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September 15, 2003
Public participation and the war on terror
Influenced by Harry Boyte, I believe that opportunities for people to contribute public goods have shrunk over the last century. Government is increasingly "rational" (in Weber's sense): this means that important functions are divided into specialized tasks and assigned to experts, who are given minimal discretion. The government as a whole does good, but relatively few people can gain deep personal satisfaction from their own public service. Meanwhile, the private sector grows ever more efficient and competitive. As a result, there are few niches for people who want to work in business for partly public purposes. (An example would be the demise of the old publishing houses, which were "for profit," but not very efficient about it; editors saw themselves mainly as friends of literature.)
The loss of opportunities for public work is unfortunate, because we waste the talents and energies of millions of citizens. It also means that people lose the very special satisfaction that comes from creating public goods. And I believe that it partly explains the decline of other forms of citizenship, such as voting and reading the newspaper. People who don't make public goods are less likely to participate in other ways.
Now we face a national crisis, terrorism, and it seems worthwhile to look for opportunities to involve many citizens in significant public work. Only an expert on national security could tell us what jobs people are equipped to do. Spying on our fellow citizens is not a good idea (the damage to privacy and due process is too great). Thus I offer some very ill-informed ideas about some other roles that citizens might play. My main goal here is to provoke others to think of better ideas:
- The military personnel who are doing peace-keeping and nation-building work in Iraq are creating public goods. They are creative and improvisational, in the best tradition of public work. We should celebrate them as good citizens, and recognize the (non-martial) virtues that they are displaying—virtues that we also need in civilian life. Everyone wants Iraqis to play a larger role; but for the time being, let's recognize that Americans are exemplifying citizenship in Iraq. (This is true even if the invasion was ill-advised or even illegal.) We also need ways to help veterans of Iraq to use their skills back home.
- Citizens could deliberately learn strategic languages, such as Pashto or Malay; read newspapers and websites in those languages; and then post their own translations of key excerpts online. Their audience would be US experts in foreign affairs, and also fellow citizens who are trying to understand a complex world. Clearly, volunteers would have to learn these languages from someone. This suggests a great opportunity to employ immigrants as language teachers.
- Citizens could assist in planning the emergency evacuation of major cities. Big highways would be quickly jammed after a catastophe, so we need to figure out how to move large numbers of people through side streets. Citizens could collect data on the capacity of each street segment to carry heavy traffic. Fed into GIS software, these data would show alternative evacuation routes.
- There are many ways for citizens to work together to conserve oil,
thereby reducing our dependence on middle eastern sources.
I'm sure there are better ideas than these. It's a shame that our creativity and dedication were not tapped soon after 9/11, when people were desperate to serve. But it's not too late.
September 15, 2003 12:01 PM | category: Iraq and democratic theory | Comments
Comments
How about expanding the sister city idea to focus on the Muslim world? US participants could design 2 week trips for visitors here, exploring themes of religious pluralism, education, family life, local politics, economic opportunity. I don't really know how the sister city program worked, mostly with European cities I think.
Next, classrooms in Europe, US and the Muslim world could link for fellowship and academic resources. Are colleges doing this yet in language, politics or anthropology classes?
March 22, 2004 12:05 PM | Comments (1) | posted by Scott Dinsmore