Program in Democratic Citizenship and Civic Engagement

Democracies draw both their legitimacy and effectiveness from a politically engaged electorate.  This notwithstanding, skepticism about the capacity of most citizens to perform their democratic responsibilities has always been great.  Particularly noteworthy have been concerns about the health of American democracy’s popular base.  Despite high levels of education, literacy, and income, the vast majority of U.S. citizens remain uninterested in and unknowledgeable about politics.

Developments in the last quarter of the 20th century have reinforced longstanding concerns about the American electorate and its role in democratic governance.  As television assumed a major role in political campaigns, political operatives have developed “Madison Avenue” approaches to marketing candidates and issues.  The capacity of these operatives to devise and air sophisticated political appeals provides political leaders with an unprecedented ability to manipulate the political views of citizens.  The potential of this capacity to influence citizens turns on its head the notion of electoral accountability upon which representative democracy is premised.

Compounding the concerns about the competence and independence of U.S. citizens are recent research findings that show a disturbing increase in political cynicism and distrust among citizens.  These findings reveal an alarming degree of political alienation that contributes to a general detachment from politics and civic affairs.  One noteworthy study documents a 50 percent decline in civic engagement since the 1950s.  In addition, voter turnout at the dawn of the 21st century is near historic lows reached in the 1920’s.  These declines have occurred despite rises in education, relaxed registration laws, and concerted “get out the vote” efforts.

These observations have implications for both the health of American democracy and the global appeal of democracy as a form of government. Consequently, the objective of the Program in Democratic Citizenship and Civic Engagement is to address citizenship issues through a combination of basic research and educational outreach.  The program’s activities will generate new knowledge and educational materials that will (1) enhance our understanding of how citizens perform their democratic responsibilities, and (2) improve their capacity to perform those duties.

This program of basic research is grounded in advances in cognitive psychology that are providing new insights into how individuals process political information and use it to perform basic tasks inherent in democratic citizenship.  These advances will shed new light on how citizens translate core political beliefs and values into political decisions.  They will also help us understand how such things as inattention, media manipulation and partisan propaganda affect political decisions.  Advances in understanding the linkage between political learning and decisions will provide a knowledge base for improving democratic citizenship.

This research program will leverage noteworthy campus strengths. Illinois has one of the strongest concentrations of scholars studying citizenship in the U.S.  Faculty from the Departments of Political Science, Speech Communication, and Psychology have been operating a research program on citizen competence for more than a decade. The center will join this group with the campus’ expertise in MRI technology, recently recognized with a Nobel prize, to generate truly cutting-edge research into democratic citizenship.

This program is rooted in the belief that payoffs from basic research into behavioral science will parallel those from molecular biology.  Just as basic research into the cellular basis of human physiology produced insights useful for treating physical ills, so basic research into the popular basis of democracy will produce insights useful for addressing governing ills.  To generate these payoffs the initial stages of the program’s outreach activities will focus on developing learning modules to aid in educating students about the roles and responsibilities of citizens in the 21st century. 

Collaborating with faculty from the College of Education and experts in educational technology, the program will generate civic education learning modules at the elementary, secondary and college levels.  The aim of these modules will be to increase students’ knowledge about American government, but also to enhance understanding of the core values and principles of democracy.  A particular emphasis will be placed on the importance and benefits of citizen engagement.  Insights from the program’s basic research activities will be used to update these learning modules periodically.