The Wheel of Political Fortune Keeps Spinning
Democrats may be ascendant now, but don’t expect permanence. One recent study gives them about 13 years in power.
By: Lee Drutman
It was not so long ago that GOP strategist Karl Rove talked boldly of creating a “permanent Republican majority.” As it turned out, it was an elusive dream.
Of course, had he paid attention to American political history, he should have known better. No party ever holds power forever. It’s just a matter of how long.
But how long has long been a matter of debate. Arthur Schlesinger Sr. once famously suggested that American politics oscillated between liberal and conservative poles in predictable 30-year cycles. One recent study of American electoral political history suggests Schlesinger may have been on to something.
In order to test his prediction, Samuel Merrill III (a professor of mathematics and computer science at Wilkes University), Bernard Grofman (a professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine) and Thomas L. Brunell (a professor of political science at the University of Texas, Dallas) analyzed the Democratic seats from every U.S. House and Senate election since 1854, as well as the Democratic vote share of every presidential election since 1854.
Clear up-and-down patterns emerge. And when subjected to something called a spectral analysis (a statistical technique designed to decompose a time series into cycles of different lengths, similar to what scientists use to decompose white light into colors), the professors found the data have a clear peak around 13 periods — meaning that the U.S. government completes a full Democrat-to-Republican-to-Democrat cycle roughly every 26 years.
“It’s interesting that what we came up with really fit the Schlesinger predictions very well,” Merrill said. “But a lot of it is just gradual change, change that follows more like a sine curve than something abrupt. You have a cycling where the two are out of phase, each one affecting the other. You get a cycling that continues for a long time, not an equilibrium.”
A finding of gradual change goes against the “critical elections” theory of American politics — that is, that there are occasional crucial “realigning” elections that dramatically rewrite the electoral map for a generation to come, sort of like periodic earthquakes. (This theory, once prominent among scholars of American politics, is increasingly out of fashion — but perhaps there are cycles for theories, too.)
Rather than plate tectonics, Merrill and colleagues see more of a pendulum, in which centripetal and centrifugal forces pull the country and its political institutions back and forth along the political spectrum.
In an academic article describing their findings, they explain this in terms of a “Voter-Party Interaction Model.” The basic argument is that public opinion is centrist. But once a party gets into power, its leaders tend to push it to political extremes because they have more extreme policy agendas than the centrist public (hence, the centrifugal force).
But as years of polling show, the public responds to this. Public opinion almost always tends to move against the party in power. “Voters just seem to react more when something negative happens than when something positive happens, and negative things can accumulate,” Merrill said. “They take their toll after a period of time.”
Or as another Schlesinger, Arthur Jr., once put it, “Disappointment (is) a basic spring of political change.”
This, then, creates an opportunity for the minority party. It can move to the center to pick up enough public support to win back majority status (hence, the centripetal force). And then the minority party becomes the majority party, and the cycle begins anew.
But while Merrill and colleagues see things following a roughly consistent pattern, others are not so sure.
“I don’t think there are well-defined cycles,” said Edward G. Carmines, a professor of political science at Indiana University who has written about party alignments. “There are rough approximations of what might be called cycles … but not in a strict kind of 30-year pattern. I don’t think they’re highly predictable.”
Carmines instead sees a largely random element in the changing fortunes of the parties — essentially, driven new issues that periodically arise and split the electorate in new ways. “The things that make a party successful in a given era and in a given set of circumstances tend to lessen and erode,” Carmines said. “And the other party, wanting to be competitive, finds ways, sometimes through new issue conflicts, of gaining the upper hand.”
In Carmines’ view, the current Republican decline largely reflects a shift from Republican-friendly issues, with the war especially working against the GOP. In the view of Merrill and colleagues, the Republican downfall was the inevitable result of a period of the kind of creeping extremism and accumulating scandals that always happens to parties in power (though shifting issues may play a role as well).
Either way, opinion polls clearly show that after a period of Republican dominance, public opinion is currently moving in a liberal direction. According to studies by James A. Stimson, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, “liberal mood” peaked in 1990, hit a trough in 2001 and is currently on its way back up. That Democrats won control of the U.S. House in 2006 after 12 years of Republican control neatly conforms to the 13-year half-cycle predicted by Merrill and colleagues — then again, that was after 40 years of Democratic control of the House.
Merrill and colleagues are now beginning to investigate whether cycles also occur in Britain. Merrill said their preliminary analysis suggests that there also seems to be cycling back and forth between liberal and conservative poles on roughly 26 or 28 year cycles going back to 1830, though there is more work to be done on the question.
For all parties concerned, the apparently inexorable wheel of political fortune offers important lessons. For the party in power, “They’d better take advantage of it,” Merrill said. “Their time will come, and it probably won’t be that long.” In other words, no use getting arrogant and thinking that there has been a permanent reordering of the political map. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen. Better to take advantage of the fleeting power to get things done.
And for the party out of power: patience. It’s only a matter of time before the party in power overreaches and before a new issue comes up that can turn the tables.
For those who value stability, all of this suggests that American democracy may be in good health after all, oscillating back and forth as it does around Schlesinger’s vital center.
“In a way, I feel better about American politics having done this,” Merrill said, “that there’s not going to be one party that stays in power forever.”
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
E-mails to Congress Add Up, But to What? - Miller-McCune
E-mails to Congress Add Up, But to What?
The percentage of citizens contacting their members of Congress has more than doubled, but both groups view each other with "mutual skepticism." What should be done?
By: Lee Drutman | July 08, 2008 |
If you're like most Web-oriented people, chances are you've come across an invitation to "contact your member of Congress" about some issue or other. You click through, and before you know it, you've added your name and participated in the great democratic process. As if nothing could be easier.
Add it up, and Congress is now receiving far more input than ever before. According to a new report by the Congressional Management Foundation, almost half (44 percent) of Americans say they've contacted a U.S. senator or representative over the last five years - a remarkable number, considering that in 2004, the American National Election Studies found that only 18 percent of Americans had expressed their views.
"People are not tuning out, they are tuning in," said Beverly Bell, executive director of the CMF. "There is a lot more public participation in the democratic process."
The reason appears pretty simple. As the report and those involved with it are quick to note, the Internet has made everything easier, from learning about the issues to effortlessly registering opinions about them.
"There is a new medium with which we can communicate with our representatives," said Dino Christenson, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ohio State University who consulted extensively with the CMF in producing the report. "And it is quite possibly the medium that requires the very least amount of work on our part."
"And this makes a lot of sense given what we know about political participation," Christenson added. "People would be fine giving their opinion, but they're unlikely to do so given the amount of work it takes and the belief that doing so won't result in a change. But if you get an online petition, and it's as simple as filling in your name and clicking submit, then you're off to go."
And, mostly, it is opinions (not complaints) that citizens are generously sharing. Of those surveyed, 91 percent said the reason they contacted their member was "to voice my opinion on an issue before Congress." Only 13 percent were interested the more traditional constituent service and said that they wanted "to get help with a problem."
So how many e-mails does this add up to? According an earlier CMF report, Congress received 200 million communications in 2004 (about 90 percent through the Internet), as compared with 50 million in 1995. That number is probably even higher today.
But is that too much? Congressional staffs, after all, are no bigger than they were three decades ago, even as the amount of incoming communication has grown exponentially. And the report does note that congressional offices are growing increasingly skeptical as to how much of the unsolicited advice actually represents heartfelt concern from constituents, given how cheaply it can be generated. In the last few years, a growing number of congressional offices have even taken steps to create extra hurdles to being contacted via the Internet.
But Bell is quick to highlight the finding that 91 percent of respondents say they contacted Congress because they "care deeply about an issue," a figure she hopes will dispel some of the concern about this just being an explosion of ersatz e-pinions, "These are not just sheep doing something because somebody sent them an e-mail," she said.
From the perspectives of the citizens, the alleged contempt with which congressional offices view constituent opinion appears to be no secret. More than 3 in 5 respondents (62 percent) who contacted Congress said they didn't think that their senators and representatives were interested in what they had to say.
Part of this may be because members of Congress are not doing a particularly attentive job of responding.
Only 63 percent of respondents who contacted their members said they could remember getting a reply. Of those, only 47 percent said they were satisfied with it. Overall, only 30 percent of respondents who contacted Congress received a satisfactory response. The top two reasons for being dissatisfied? "Did not address concerns" (64 percent) and "Too politically biased" (51 percent).
But amid what she calls "mutual skepticism," Bell sees an opportunity. Citizens who are contacting Congress are actually very eager to learn more about what is going on in Washington (74 percent said they want to know more about their members' views and activities). And congressional offices could tap into that interest with a little bit of effort — putting more information about members' positions online, making more creative use of e-mail as a way of keeping constituents informed and also engaging active citizens more directly.
Unfortunately, CMF's 2007 "Golden Mouse" report rated 42 percent of Congressional Web sites as either substandard (23 percent received a grade of "D") or outright failing (19 percent received a grade of "F"). This suggests that a lot of congressional offices are missing out on an easy way to fill what appears to be a real demand for information about Washington.
But Congress' slowness to modernize is no surprise to Thomas T. Holyoke, a professor of political science at California State University, Fresno who also consulted on the report. "Capitol Hill has always had a reluctance to make changes in the way things are done," Holyoke said. "You've got members who have been there a while, and they feel like they've hit on magical formula to ensure electoral success, Capitol Hill didn't even really computerize until the mid-90s."
Another key finding is the crucial role that interest groups are playing in facilitating this communication. According to the report, 82 percent of those who contacted Capitol Hill did so at the request of a third-party group.
"The American public is looking to third parties for information and also to be alerted," Bell said. "They want them to be a first line of defense to let them know when something's coming up. Advocacy groups have moved into a very important niche in the democratic process."
But this makes Holyoke a little uneasy. He worries that interest groups make it "almost too easy perhaps" to participate — but only for those citizens who happen to share the opinions of the most well-organized groups. "You're emphasizing only one part of a member's constituency," he said. "What a member hears is a distorted sense of opinion in the district."
Despite the concerns, Bell said that the increased participation is generally a good thing, and that "overall, it's a positive report, and there are positive messages to take away." But she added that both citizens and congressional offices need to stop being so skeptical about each other's intentions. "Each side needs to give each other the benefit of the doubt," she said "There needs to be a change of mind-set that no tool can overcome."
The percentage of citizens contacting their members of Congress has more than doubled, but both groups view each other with "mutual skepticism." What should be done?
By: Lee Drutman | July 08, 2008 |
If you're like most Web-oriented people, chances are you've come across an invitation to "contact your member of Congress" about some issue or other. You click through, and before you know it, you've added your name and participated in the great democratic process. As if nothing could be easier.
Add it up, and Congress is now receiving far more input than ever before. According to a new report by the Congressional Management Foundation, almost half (44 percent) of Americans say they've contacted a U.S. senator or representative over the last five years - a remarkable number, considering that in 2004, the American National Election Studies found that only 18 percent of Americans had expressed their views.
"People are not tuning out, they are tuning in," said Beverly Bell, executive director of the CMF. "There is a lot more public participation in the democratic process."
The reason appears pretty simple. As the report and those involved with it are quick to note, the Internet has made everything easier, from learning about the issues to effortlessly registering opinions about them.
"There is a new medium with which we can communicate with our representatives," said Dino Christenson, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ohio State University who consulted extensively with the CMF in producing the report. "And it is quite possibly the medium that requires the very least amount of work on our part."
"And this makes a lot of sense given what we know about political participation," Christenson added. "People would be fine giving their opinion, but they're unlikely to do so given the amount of work it takes and the belief that doing so won't result in a change. But if you get an online petition, and it's as simple as filling in your name and clicking submit, then you're off to go."
And, mostly, it is opinions (not complaints) that citizens are generously sharing. Of those surveyed, 91 percent said the reason they contacted their member was "to voice my opinion on an issue before Congress." Only 13 percent were interested the more traditional constituent service and said that they wanted "to get help with a problem."
So how many e-mails does this add up to? According an earlier CMF report, Congress received 200 million communications in 2004 (about 90 percent through the Internet), as compared with 50 million in 1995. That number is probably even higher today.
But is that too much? Congressional staffs, after all, are no bigger than they were three decades ago, even as the amount of incoming communication has grown exponentially. And the report does note that congressional offices are growing increasingly skeptical as to how much of the unsolicited advice actually represents heartfelt concern from constituents, given how cheaply it can be generated. In the last few years, a growing number of congressional offices have even taken steps to create extra hurdles to being contacted via the Internet.
But Bell is quick to highlight the finding that 91 percent of respondents say they contacted Congress because they "care deeply about an issue," a figure she hopes will dispel some of the concern about this just being an explosion of ersatz e-pinions, "These are not just sheep doing something because somebody sent them an e-mail," she said.
From the perspectives of the citizens, the alleged contempt with which congressional offices view constituent opinion appears to be no secret. More than 3 in 5 respondents (62 percent) who contacted Congress said they didn't think that their senators and representatives were interested in what they had to say.
Part of this may be because members of Congress are not doing a particularly attentive job of responding.
Only 63 percent of respondents who contacted their members said they could remember getting a reply. Of those, only 47 percent said they were satisfied with it. Overall, only 30 percent of respondents who contacted Congress received a satisfactory response. The top two reasons for being dissatisfied? "Did not address concerns" (64 percent) and "Too politically biased" (51 percent).
But amid what she calls "mutual skepticism," Bell sees an opportunity. Citizens who are contacting Congress are actually very eager to learn more about what is going on in Washington (74 percent said they want to know more about their members' views and activities). And congressional offices could tap into that interest with a little bit of effort — putting more information about members' positions online, making more creative use of e-mail as a way of keeping constituents informed and also engaging active citizens more directly.
Unfortunately, CMF's 2007 "Golden Mouse" report rated 42 percent of Congressional Web sites as either substandard (23 percent received a grade of "D") or outright failing (19 percent received a grade of "F"). This suggests that a lot of congressional offices are missing out on an easy way to fill what appears to be a real demand for information about Washington.
But Congress' slowness to modernize is no surprise to Thomas T. Holyoke, a professor of political science at California State University, Fresno who also consulted on the report. "Capitol Hill has always had a reluctance to make changes in the way things are done," Holyoke said. "You've got members who have been there a while, and they feel like they've hit on magical formula to ensure electoral success, Capitol Hill didn't even really computerize until the mid-90s."
Another key finding is the crucial role that interest groups are playing in facilitating this communication. According to the report, 82 percent of those who contacted Capitol Hill did so at the request of a third-party group.
"The American public is looking to third parties for information and also to be alerted," Bell said. "They want them to be a first line of defense to let them know when something's coming up. Advocacy groups have moved into a very important niche in the democratic process."
But this makes Holyoke a little uneasy. He worries that interest groups make it "almost too easy perhaps" to participate — but only for those citizens who happen to share the opinions of the most well-organized groups. "You're emphasizing only one part of a member's constituency," he said. "What a member hears is a distorted sense of opinion in the district."
Despite the concerns, Bell said that the increased participation is generally a good thing, and that "overall, it's a positive report, and there are positive messages to take away." But she added that both citizens and congressional offices need to stop being so skeptical about each other's intentions. "Each side needs to give each other the benefit of the doubt," she said "There needs to be a change of mind-set that no tool can overcome."
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Dumbest Generation -- LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-book5-2008jul05,0,3980465.story
From the Los Angeles Times
BOOK REVIEW
'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein
How dumb are we? Thanks to the Internet, dumb and dumber, this author writes.
By Lee Drutman
Special to The Times
July 5, 2008
In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Such is the kind of recklessly distracted impatience that makes Mark Bauerlein fear for his country. "As of 2008," the 49-year-old professor of English at Emory University writes in "The Dumbest Generation," "the intellectual future of the United States looks dim."
The way Bauerlein sees it, something new and disastrous has happened to America's youth with the arrival of the instant gratification go-go-go digital age. The result is, essentially, a collective loss of context and history, a neglect of "enduring ideas and conflicts." Survey after painstakingly recounted survey reveals what most of us already suspect: that America's youth know virtually nothing about history and politics. And no wonder. They have developed a "brazen disregard of books and reading."
Things were not supposed to be this way. After all, "never have the opportunities for education, learning, political action, and cultural activity been greater," writes Bauerlein, a former director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. But somehow, he contends, the much-ballyhooed advances of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize -- they've actually made us dumber.
The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school. The two most popular websites by far among students are Facebook and MySpace. "Social life is a powerful temptation," Bauerlein explains, "and most teenagers feel the pain of missing out."
This ceaseless pipeline of peer-to-peer activity is worrisome, he argues, not only because it crowds out the more serious stuff but also because it strengthens what he calls the "pull of immaturity." Instead of connecting them with parents, teachers and other adult figures, "[t]he web . . . encourages more horizontal modeling, more raillery and mimicry of people the same age." When Bauerlein tells an audience of college students, "You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is," a voice in the crowd tells him: " 'American Idol' IS more important."
Bauerlein also frets about the nature of the Internet itself, where people "seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort." In entering a world where nobody ever has to stick with anything that bores or challenges them, "going online habituates them to juvenile mental habits."
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the "adult" world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today's digital generation is becoming insulated in its own stultifying cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings that hopelessly confuse triviality with transcendence. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
At fault is not just technology but also a newly indulgent attitude among parents, educators and other mentors, who, Bauerlein argues, lack the courage to risk "being labeled a curmudgeon and a reactionary."
But is he? The natural (and anticipated) response would indeed be to dismiss him as your archetypal cranky old professor who just can't understand why "kids these days" don't find Shakespeare as timeless as he always has. Such alarmism ignores the context and history he accuses the youth of lacking -- the fact that mass ignorance and apathy have always been widespread in anti-intellectual America, especially among the youth. Maybe something is different this time. But, of course. Something is different every time.
The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?). But amid the sometimes annoyingly frantic warning bells that ding throughout "The Dumbest Generation," there are also some keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents and other adults ignore at their peril.
Lee Drutman is co-author of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy."
The Dumbest Generation
How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, or Don't Trust Anyone Under 30 Mark Bauerlein
Tarcher/Penguin: 272 pp., $24.95
From the Los Angeles Times
BOOK REVIEW
'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein
How dumb are we? Thanks to the Internet, dumb and dumber, this author writes.
By Lee Drutman
Special to The Times
July 5, 2008
In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Such is the kind of recklessly distracted impatience that makes Mark Bauerlein fear for his country. "As of 2008," the 49-year-old professor of English at Emory University writes in "The Dumbest Generation," "the intellectual future of the United States looks dim."
The way Bauerlein sees it, something new and disastrous has happened to America's youth with the arrival of the instant gratification go-go-go digital age. The result is, essentially, a collective loss of context and history, a neglect of "enduring ideas and conflicts." Survey after painstakingly recounted survey reveals what most of us already suspect: that America's youth know virtually nothing about history and politics. And no wonder. They have developed a "brazen disregard of books and reading."
Things were not supposed to be this way. After all, "never have the opportunities for education, learning, political action, and cultural activity been greater," writes Bauerlein, a former director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. But somehow, he contends, the much-ballyhooed advances of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize -- they've actually made us dumber.
The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school. The two most popular websites by far among students are Facebook and MySpace. "Social life is a powerful temptation," Bauerlein explains, "and most teenagers feel the pain of missing out."
This ceaseless pipeline of peer-to-peer activity is worrisome, he argues, not only because it crowds out the more serious stuff but also because it strengthens what he calls the "pull of immaturity." Instead of connecting them with parents, teachers and other adult figures, "[t]he web . . . encourages more horizontal modeling, more raillery and mimicry of people the same age." When Bauerlein tells an audience of college students, "You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is," a voice in the crowd tells him: " 'American Idol' IS more important."
Bauerlein also frets about the nature of the Internet itself, where people "seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort." In entering a world where nobody ever has to stick with anything that bores or challenges them, "going online habituates them to juvenile mental habits."
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the "adult" world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today's digital generation is becoming insulated in its own stultifying cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings that hopelessly confuse triviality with transcendence. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
At fault is not just technology but also a newly indulgent attitude among parents, educators and other mentors, who, Bauerlein argues, lack the courage to risk "being labeled a curmudgeon and a reactionary."
But is he? The natural (and anticipated) response would indeed be to dismiss him as your archetypal cranky old professor who just can't understand why "kids these days" don't find Shakespeare as timeless as he always has. Such alarmism ignores the context and history he accuses the youth of lacking -- the fact that mass ignorance and apathy have always been widespread in anti-intellectual America, especially among the youth. Maybe something is different this time. But, of course. Something is different every time.
The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?). But amid the sometimes annoyingly frantic warning bells that ding throughout "The Dumbest Generation," there are also some keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents and other adults ignore at their peril.
Lee Drutman is co-author of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy."
The Dumbest Generation
How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, or Don't Trust Anyone Under 30 Mark Bauerlein
Tarcher/Penguin: 272 pp., $24.95
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)