The Importance of Political Context for Understanding Civic Engagement: A Longitudinal Analysis

We contend that political context is important to consider when analyzing social capital and that context has an important but neglected impact on understanding the consequences of civic activity. Our focus is on the influence of rural, local leadership in two Minnesota communities and policies that these elites have developed to bring Internet connectivity to their citizens. One city developed a community electronic network and the other opted for an individualistic, entrepreneurial approach to information technology. Using a quasi-experimental research design and four-wave panel data, we find that elite policy approaches interact with civic activity to predict technology use among citizens, even long after the policies’ initial implementation. In the city with a community network, residents who are integrated into civic life are able to harness these political resources to become more technologically sophisticated.

Best Practices in Civic Education: Lessons from the Journal of Political Science Education

The Journal of Political Science Education (JPSE) provides over a decade of research on political science pedagogy, featuring empirical research documenting best practices in the field. This article provides an overview of JPSE-published research on the topics of civic education and engagement. It summarizes the number and scope of articles on this topic and highlights key findings from the journal’s first 12 years. This comprehensive overview of past research is designed to facilitate high quality future research. A detailed exploration of past research provides a useful “jump start” for teacher-scholars eager to advance the scholarship and pedagogy of engagement.     

The Effect of Political Science Education on Political Trust and Interest: Results from a 5-year Panel Study

Citizenship education has evolved substantially in recent decades, with a rapid proliferation of education forms and approaches. The currently available evaluation studies, however, do not allow us to determine what kind of approach can be considered as a best practice for schools and education systems. In this article, we rely on the results of a 5-year panel study to investigate the long-term effects of various forms of citizenship education. Using the Belgian Political Panel Survey (n = 3,025), a three-wave longitudinal panel survey of 16-, 18- and 21-year-old Belgian late adolescents and young adults, we determine which citizenship education effort (i.e., classroom instruction, being a member of a school council, and an open-classroom climate) has a long-term effect on political trust and political interest. The results suggest that classroom instruction, the presence of an open-classroom climate, and being a member of a school board are positively related to political trust. We also find that classroom instruction and being a member of a school board are significantly associated with higher levels of political interest. We close with some observations on what these findings imply for citizenship education policies.     

Active Citizenship in the UK: Assessing Institutional Political Strategies and Mechanisms of Civic Engagement

Abstract

Shaping active citizenship, motivating civic engagement, and increasing political participation of minority groups have become some of the key political priorities in the UK since at least the end of the 1980s. Academic research shows that this shift goes hand-in-hand with a review of the integration policies in the country. The ‘politics of integration’ correspond in fact to a policy response to various social problems (such as discrimination, racism, intolerance) that emerged in various areas, and represent a new political discourse regarding active citizenship. This reflects an overall strategy meant to reframe the basis for civic and political engagement and participation in Britain. Our article is thus meant to highlight the dynamics underlying the development of the concept of active citizenship in the UK by looking at the factors that intervene in its shaping and enhancement. We identify political priorities and key mechanisms of participation that enable engagement in the public sphere. This article first considers the development of the specific ‘British discourse’ regarding active citizenship by taking into consideration the political priorities that emerged as part of the New Right discourse in the 1980s and then New Labour after 1997. We then refer to a set of data collected during our field work conducted in the UK between 2010 and 2011 with civil society activists and policy-makers in order to underline the meaning, practices, and feasibility of active citizenship.     

Deliberative Civic Engagement at the Grassroots: An Exploration of Political Participation in Bangkok

This article explores conventional grassroots political participation in one of south-east Asia's largest cities, Bangkok. Thailand's reformist constitution, adopted in 1997 as part of its democratic consolidation, sharpened interest in local-level civic engagement and in political participation beyond its usually unpredictable national-level electoral politics. This paper explores some of the modes, motivations and determinants of political participation based on the results of survey data. The analysis suggests three things. First, that the modes of political participation of Bangkokians are more varied than may be commonly believed; secondly, that the issues and problems motivating Bangkokians into political participation are multidimensional in content and by objective; and, thirdly, that the factors that influence such political participation are a combination of the commonly known variables as well as some very contextual ones.     

Investigating the Roots of Civic Morality: Trust, Social Capital, and Institutional Performance

In the last decade considerable research in social sciences has focused on interpersonal trust, treating it as a remedy for most maladies modern democracies suffer from. Yet, if others act dishonestly, trust is turned into gullibility, thus mechanisms linking interpersonal trust with institutional success refer implicitly to honesty and civic morality. This paper investigates the roots of civic morality. It applies hierarchical models to data from 38 countries, and tests the individual, community and structural explanatory factors. The results of the analysis point to the relevance of an institutional dimension, both in the form of individuals’ perceptions as well as the quality of governance: confidence in political institutions and their objective quality are the strongest predictors of civic morality. At the same time, the findings show that the recently popular claims about the importance of social capital for citizens’ moral standards are largely unfounded.

Acts of Faith: Churches and Political Engagement

Many observers suggest that white evangelical Protestant churches serve to mobilize their members into politics, while others argue that they encourage withdrawal from political life. This paper reconciles these two claims. I hypothesize that the time members of evangelical Protestant denominations spend in service to their church comes at the expense of participation in the wider community, contrary to the way mainline Protestant and Catholic churches foster civic activity among their members. However, I further hypothesize that the tight social networks formed through this intensive church activity can at times facilitate rapid and intense political mobilization. Data from the Citizen Participation Study supports the first hypothesis, while applying King's method of ecological inference to two elections in Alabama supports the second.     

The States, Federalism and Political Science: A Fifty-Year Appraisal

The role of the states within the Australian federation has evolved significantly over the past 50 years. So has the interpretation of that role by political scientists. Until the early 1970s, the states seemed to be declining into financial and policy subservience notwithstanding their continuing primary responsibility for the delivery of public services. They then experienced a political and policy renaissance, accompanied by a more balanced political-science appreciation of the virtues of federalism. Since the early 1990s, the states' trajectory has become more uncertain.     

The Civic,Economic, and Political Consequences of Pentecostalism in Russia and Ukraine

In contemporary Russia and Ukraine, Pentecostalism carries with it commitments to civic engagement and democracy, strong bonds of social capital, and the embracing of an entrepreneurial spirit. In this article, the authors analyze the origins of Pentecostalism in Russia, Soviet methods of repression, and Pentecostal survival strategies. Continuing, the authors examine the political efficacy of Pentecostals, their civic commitments, their embracing of the free market, and the strength and nature of social capital among them. While the authors conclude that it is too soon to conclude that Pentecostalism will bring about democracy, civil society, and free markets in Russia and Ukraine, they argue that Pentecostalism is proving itself a popular choice in the contemporary religious marketplace and that choice is not without significant civic, economic, and political consequences.     

Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon

Researchers in political science are devoting increasing attention to the ontological commitments of their theories – that is, to what those theories presuppose about the nature of the political world. This article focuses on a recent contribution to this 'ontological turn' in political science ( Sibeon, 1999 ). Tensions are identified in Sibeon's account of the causal interplay between agency and social structure. It is argued that these tensions can be resolved by reflecting explicitly on ontological issues, in particular the causal efficacy of social structure, using a particular approach to the philosophy of the social sciences known as critical realism. The value of such reflection for the explanatory power of political analysis is highlighted.     

Participation,Dialogue, and Civic Engagement: Understanding the Role of Organized Civil Society in Promoting Active Citizenship in the European Union

Abstract

This article looks at current policies concerning the civic and political participation of youths, women, migrants, and minorities in the European Union. It highlights the ways in which active citizenship and civic engagement have become a political priority for European institutions. Representation of local policy actors at the supranational level and strategies for the inclusion of civil society provide a platform for evaluating the impact of Europeanization at the national and subnational level. The article focuses on key discourses and narratives associated with specific policy frames (e.g. European citizenship, European social policies, and the European public sphere (EPS)). Some of the key questions addressed by the article are: What are the strategies that are employed, both by the European institutions in Brussels and organized civil society (OCS), to enhance participation and reciprocal communication? What vision of governance do practices such as active engagement and civil dialogue represent? Drawing on current theories of governance, our article contributes to the debate about the EPS by evaluating the role of OCS in bridging the gap between European institutions and national polities. Equally, our focus on traditionally marginal groups provides a platform for assessing the institutionalization of the ‘European social dimension’.     

读报教育:新时期大学生思想教育手段的探索

首先通过与媒介素养教育的联系与区别、国内外发展现状及对读报教育的概念进行阐述,然后描述了当前我国大学生的发展特点与高校思想教育手段存在的问题,进而提出读报教育对我国新时期大学生思想教育手段的探索.     

The Impact of Power and Civic Engagement in the Decentralized Management of Natural Resources: The Case of Turkey

Decentralization is an extensively discussed topic within academic and institutional circles worldwide. While a common argument for decentralization is that it fosters democratic deepening, counterarguments cautiously point to unequal access to resources and distribution of power as factors that inhibit democratization. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between decentralization and democratization through a comparative study of Water User Associations in two provinces of Turkey and shows in line with the literature that resource and power inequalities hamper the link between decentralization and democratization. However, as this article shows, civic engagement can generate “countervailing power” that can overcome the negative impact of such inequalities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Civic Education,Political Discussion,and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002

How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique three‐wave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two‐step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic Education Programme (NCEP). These individuals became opinion leaders, communicating these new orientations to others within their social networks. Individuals who discussed others’ civic education experiences then showed significant growth in democratic knowledge and values, in many instances more than individuals with direct exposure to the program. We find further evidence of a “compensation effect,” such that the impact of civic education and post‐civic education discussion was greater among Kenyans with less education and with lower levels of social integration.     

汉代《西域传》书写模式的形成浅析

从商代到东汉,华夏族群①的西部边界呈逐渐西移的趋势。两汉时期的西域,已经达到汉朝移民所能生存的生态极限和汉朝政权行政力量控制的极限。但为了抵御来自北方匈奴人的压力,汉朝极力突破这条客观存在的界限。在这个政治因素的推动下,汉朝形成了独特的西域历史记忆,并用《西域传》的方式被历代中央王朝所继承,维系并巩固了西域与中原王朝的统一。     

A Political Science of Punishment: Francis Lieber and the Discipline of American Prisons

This article examines the history of political science in relation to the history of the prison. It considers how theories of the state in political science have assumed that proper states should punish with prisons, and traces these ideas to the work of Francis Lieber, the first academic political scientist in the USA. Because his ideas about prison reform were central to his conceptualization of the discipline as a science of punishment, his theory of the state is an understudied part of the history of mass incarceration. Lieber argued that the state had a moral duty to punish its citizens with the prison, and an obligation to manage the risks of democracy through the prison's principles of scientific certainty, less eligibility, and disciplinary solitude. By examining the life and work of Francis Lieber, this article offers new ways of thinking about political science's past, and its status as part of the history of the American prison.     

Civic and Political Participation of Women and Youth in Turkey: An Examination of Perspectives of Public Authorities and NGOs

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present a review of the discourses of public authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on civic and political participation of youth and women in Turkey. Drawing on policy documents and elite interviews, this article explores the role of civil society organizations in promoting civic and political organizations in traditionally marginal groups. The article is primarily concerned with unpacking dominant discourses, as produced by public documents and official statements by both civil society organizations and policy-makers. The analysis will produce an overview of their general discursive orientations and the related legal changes and policy implementations. The article then looks at the impact of these discursive formulations to the issue of participation. What is important to note is that action plans and strategies are not always implemented in a manner that is in keeping with the original intentions of policy-makers. The review of public and civil society documents highlights serious differences in focus and coverage between the groups. It also highlights limited engagement with the actual issues of civic and political participation. While youth participation is paid limited attention, women participation is mostly associated with political representation in national and local political bodies.     

学科视野中的历史政治学:以历史社会学、政治史、比较政治学为参照

历史政治学是中国学者提出的研究政治学之全新范式,但当然不是从零开始,而有众多可资利用之知识资源,本文探讨其与历史政治学之关系。历史政治学与历史社会学均致力于带回历史、带回国家,并共享众多方法;但后者有西方中心论偏见,奉行价值无涉原则,止于理解或解释;历史政治学则破除西方中心论,公正对待中国等非西方国家、文明丰富的政治实践,且有明确价值追求,致力于从历史中探究善治之道。历史政治学呼吁历史学再度重视政治史,并使之有政治学想象力。历史政治学可为比较政治学带入大历史视野,以矫正其以西式政治制度为标准的偏失。