Abby Kiesa and I have a new piece in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (online), entitled “Do We Actually Want Higher Youth Voter Turnout?” We dispute the premise that youth turnout has declined–or risen. Instead, we note the “the relentless replication of political inequality by class,” as illustrated (for instance) by this graph:

We observe that the traditional solution to political inequality has deteriorated. “The civil society built in the 20th century tended to recruit young members for non-political reasons and then make them political. Large institutions—such as unions, churches, Urban League, and Elks—had the means and motivations to recruit widely, and they had incentives to interest at least some of their young members in politics. Belonging to these groups (or subscribing to a newspaper) was correlated with voting. But … all these organizations have lost youth members since the 1970s.”

We argue that no single reform or strategy will work in the 21st century, but that sustained investment by major organizations would pay dividends.

Some Twitter replies to the article have said that we overlook new platforms and modes of engagement that have arisen in this century. This is what we said, though:

To be sure, there are now alternatives to these organizations that serve to empower at least some young people. No one could join a social media campaign in 1974, for example. Still, the new array of civic networks and groups have not yet shown that they are capable of boosting youth voter turnout significantly or reducing gaps by social class.

In our "Bridging Differences" blog discussion on Education Week, Deborah Meier and I have been discussing the meaning of democracy. We both agree that such discussion is important today, when democracy's meaning has been dramatically reduced - and we both agree that democracy is vastly more than elections!

We also have agreement that democracy involves tradeoffs and compromises, and agree on principles such as rough equality in power and knowledge. I like the comment of William Hastie, the first black federal judge, that democracy is a journey, not a destination.

We also have some differences worth exploring.

For one thing, Meier stresses self-governance as the heart of democracy, and, related, highlights the idea of leisure time ("the trouble with socialism is that it takes too many evenings," quipped Oscar Wilde, who meant it resolves around meetings. People say the same about democracy). In contrast, I find compelling the argument of Victor Hanson in The Other Greeks. Hanson argues against the dominant scholarship which assumes that Athenian public life represented the democratization of aristocratic leisure. Such a view is associated with the ideal of "civic virtue," which holds that citizens should put aside their interests to pursue a common good.

Hanson marshals a good deal of evidence to suggest that in fact Athenian democracy grew out of the breakup of the large landed estates and the rise of small farms. The gritty, everyday challenges and disciplines of such farming necessitated cooperative labors on common projects. It wasn't a matter of putting aside interests, but finding that interests sometimes needed to be pooled through cooperation. It was a political process, in the sense of politics we've been discussing. And the discipline of learning to tie one's interests, especially in work, to the long range health of the city turns out to be a key democratic habit.

Hanson's argument complements my research on the roots of democracy across the world in communal labors, which also suggests what the classicist Josiah Ober has shown: democracy in its Greek meaning did not mean a decision making structure, majority rule (see my last blog, "What Is Democracy?"). Rather for the Greeks it meant the capacity or power to act to shape the public world.

Put differently, democracy doesn't only involve participating in decision making. It means creating communities. The concept of citizen as co-creator is a revolutionary challenge to contemporary societies, worth much more discussion.

Democratic practices of communal labor, what we call public work, can be found in every culture long before the term democracy came into existence. Cooperative public work across differences of economic rank and status, sometimes others like ethnicity, has an element of democratic decision making that distinguishes it from conscripted labors organized and controlled by outside powers, whether emperors or nobles or kings. Public work is self-organized cooperative effort by a mix of people which produces something of lasting common benefit (cultural as well as material). It generates the sense that democracy is something people make, not simply participate in. Water systems, common spaces, public institutions, and also cultural products, from songs and dance to schools, are all examples of the many "commons" whose creation and sustenance are foundations of a democratic way of life.

Public work existed in settings (like medieval Europe) where formally people were ruled by kings and immigrants brought these traditions to America - a wellspring of our democratic culture. I describe the ways in which public work generates civic agency, collective power, in an essay in Political Theory, "Constructive Politics as Public Work."

Another ancient democratic practice is deliberation. Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom argues that deliberation of (male) villagers of all backgrounds and ranks is the heart of democracy - even though the chief made the final decision. These practices of deliberation, often around a great tree in the middle of villages, are an ancient feature of African civic life.

Deliberation and public work feed into the transdisciplinary field called Civic Studies, with a website at The Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. Civic Studies is based on concepts of agency and citizens as co-creators of communities at different scales.

Another concept in Civic Studies is self-governance of common resources like forests, irrigation systems, fisheries and others, which turns out to be essential to their survival, according to the research of Elinor Ostrom, one of our co-founders, her husband Vincent, and an international network of collaborative researchers. Olstrom won the Nobel Prize in Economics for this research in 2009. Her Nobel lecture, "Beyond Markets and States," can be taken as a brilliant case for Civic Studies. She contrasted citizen governance of common resources, where local communities set rules and sanctions and apply them, with control by outside forces ("markets and states"). Formal governance structures often are complex, what Ostrom calls "polymorphic," with many levels, but strong citizen involvement in their governance is essential for their survival.

After we worked together with several others to form Civic Studies and before her untimely death in 2012, we had many conversations about the relationship between governance of common resources and the work that creates and sustains them. Ostrom was enthusiastic about the concept of public work and terms I had discovered for its different forms, in cultures across the world.

Civic Studies also includes other traditions of theory and practice such as critical theory, community organizing, popular education, and interpretative social science, which recognizes the importance of different kinds of knowledge and different ways of knowing, not simply scientific or academic knowledge.

Civic Studies is full of implications for how we organize and practice democracy education, at every level. It also is full of resources for democracy in a time of trial.

Civic Studies also includes other traditions of theory and practice such as critical theory, community organizing, popular education, and interpretative social science, which recognizes the importance of different kinds of knowledge and different ways of knowing, not simply scientific or academic knowledge.

Civic Studies also includes other traditions of theory and practice such as critical theory, community organizing, popular education, and interpretative social science, which recognizes the importance of different kinds of knowledge and different ways of knowing, not simply scientific or academic knowledge.

Civic Studies also includes other traditions of theory and practice such as critical theory, community organizing, popular education, and interpretative social science, which recognizes the importance of different kinds of knowledge and different ways of knowing, not simply scientific or academic knowledge.

Martin Olav Sabo, who served as a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota for 28 years and became chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, died on March 16, from respiratory ailments. Sabo is well known in Minnesota for his leadership in the Legislature, when it effected, often with bipartisan support, a series of major innovations -- balanced budgets, a fairer formula for school funding, and transparency in state and local governments. Partly as a result of these, Time magazine touted the "Minnesota Miracle" on its cover in 1971.

Sabo took his knack for breaking partisan gridlock and getting things done to Washington. As chair of the Budget Committee he was principle architect of the 1993 federal budget and deficit reduction package which resulted in a budget surplus in 1998, for the first time in 30 years.

Sabo is remembered in public life for his devotion to a politics of respect across partisan divides and its potential for productive results. The New York Times obituary quotes him on this theme. "I've tried to treat my colleagues with respect," he said. "I don't recall ever making a public statement critical of my colleague, whether it's Democrat or Republican." The Times described Sabo as a man of "quiet Scandinavian demeanor [who] conveyed a sense of civility during increasingly partisan times." There is a backstory.

I first met Sabo when I was beginning the Reinventing Citizenship initiative in 1993 with the White House Domestic Policy Council, just after Bill Clinton had become president. Barb Rohde, Washington liaison from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute where I directed civic engagement efforts, took me around to meet the Minnesota Congressional delegation. I was excited about the meeting.

The Reinventing Citizenship effort built on Bill Clinton's campaign speech to the National Bar Association in July 1992, arguing that "America needs to restore the old spirit of partnership." Clinton had called for "visionary leaders throughout this nation, willing to work in their communities to end the long years of denial and neglect and divisiveness and blame."

I had interacted several times with the campaign and knew that President Clinton was serious about a renewed spirit of partnership between citizen leaders outside of government and as well as across departments and party divides within government. Martin Sabo embodied the spirit.

This spirit of democratic partnership infused his family background in the Norwegian farmer cooperative movements of North Dakota that birthed the Nonpartisan League which reshaped Midwestern politics. It also reflected the culture of Augsburg College, where he had graduated cum laude.

Augsburg, a small liberal arts college in Minneapolis, is in what can be called "the democracy college tradition" in American higher education. With roots in the Norwegian free church and Scandinavian folk schools, Augsburg's founding statement was chiefly written by Georg Sverdrup, grandson of Jacob Liv Borch Sverdrup, the founding figure in Norwegian schools for the peasantry who spent time in Denmark and was a contemporary of N.F.S. Grundtvig, the Danish philosopher of folk school education. Augsburg's statement challenged traditional university education which held up "the cultivated gentlemen" as the ideal type, disputed pedagogies which produced professionals separated from the people, and argued, in a folk school vein, that learning should be connected with living experience rather than preoccupied with "glossaries, citations, and crammed memories."

Sverdrup, the college's second president, in a talk to graduates in 1884 said that at many colleges "the aim appears to be the stuffing of knowledge into youth as one pours peas into an empty sack...where the teachers are eloquent and the students inarticulate...where everything is communicated but little or nothing is absorbed." At such schools, the rule was "Never think! Learn instead to conform to the prevailing code and you will succeed."

Augsburg was founded as a democratic alternative. Sabo exemplified its values in extraordinary ways, believing in the positive role of government and also the need for a much bigger environment of civic interaction.

Throughout our two years of work with the White House Martin Sabo was a regular source of counsel and helpful connections. His work to create the Sabo Center at Augsburg and his continuing involvement in its work was a major incentive for our moving the Center for Democracy and Citizenship to the college in 2009, where the two centers are now merged in the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship.

Martin was enthusiastic about our work to "bring the public in," working with the Kettering Foundation and other partners to create public discussions on the purpose and future of colleges and universities that can reframe what is now often a polarized and narrow debate. He was, once again, also full of insight, ideas and relationships.

Martin Olav Sabo was full of the democratic spirit. His life and legacy are a vital resource for a nation which has never needed it more.

Harry C. Boyte, founder of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Humphrey Institute, is now Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy at Augsburg College.

Martin Olav Sabo, who served as a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota for 28 years and became chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, died on March 8, from respiratory ailments.

Martin Olav Sabo, who served as a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota for 28 years and became chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, died on March 8, from respiratory ailments.