Governing As If Citizens Matter

During this heady time of getting to know a new administration, when the promise of new beginnings remain strong, the nation has a real opportunity to set in motion another sort of transition: one that can move beyond the tired politics of hostile rhetoric and simplistic sound bites towards honest, substantive dialogue and meaningful citizen participation in forging pragmatic solutions to the nation's problems.

That's why it's especially encouraging to see the new Administration's efforts to support citizen engagement and community problem-solving. President Obama and his team are calling on citizens to weigh in on national issues and to volunteer and organize to address local concerns. Moreover, the Administration is providing practical tools, including web-based platforms to enable citizens to provide policy input or organize meetings with their neighbors, and guides that people can use at gatherings to help promote open, productive conversation about significant public issues.

President Obama, signing the $787 billion economic stimulus bill into law in Denver. A new web site, Recovery.gov, has been set up to help taxpayers see how the money is being spent.

Recent research by Public Agenda suggests that the timing could not be better. In a survey of voters, conducted immediately after the presidential election, we found that citizens expressed strong enthusiasm about being engaged in their communities. Most Americans do not think that because they've voted, their work is done and now it's up to newly elected leaders to solve the nation's problems. In fact, 59 percent of the voters surveyed said that they will participate in community organizations "as much or more" than they did last year.

Those who work in communities to engage citizens in problem-solving, despite differences that divide them and frustrations that tempt them to turn away from public life, know that under the right conditions citizens can, want to, and do accomplish amazing things. They move beyond wishful thinking and come to understand the trade-offs involved in dealing with tough problems. They transcend rigid partisanship to identify areas of common ground. They develop fruitful relationships with longstanding adversaries. They hammer out solutions to festering problems. And they create energy and momentum for change where none previously existed.

Presidential leadership and action that not only encourages, but also enables, such active informed citizenship is both rare and promising. A prime example is a memorandum, signed by President Obama on his second day of office, directing the heads of executive departments and agencies to better inform and engage the public. The memo calls for increased transparency to promote accountability and asserts the principle that information should be public unless there's a strong case for keeping it secret.

This is a welcome step, and more challenging than it seems. Already, we see the new Administration struggling to maintain consistency with the principle and practices of transparency with respect to managing terrorism suspects. This is, of course, a particularly difficult issue to negotiate, and we hope that the Administration will not only struggle through to a satisfactory approach to democratic accountability in this regard while also making sure that this inconsistency turns out to be an exception and not the rule.

What's especially hopeful is the way in which the memo goes well beyond transparency to assert that government should be "participatory" because "public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions." Moreover—and here we see a glimmer of something genuinely innovative—it calls on executive departments and agencies to "solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation."

This suggests not only a seriousness of purpose, but a refreshing openness to democratic innovation of the sort needed to enable citizens to understand the tough choices that confront our nation and empower them to contribute to the solutions that we must, collectively, bring into being. It is this kind of shared responsibility and real work on public problems—in contrast to more common yet specious approaches, such as the manipulative use of political symbols—that can overcome cynicism and create a new approach to governance, one that operates as if citizens and citizenship matter.

Of course, we do not expect that President Obama will always encourage public engagement in a nonpartisan manner. There will be times when he will be more of an advocate for a particular solution than a nonpartisan promoter of a more engaged citizenry. He came to power, after all, in a partisan election with a platform and an agenda. So, while he has already done much to foster pragmatic common ground rather than partisan squabbling, he will not always play the role of nonpartisan civic educator. There will be times when he will push his own agenda and issues, and see it as his job to persuade the American people of his particular point of view.

At those times when the President acts in a partisan mode, all we can ask is that he avoid the temptations of excessive and destructive partisanship. Fortunately, that seems to be consistent with both his style and his philosophy. He seems, so far at least, to have the ability to disagree without being disagreeable, and to argue for his own agenda while respecting others' opinions. In doing so, he is modeling a style of engagement and argument that our political culture sorely needs.

This, indeed, could be a promising time when we move towards the kind of civically engaged and empowered politics that this country requires and citizens hunger for. But these new possibilities and emerging political patterns are frail and the danger remains that we could slide back to excessive and poisonous partisanship. Only the ongoing effort, action and imagination of government and citizens alike will lead to a renewal of meaningfully engaged civic life.

Will Friedman, Ph. D., is chief operating officer and director of Public Engagement at Public Agenda. Alison Kadlec, Ph.D., is a vice president of Public Agenda and director of our Center for Advances in Public Engagement. For more on public engagement, including the difference between authentic citizen engagement and "business as usual" approaches to public involvement, download our primer and check out the resources available at the Center for Advances in Public Engagement.