Third Way: Civil Society As A Means Of Healing Democracy
Vladimir Vladimirov
With 36 days to go until the Senate run-off elections in Georgia, the Democratic party is preparing for another four years of partisan gridlock as the Republicans are likely to maintain a majority in the Senate. If the right continues to play hardball politics, Biden will struggle to get much of his agenda through. A more gridlocked government will result in increased cynicism of government, a problem that is dangerous to democracy. More immediately, progress towards a second COVID-19 relief bill could shudder to a halt, leaving many Americans without the aid they need.
In the absence of effective government, Americans have been turning towards state and local politics. The response to the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the country has pushed the limits of America's federalist system. With party politics dominating over good governance and a lack of national guidelines or pandemic relief, states have either adopted a non-governing ideology espoused from the top or have had to make their own patchwork of laws.
Above all, the pandemic has shown how important the work of civil societies is in the United States. The idea of civil society has a long intellectual history. Broadly, it signifies a sector of society that is dedicated to serving the community. These bodies act for the shared interests and values of citizens. In conservative imaginations, civil society is a force to be used against federal government encroachment. In progressive ones, it is a tool for the government to use to implement federal power.
The notion of civil society as being a political tool for government power or States’ rights should change. Instead, civil society should be institutionalized in American politics as a means of decentralizing federal and state power and increasing the political power of citizens. This would not only appease conservatives, who are against an increase in government responsibility for citizens, but also progressives, who want the very opposite. Most importantly, this platform could see the moderate-left come to control the center, advocating for a bipartisan and deliberative democracy reminiscent of truly American ideals.
Before tackling the ways, modern civil society can serve as a method for appeasing those on the left and the right, the definition of "civil society" needs to be made clear. Over the years, the meaning of civil society has changed often. Philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel believed it to be the "stage of difference" between family and state, where individual interest leads to an environment of self-interested cooperation. Alexis de Tocqueville famously saw it as the undefined space between the individual and the state. Tocqueville understood the associations of civil society in the United States (which he felt consisted of everything from local government to church groups) as generators of positive political power for citizens, and as the bedrock for shockingly decentralized democracy.
Some notions of civil society see it as a tool that the government can use to devolve power. This idea of civil society tends to include the private sphere and for-profit groups. One iteration of this notion of civil society is the namesake of this column, the "Third Way." The radical centrism of the Third Way called for an increase in self-governance by local communities and organizations, as well as an increase in public-private partnerships. The private sector would ideally create consumer-oriented public services, diminishing the role the government played in providing them. Yet, this notion of civil society has flaws. Critics of the Third Way claim it is neoliberalist and pandering to Wall Street. Corporations’ lack of popularity with younger voters and a growing public distrust of corporations in politics have made private investment in politics looked down upon. This leaves Third Way as being an ideology of the past and in need of a fresh face.
To appease an increasingly young electorate, a more civic republican definition of civil society should be employed. That entails a civic society that acts as its own independent nexus of power, while also playing a role in general American governance. This would not involve a separation of power between political and apolitical bodies or a merging of public and private, but instead an acknowledgement of citizen power as a mover of policy, ideally corresponding with federal decision making. It would also, however, have the ability to push back the government on policies the body politic opposes.
A politically engaged civic society could treat a few current ills of society. It would push for a new conception of citizenship which demands active engagement and knowledge of political systems, increasing citizen involvement in democracy. To be successful at this, civil associations must be inclusive to all members of society. By doing this, civil society creates an Arendtian forum for public political debate and engagement among citizens. In doing so, a politically literate body politic would emerge and be able to effectively wield and institutionalize the power granted to it by the tenth amendment, while still preserving the diffusion of power that makes American governance exceptional.
Centrist Democrats can also use civic society to compensate for the advantage Republicans have from rural over-representation in the electoral college and the Senate. Before Ireland legalized abortion (via referendum), activists ensured that access to and knowledge of medical abortion would be preserved. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett presenting a possible threat to abortion law in the United States, a similar path is open for civically-minded liberals. Indeed, abortion activism provides an excellent example of a civic society exercising its citizen power to check government power, ensuring that a majority held belief is safeguarded.
Why Ask What I Can Do For My Country?
A fundamental weakness in the case for civil societies is the assumption that the public wants to engage in the work of citizenship. Beyond voting, engagement in local politics is low. According to the pollster Pew Research, only 29% of Americans attend local government meetings. Far fewer have high levels of civic knowledge, with no demographic group having over 50% of high levels, of civic knowledge. Many people do not even know who their local representatives are. Yet, despite a seeming lack in governmental knowledge, the increased voter turnout of 2020 and the rise of younger, activist, and politically engaged voters do seem to indicate that the coming generation may be more open to an idea of an activist civic society. While only 14% of young voters have high civic knowledge, according to the same Pew survey, a burgeoning civil society could turn this around. The Senate runoff races in Georgia have already seen a student group working to increase political knowledge among the young and increase voter turnout in the upcoming race.
Demographic Differences In Levels Of Civic Knowledge
Another threat to an institution of civic society is the potential domination business can have if individuals decide to shrug off their duties as citizens. Social media, for instance, works in its own interest to capture attention and gain a profit. One way they do this is by relying on algorithms to feed users content that plays into their confirmation biases, keeping them on Facebook or Twitter longer and allowing for the perfuse spread of misinformation. While these giants may be moving towards regulating posts, they still control much of what the public views. Civic society could work around first amendment arguments about governmental regulations of Facebook and Twitter by pushing for non-governmental "social media boards," similar to Facebook’s new Oversight Board or press watchdogs that hold newspapers to account. This not only respects theoretically conservative defenses of free speech and decentralization of government; it includes cogent liberal critiques of misinformation and social media complicity in it. The decisions, then, would feel like civic society expressing itself.
Finally, civic society cannot become an overwhelming center of power. This would be fundamentally contradictory to the purpose it serves to counteract the concentration of federal power, which Hannah Arendt sees it as doing. To do this, there must be a federal state to counteract. Its purpose is not to abolish the federal government, rather to check it. A modern civic society, then, should be more Hegelian than Tocquevillian. In other words, it should exist alongside a strong central government while retaining enough power of its own. This mollifies progressive fears that unchecked civil associations could become centres of racism or allow bigotry without federal oversight. It would be unfathomable to imagine a civil society without a fairly powerful federal government, especially considering the 19th century United States Tocqueville visited is nothing like the globalist super-power today.
Ultimately, the benefit of a robust institution of civil society does not come from a partisan advantage one party may gain. Instead, the way a civic society would appease all is sides is by existing independent of strict party politics, as it can and should represent a diverse, heterogeneous mix of opinions and political beliefs. This heterogeneous solution is an effective treatment to induce a deliberative democracy controlled by citizens well-equipped to govern themselves.
Nonetheless, civil society also provides an answer to party desires. It would fulfil the localism and community-based governance yen of conservatives. It would grant progressives power as the public becomes increasingly liberalized. Indeed, a civil society that enacted the welfare reforms progressives seek could have more legitimacy than a hyper-centralized federal government would in enacting sweeping cross-country laws. Citizens and local legislatures, which would likely continue a political process moving in the direction of reform, as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg envisioned, could be persuaded to enact small-scale progressive ideas and prove their worth as the innovation chambers of democracies.
Moderate-Democrats are in a position to enact this change. With Biden on his way to the White House and no concrete center-right opposition, the moderates have total control of the ideological centre. The Democratic party could show they are truly the champions of ‘little-d’ democracy by encouraging the emergence of an innovative civic society. The Democrats need to be more than a party restoring old norms. By encouraging civil society, the party would prove that it truly wants to unite the country.
