliciting the attention of interest groups, they responded to only three of the 60 proposals.  Again, the indifference is sufficiently palpable.

If my math is right, only 30% of the time is Congress giving the public what it wants – at least as indicated by studying these 60 policy proposals.  Does this reflect a reality in which we can claim we’re deciding what we want done?  I can hear the reaction:  most of those proposals are probably technical in nature and for the most part are marginal concerns – a matter of tweaking some governmental program or such – and, therefore, it is understandable that most people would not be concerned. 

As a matter of fact, Burstein points out that pollsters are going to ask the public only about issues that are the most salient at a given time.  And yet, at what level of indifference can one say:  people, you need to pay more attention to this stuff.  I would say, given the obvious levels of overall disfavor our government presently experiences – a recent poll found 70 percent of the electorate thinks the nation is going in the wrong direction – you would at least believe that if the current batch of proposals is not important enough to garner our interest, we could think of another set of proposals that would address our current concerns.  Not only can one judge current levels of involvement not sufficient, but that where there is public reaction, such as interest group attempts at influencing Congress, Congressional members seem significantly unimpressed, at least as measured by their voting behavior.  Of course, any study that basically treats all interest groups as equals is bound to find these kinds of results.  Not all interest groups bring to the table equal numbers of political assets.  These assets take the form of money, votes, or expertise.  I would hypothesize that when such numbers are taken into account, “public” input does make a difference as to whether a proposal will eventually materialize as public policy in either law, regulations, and/or judicial decisions (whom you hire as your solicitor does matter).

This past judicial term, the LGBT community gained a big victory in the courts.  With the Supreme Court holding state and local laws prohibiting gay marriage as unconstitutional, the decision is paving the way to allow such unions across our land.  But is this the most democratic way to get “democratic” outcomes?  Usually, when this question arises, one gets into the semantic discussion as to what democracy means.  Let me, for my purposes here, just claim that an essential attribute of democracy is that everyone is treated equally before the law when it comes to essential institutions such as marriage.  Meaning:  the state cannot point out a segment of the population for a discriminatory policy such as prohibiting gay couples from getting married.  So, under such a view, the court’s decision is correct.  But wouldn’t it have been more democratic if the jurisdictions where such prohibitions existed would have decided, on their own, to rescind such provisions in the law?  I think so.  Why?  Because it would have more readily reflected a consensus – more of a case of the people getting what they want.  I add this case because it further illustrates how our democratic zeal is less than our communal expression.  If our citizens were more effectively educated in ways of joint decision-making – from the most local issue to the most national or international concerns – would our back and forth be more productive and less apt to hold on to parochial prejudices?  I add this question to help drive the point that democratic participation is enhanced when it reflects an active electorate.  And if this be true, then we need to look to our schools to do a better job of making the case for knowledgeable participation by our youth.

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[1] Burstein, P.  (2014).  American public opinion, advocacy, and policy in Congress:  What the public wants and what it gets.  New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press.