Civic participation and American life:  Where have all the voters gone?

By Harriet Shaklee, Family Development Specialist
University of Idaho Cooperative Extension

Not an election goes by without hand-wringing about the low rate of voter turnout in American elections.  As the years pass, candidates get elected to office with the support of a shrinking proportion of our citizens.   Some explanations of this trend focus on negative attitudes about our politicians brought about by scandalous personal behavior or inept performance in office.  Other commentators point to disaffection with the political process itself, tainted by the influence of big-money interests or pork barrel politics.   And, of course, there’s always the media to blame, with claims that complex issues are reduced to sound bites, and that negative aspects of campaigns are overemphasized.

 However, this slide in voter turnout parallels declining participation in many civic arenas.  Surveys of Americans show that political action is indeed declining, with participation at rallies and speeches down 36%, attendance at town and school meetings down 39%, and political party work dropping 56% between 1973 and 1993.  However, involvement in most collective events dropped over the same period, with time devoted to clubs and organizations down by one-half, including social clubs, service organizations, labor unions, and recreational leagues.  People even spend about one-quarter less time informally visiting with friends, neighbors, and relatives than they did twenty years ago.  It looks like people are not just averse to politics – they’re spending less time with people in general.

 Robert D. Putnam labels our various connections to community life “civic engagement,” and worries about such a broad-based disconnect with community.   Our civic behavior has traditionally expressed our trust in others and our concern for the common good.   When trust erodes, the social fabric of community life is threatened. 

 Modern Life and Civic Engagement

 Putnam searches among social trends over recent decades to find the source of this loss of “social capital,”considering and rejecting several likely prospects.  For example, family moves may undercut civic commitment, since it takes time to put down the roots which lead to community participation.  However, residential mobility has been nearly constant in the last 4 decades. We have been moving away from small towns and rural areas to urban and suburban settings, but all of these community types have experienced the downturn in community participation.   Families are busier these days, with more two-parent working families and longer commutes, but it turns out that those who work are somewhat more likely to be joiners than those who don’t.   Finally, Putnam rejects the claim that civic spirit in American life is undermined when the government provides programs that used to be accomplished by individuals within communities.   His evidence shows that states that spend freely on social programs are no less involved in community life than those with few state-supported programs.

 Searching for correlates of civic commitment, the strongest link proves to be education, with well-educated people much more likely to be joiners and trusters.  The puzzle is that educational levels of the American population are up substantially in recent decades, with the proportion of high school dropouts down since 1972 from 40% to 18%, and nearly twice as many people educated past high school (28% vs 50%). According to these trends, civic participation should be at an all-time high, contrary to the facts. Other factors must be playing a strong role to dampen these effects.

 Married adults are higher in civic engagement than single or divorced people, and we know that the proportion of adults who are married has been on the decline in recent decades.   Putnam finds this to be a likely factor in trends in civic participation, though expects the influence is modest.

 A Civic-Minded Generation

 Putnam finds the most potent relationship by comparing generations in civic engagement.  Compared to those born in the 1960’s, Americans born in the early 1920’s vote in larger numbers (75% vs. 43%), have more civic associations (1.9 vs. 1.1 memberships), are twice as likely to trust other people (55% vs. 25%), and read the newspaper more often (75%   vs. 27% daily readers).  Tracking birth cohorts shows one particular generation to have an outstanding level of civic commitment, with peak participation by those born in 1925-1930. Childhood years for these citizens was marked by the Great Depression and teen years dominated by World War II.  They started households of their own in the 1950’s, and watched their first television when they were almost 30 years old.  Commenting on the level of involvement of his generation, sociologist Charles Tilly (born 1928) quipped   “We are the last suckers.”

 But a generational difference is not an explanation.  What made this group so civic-minded compared to other cohorts?  The answer to this question may show us how to return the spirit of social trust to later generations.  Hopefully, it won’t take a depression and world war to accomplish this end.

 First, recall that education, especially college education, leads to higher civic involvement.  This is the generation that benefited from the GI bill, providing access to a college education to many veterans who would be the first college graduate in the family.  But successive generations were at least as well educated.   Why don’t they show the same strong civic spirit?

 A strong suspect by Putnam’s analysis is the rise of the television.  In 1950, barely 10% of American homes had a TV, but by 1959, 90% did.  In the early years, TV viewing was concentrated among the less educated members of the population, but during the 1970’s, more viewers were recruited among the well-educated.    The link between TV viewing and social trust and group membership is strong, even controlling for education, income, and other potentially relevant factors.  People who watch more TV and read fewer newspapers than average belong to 76% fewer civic organizations, and are 55% less trusting than those with the reverse preference.  The increase in TV viewing of recent decades has been accompanied by a drop in newspaper readership to a level less than half that of its peak in 1947.

 How could television have such a potent effect?  First, TV privatizes our leisure time.  Watching the tube in the comfort of our homes precludes socializing in other settings and takes a lot less effort.  In fact, one study of 3 Canadian towns found that the introduction of TV in the area was accompanied by lowered participation in community events among people of all ages.   Avid TV watchers are also more suspicious of others – e.g. overestimating crime rates.   Lessened contact with others may contribute to this trend, but negative content on TV news, police shows, and thrillers likely plays a role as well.  Links between TV viewing and aggression in children may mean that heavy TV viewers grow up to be less socially adept, and may avoid spending time with others.  Putnam admits the evidence against TV is leading, but inconclusive, “not enough to convict, but the defense has a lot of explaining to do.”

 Seen in this broader context, Putnam’s analysis suggests that the decline in voting behavior is just one small piece of a decades-long shift in the relative import of the private vs. public aspects of American life.

 ·          Neighbors isolated from each other in their private homes come to distrust those around them, undermining their sense of security and community. 

 ·          Civic engagement can reverse that trend.  Whether involvement be political, recreational, service, educational, or religious, our citizens need to engage with those around them to rediscover the satisfaction of community connection.    

 ·          Political parties and candidates who wonder where their supporters went would benefit by seeing the link between political trends and social disengagement in general.  Rather than focusing on finding the right candidate or cleaning up campaign financing to win back the American voter, political forces should join with other community organizations in an all-out effort to draw people out of their homes and into community life.

This discussion was based on:  “The Strange Disappearance of Civic America,” by Robert D. Putnam, American Prospect, Winter, 1996, Number 24, pp. 34-48.