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Monthly Archives: November 2017
a real surge in youth voting
According to CIRCLE, youth turnout has doubled in Virginia over the past three gubernatorial races, from 17% of eligible young people in 2009 to 34% yesterday. Virginians under the age of 30 also tilted dramatically to the Democratic side. Just over half (54%) of young Virginians had chosen Hillary Clinton one year ago; 69% voted for the Democrat, Ralph Northam, yesterday. Voting in force and tilting to one party is how to have real impact.
In New Jersey, where this year’s gubernatorial race was not particularly competitive, the youth turnout trend was flat.
Closer to home, Boston (like several major cities) held a mayoral election yesterday. We don’t know the youth turnout rate there because the data aren’t available yet. However, in the past two Boston mayoral elections (each conducted in an odd-numbered year), youth turnout did not reach even two percent. In contrast, last November, about 35% of young eligible voters voted in Boston, and 80%-87% of the registered young adults in each ward turned out. Although there’s work to be done to educate and engage young people in local politics–and some excellent organizers are doing that right now in Boston–it’s also bad to hold elections in off years. If you want your city to flourish, you need a youth perspective. You should hold elections on years when one in three–instead of one in fifty–young people turn out.
the public supports women’s rights in US foreign policy
We released a new survey today that finds strong support for gender equity as a foreign policy goal. For instance,
- 85% rated the rights of women and girls as a very high priority.
- 74% agreed that the U.S. government should actively work to promote human rights in other countries.
- When given a choice among the rights that the U.S. should promote, 51% ranked women’s rights as first or second, second only to “free and open elections” and ahead of freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the rights of workers and unions.
- Two-thirds agreed that more participation by women would make the world more peaceful.
- Most respondents would support women’s rights overseas even if that meant less consumer choice from international trade, fewer exports, or more disagreement with America’s friends and allies.
Click for more detail from this survey of 1,000 Americans conducted in early September 2017 by the Department of Political Science and the Tisch College of Civic Life. Credit to my colleagues Professor Richard Eichenberg in the Political Science Department, Dr. Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and Noorya Hayat of CIRCLE, and student Anna Jacobson.
Interactive Community Consultations in Austin, Texas
Nov 7 '17
Austin, Texas has experienced rapid population growth and diversification prompting city councillors to explore different ways to engage a large, demographically varied public in the decision-making process. The council, led by community engagement consultant Larry Schooler, funded the creation of open meetings and the purchase of "poll anywhere" technology required...
The Charter of the Forest, Now 800 Years Old!
Two years ago, we heard a great deal of hoopla on the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, celebrating it as the landmark advance for the rule of law and limits on the power of the sovereign. Far less attention was given to a companion document, the Charter of the Forest, which guaranteed the customary rights of commoners to access the forests that were so vital to their livelihoods.
These rights were secured after a long civil war against the King, who had relentlessly expanded his claims of exclusive control of the forest, punishing violators with fines, imprisonment and sometimes death. So it is fitting that we pause a moment and recall that 800 years ago, on November 6, 1217, King Henry III granted the Charter of the Forest, formally recognizing in writing the customary rights of commoners to have access to the things essential to their everyday lives.
Commoners depended on the forest for nearly everything. It provided wood for their fires and houses, pastures for sheep and cattle, and wild game for food. The forest had mushrooms, hazelnuts, berries, dandelion leaves, and countless herbs. The forests were a source of acorns and beech mast for pigs; brush with which to make brooms; and medicinal plants for all sorts of illnesses and diseases.
“More than any other kind of landscape,” wrote English naturalist Richard Mabey, “[the English forests of the 13th Century] are communal places, with generations of shared natural and human history inscribed in their structures.”
How is it that the Charter of the Forest has been nearly forgotten? Historian Peter Linebaugh explains in his wonderful book The Magna Carta Manifesto that the two charters of liberty were often publicly linked. Indeed, the very term Magna Carta was used to distinguish the Great Charter of 1215 with the "lesser" one issued two years later, the Charter of the Forest.
It wasn’t until 1297 that King Edward I directed that the two be treated as the single law of the land. In 1369, King Edward III issued a law that incorporated the two into a single statute, with the Charter of the Forest becoming chapter 7 of the Magna Carta. Over the centuries, the Charter of the Forest, seen as a minor subset of the Great Charter, receded from public memory.
The Medieval manuscripts blog maintained by the British Library has a nice post on “how our ancient trees connect us to the past,” which mentions the Charter of the Forest and provides a rarely seen image of it. (Thanks to Juan Carlos de Martin and Ugo Mattei for alerting me to this.) The post noted that there are over 120,000 trees listed in the British Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory, some of which are over 1,000 years old and were around at the time that the Charter was issued.
The blog post discusses how the Charter of the Forest “rolled back the area of the forests to their boundaries at the beginning of the rule of King Henry II in 1152, where lands could be shown to have been taken wrongfully. (Henry II had vigorously expanded the forest borders to the point of creating hardship.)” An early case of reclaiming the commons, one might say.
But what does the Charter mean for commoners today?
Two years ago, at an event celebrating the Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary, I gave a talk at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, called “Who May use the King’s Forest: The Meaning of the Magna Carta, Commons, and Law in Our Time.” My focus was on the functional legal significance of Magna Carta (i.e., the Charter of the Forest) in meeting people’s everyday survival needs and in fulfilling human rights.
The document is significant because it assured that everyone may access the common wealth that we all inherit as human beings – or as I put it, Who may use the King’s forests? The commoners of the early 1200s had a ready answer to this question: “What do you mean, ‘The King’s forests’? They belong to us! They’ve been ours for centuries!”
This is the forgotten legacy of Magna Carta: its frank acknowledgment that commoners have rights to the things essential to human life: the right to use the forest, the right to self-organize their own governance rules, and civil liberties and protections against the sovereign’s arbitrary abuses of power. All of these preceded the very idea of written law. They were considered human rights based on fundamental needs and long-standing traditions.
It is fascinating to realize that, with the rise of the modern nation-state and capitalism, these rights have been steadily pared back and in many cases eliminated. There is no longer any broad enforceable right of access to resources essential to human survival, for example -- although Italian legal scholar Stefano Rodota worked hard to try to resurrect this principle.
The struggle to resurrect a law for the commons in modern times is barely underway. But it is becoming clear that commoners must reclaim from reckless market/states their right to act as stewards of the planet's ecosystems. Let us raise a toast to the Charter of the Forest and remember what it stands for. We will be needing inspiration and instruction for it in the years ahead.
Update: Felicity Lawrence just wrote a piece on the Charter of the Forest in The Guardian, "For a fairer share of wealth, turn to the 13th century." Also, here is an excellent piece, by Dr. Guy Standing, a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, which appeared in OpenDemocracyUK.
Getting More Involved with Deliberative Democracy
Today’s election day and in addition to voting, NCDD Sponsor – the Jefferson Center – recently shared this piece written by Annie Pottorff to encourage people to further stretch their civic muscles and get involved with deliberative democracy. We recommend you check out this list they’ve compiled [complete with entertaining GIFs!] and find the ways that work for you to tap deeper into deliberative democracy. You can read the post below or find the original version on the Jefferson Center’s blog here.
10 Ways to Get Involved in Deliberative Democracy
Creating local change can be difficult, between finding the time, motivation, and opportunities to participate. For this week’s blog, we’ve put together a few simple ways you can become a civic leader in your own backyard (even from your own couch).
1. Listen to Community Members
Head over to your city’s website to see when the next community meeting is. For instance, here’s the calendar the City of Minneapolis publishes. You’ll likely hear grievances and suggestions from your fellow citizens, but these local gatherings may only attract a few vocal participants. While these meetings may be poorly attended, you’ll have the chance to directly introduce yourself to leaders and make your voice heard.
You can also actively listen for issues in your town while talking with your neighbors, teachers, and other community members on a daily basis. Some cities even have digital engagement interfaces where citizens can submit work requests, complaints, or suggestions to laws and ordinances. You can check out a few examples here.
2. Attend training sessions, webinars, and local events
If you want to learn more about engagement techniques, try searching for webinars and online training sessions. On October 4th, groups like the Participatory Budget Project and Healthy Democracy will share their success stories and tools you can use in your local community in a free webinar. Because it’s easy to get lost in the rabbit-hole of Google search results, using Twitter and Facebook to connect with engagement groups will likely fill up your feed with similar resources.
Shameless plug: the Jefferson Center is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can follow us, and the cool people we retweet and follow, for engagement opportunities.
3. Volunteer
It can be overwhelming to know where to start when you want to volunteer. Databases like VolunteerMatch and Create the Good can help connect you with the right groups for causes you care about. If you use Facebook, you can filter local event searches by selecting the “Causes” category. Or, you can work backwards, by searching for nonprofits in your area and reaching out to them directly to see if they could use any help.
4. Bring friends
For all of the above, you don’t have to go it alone. Invite your friends to come along, and you’ll likely be more motivated to show up. Plus, you can hold each other to it.
5. Write
This option can work from the safety of your own home or your favorite coffee shop. Write about issues affecting citizens in your community, and send your drafts out into the universe. Many organizations working on civic engagement and participation want to hear from the public, to guide their own efforts, see new perspectives, or work with you to publish what you’ve written. At the Jefferson Center, we’d love to hear your ideas for new stories.
6. Listen, read, or watch
While this one may seem like a cop-out, getting informed on issues is half the battle. Instead of tuning out, find your favorite way to keep updated. If you’re not a reader, check out podcasts like Democracy Now!, or find out which organizations have their own YouTube or Vimeo accounts. You can easily share this content with others to spread the message and increase familiarity with deliberative democracy.
7. Download FREE resources
If you’re thinking about creating an engagement project, or just want to learn more about different processes involved, look online for resources. For instance, Participatory Budgeting Project has training videos, materials, and guides that are free to download. After each of our projects, we publish our full reports and findings on our website.
8. Teach Others
You can also use free resources and reports to help teach others about how deliberative democracy works. Whether you talk with your friends, family, or host a formal community meeting, involving other people will help spur new ideas and pave the way for future projects.
9. Remember all your resources
If you’re trying to contact your local government representatives, local newspaper, or other organizations, don’t give up after one phone call. Using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, sending emails, sending letters, and showing up to an office can help get your voice heard.
10. Partner with the Jefferson Center!
Sure, this last one may edge on self-promotion. But the Jefferson Center strives to shorten the gap between citizens and the institutions, policies, and issues that affect their daily lives by empowering citizens to solve shared challenges. Our process is made up of three key components: we listen to stakeholders in your community to gain a deeper understanding of the issue at hand. Then, we develop a specialized engagement process to unleash creative citizen ideas. Finally, our project partners use the public designed solutions to: advance actions in their local community, reform institutional practices and processes, and guide policy development and decision-making. For more information on our process, head over to our about us page.
Bonus: You can also make an individual donation! Every contribution makes a difference, helping everyday Americans develop and promote thoughtful solutions to challenging problems.
You can read the original version of the Jefferson Center’s piece on their blog at www.jefferson-center.org/10-ways-to-get-involved-in-deliberative-democracy/.
Participatory Budgeting as Prisoner Reintegration
Nov 6 '17
Abstract This case study explores the use of a Participatory Budgeting process within a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to prisoner reintegration. Participants—which included current and former federal prisoners as well as community members, all of whom regularly participate in the organization's activities—collectively decided how to spend approximately 5% of the...
Tisch Program in Public Humanities
Tisch College has a Program in Public Humanities. As of today, the Program has its own webpage, which I invite you to visit.
The webpage introduces the Program’s director, Diane O’Donoghue. An art historian, Diane first came to Tisch College as a Faculty Fellow in 2013—working on a Nazi-era restitution project in Vienna—after chairing the Department of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts.
The page also describes a major exhibition that celebrated a century of printing in Boston’s Chinese community. In addition to serving scholarly and cultural purposes, this exhibition drew attention to the need for a public library in Chinatown. In January 2017, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced that library services would be restored to the neighborhood.
On the same page, you can read about our current research on the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown, Diane’s spring course on “Public Amnesias and their Discontents,” and past and future presentations on the public humanities.
I have argued that the humanities and civic life have an intrinsic connection. “Humanist” was originally an informal term for someone who taught rhetoric, history and ethics to future public leaders–in contrast to philosophy and theology, which prepared clergymen. Citizens must make ethical judgments in concrete circumstances, and the humanities are disciplines that combine ethics, judgment, and concreteness with analytic and conceptual rigor. In recent decades, the professional humanities have had a somewhat distant or even fraught relationship with public life, but that is changing, thanks to the kinds of scholars, artists, and practitioners who congregate in Imagining America or in the North Eastern Public Humanities Consortium, of which Tisch College is a charter member.
From the perspective of Tisch College, Public Humanities is one component of Civic Studies, which also encompasses empirical research on civic engagement in the US and abroad, Civic Science, community-based participatory research, civic math, and other strands of research.
See also: what are the humanities? (basic points for non-humanists); the public purposes of the humanities (a brief history); the state humanities councils, connecting the public to scholarship; and “Rethinking the Humanities“
Southampton Youth Forum (2016-present)
Nov 6 '17
The Southampton Youth Forum provides a platform for young people (aged 13-25) to influence the city’s legislative agenda through campaigns that seek to shape both the direction of policy and its implementation to ensure that it works as efficiently as possible for youth.
EvDem Host Intergenerational Webinar This Thurs. Nov 9
Our friends at Everyday Democracy – an NCDD member org – are hosting an intergenerational webinar this coming Thursday, November 9th from 12pm – 1pm Eastern/9am – 10am Pacific. The webinar will feature Families United for Education, who will share their experience on building an intergenerational network to address racial and educational inequities in Albuquerque. We encourage you to register ASAP for this webinar! You can read the announcement below or find the original on Everyday Democracy’s blog here.
Intergenerational Equity Webinar: Spotlight on Families United for Education
Intergenerational equity is the practice of treating everyone justly regardless of age and considering the structural factors that privilege some age groups over others. We do this by building strong relationships and partnerships, sharing power across generations, creating mentorship and cross-generational learning opportunities, and making space for youth voice.
This webinar will explore best practices for building intergenerational equity in your work. Families United for Education will talk about their work building an intergenerational network to address racial inequities in Albuquerque schools. They will discuss their successes and challenges.
Join us for our intergenerational equity webinar on November 9th at 12pm ET.
What: Best practices for building intergenerational equity in your work, through the experiences of Families United for Education.
When: Thursday, November 9 at 12pm ET
Presenters:
Malana Rogers-Bursen, Program Associate for Everyday Democracy
Omkulthoom Musa Qassem, Leader for Families United for Education
Corrina Roche-Cross, Leader for Families United for Education
Tony Watkins, Leader for Families United for Education
Registration Link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1057858115539498753
Families United for Education:
Families United for Education (FUE) is a decentralized, self-organized network of approximately 500 families in Albuquerque, NM that formed in response to gross gaps in educational outcomes between white students and students of color. FUE successfully researched, wrote and advocated for a family engagement policy for Albuquerque Public Schools that passed the APS Board of Education in 2012. The research that went into the policy included dozens of one-on-one meetings, community forums, and small group meetings that uncovered the lived experiences of students and families in our schools. Thus, the policy that emerged reflects those lived experiences.
The policy calls for “utilizing the histories and cultures of our families as a foundation for education”, “safe and welcoming environments”, “building relationships and capacity”, “expanding communication”, and “equitable and effective systems.” FUE strives to model the elements of the policy with each other in our organizing efforts. Since the passage of the policy, FUE has continued its campaign for racial justice by organizing candidate forums for APS school board elections, and convening anti-racism trainings for school board and community members. Most recently, FUE successfully advocated for ethnic studies to be included in APS’s academic master plan, and organized anti-racism trainings for ethnic studies teachers, new board members, and APS administrators. We are currently advocating for authentic implementation of ethnic studies district-wide, K-12, and urging the District to develop rapid response protocols to address incidents of racism in our schools.
Omkulthoom Qassem is a Palestinian-Chicana graduate student at the University of New Mexico pursuing a degree in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies. She has been working in community based organizing and educational endeavors for the last few years and is particularly passionate about undoing-racism efforts, media literacy, identity development and multicultural education. She previously received her bachelor’s degrees in International Studies and Foreign Languages with a minor in Peace and Global Justice studies. Omkulthoom has been working with Families United for Education for about one year on facilitation, communication, and anti-racism projects. She is dedicated to FUE’s dedication to bridging the gap between policy development and community. She believes that community at all age levels should have a voice in the policy that guides and outlines the governmental education system of the community.
Tony Watkins is a 53 year old white man who moved to a border town of the Navajo Nation when he was eleven years old. He started out on anti-racism work resisting the use of a U.S. History textbook in his daughter’s high school. Since then, Tony has joined over 500 families in Albuquerque to research, write, and advocate for a family engagement policy for Albuquerque Public Schools. The policy passed the school board in August, 2012 after a lengthy organizing effort and is a reflection of the lived experiences of families in our schools. In addition to organizing with FUE, Tony sits on the Leadership Council of Within Our Lifetime, a national network dedicated to ending racism within our lifetimes.
Corrina Roche began organizing since middle school through Bikes Not Bombs, an organization that focuses on youth and transportation justice. Since, she has continued to work with community in various forms. Corrina is currently a senior at the University of New Mexico working toward a degree in dance with a concentration in Flamenco. She plans on also receiving her elementary education teaching license and has been engaging with and studying public education for the past few years. Corrina is has been a member of FUE for the past two years because she is passionate about providing quality education to students and engaging with schools that reflect and uplift the families, communities, and backgrounds of students. Through working with students, she has seen the damage racism has done to our public education system and is committed to advocating for students and their right to receive anti-racist, empowering, and creative education.
You can find the original version of this post on Everyday Democracy’s blog at www.everyday-democracy.org/news/intergenerational-equity-webinar-spotlight-families-united-education.