The Rules of Engagement: Tocqueville, Arendt, and Democratic Politics

Dissertation, Harvard University (2001)
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Abstract

Civic engagement has become a watchword in academic literature, but for all of its currency the term is not well defined. I address three questions central to the civic engagement debate in political science and theory: What is civic engagement, why is it necessary or good for liberal democracies, and how might it be sustained without recourse to illiberal means? ;First, using the tools of political theory and ordinary language philosophy, I clarify the term "civic engagement"---its definition, its positive and negative features, and the conditions that tend to encourage or impede its flourishing. "Engagement" entails a combination of activity and attention, an investment of energy a consciousness of purpose. The benefits that scholars ascribe to civic engagement depend upon at least a modicum of civic activity and civic attention. Further, I distinguish between civic, social, and moral engagement, and sketch the relationship of each kind to healthy representative government, as well as the "good life" for individuals. ;Second, I draw upon the works of Hannah Arendt and Alexis de Tocqueville for more extensive arguments regarding the civic engagement's value and its curious status as an essential yet endangered resource in modern democracies. Arendt's work illuminates a creative, compelling defense of civic engagement that centers on politics' intrinsic worth. Tocqueville presents a balanced, instrumental argument that treats civic engagement as a bulwark of democratic freedom but stops short of calling it good in itself. After mining their work for under-appreciated insights, I conclude that arguments for civic engagement's instrumental value are more supportable and persuasive than intrinsic defenses. ;Finally, I enter the contemporary debate by advancing a Tocquevillean argument for the kinds of engagement---civic, social, and moral---that modern democracies require. Tocquevillean democracy acknowledges the conflicting values that make widespread, engaged citizenship a difficult condition to maintain; it acknowledges that liberal democracy, by its nature, tends toward a deficit of civic attention and a shortage of civic energy; and it searches for ways in which citizens and their representatives can economize on their limited attention and energy to sustain a decent, open, and widely representative democracy

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