Civic Engagement and the Civic Ethos of Democracy
This post is written by Valeriano Ramos of Everyday Democracy, a member of the working group for PACE’s Civic Language Perceptions Project.
Earlier this year, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) released the findings of its Civic Language Perceptions Project, a nationally representative research effort to understand the way everyday Americans think and talk about civic life. A central theme that surfaced in the data was a clear disconnect between individual and collective views of democracy and civic life. While Americans overwhelmingly had positive associations with helping others and reported feeling a moral obligation to be of service, their perspectives on civic engagement seemed to begin and end at the individual level. Participants did not appear to connect these person-to-person-level interactions with broader impact and institutional change.
This theme resonated with my experience these past nine years working at Everyday Democracy, an organization dedicated to helping people and organizations build capacity to help communities create change. I have often noticed a certain degree of dissonance between how scholars and practitioners like me think about democracy and civic life and how most citizens in our country experience them. Everyday citizens see their engagement most often as an individual act — i.e. voting, donating, volunteering, etc. — but often fail to make the connection to how these actions strengthen community and the broader system of government we know as democracy.
Everyday Democracy focuses on building community capacity for problem-solving through collective work that transcends any individual act of civic participation. In this work, individual civic agency becomes part of the equally valuable experience of collective agency. Recognizing that the most durable and effective community solutions have their roots in community collaboration, we focus on engaging community members in the work, which enables participants to experience firsthand how their individual acts contribute to creating a better community for all.
The connection between individual civic engagement and positive impacts are well documented: we know that communities with high civic health and community connection have better employment and economic outcomes, especially during economic downturn. We also know that an individual’s sense of purpose and connection with “community” are correlated with physical and mental health, as well as personal happiness and satisfaction. Indeed, being part of something larger than oneself is both meaningful and fulfilling.
Everyday Democracy has worked in partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), focusing on understanding and strengthening civic health in communities and our state, Connecticut. NCoC defines “civic health” as “the manner in which communities organize to define and address public problems.”
Through this work, we have also learned that civic engagement — and therefore community civic health — is directly impacted by class and education. Research findings in the 2011 Connecticut Civic Health Index report concluded that “a strong correlation exists between active civic engagement and income, college-level education, and race and ethnicity. For too many people in the state barriers to — and fewer opportunities for — engagement are often tied to socio-economic inequities.” More than likely, similar dynamics are at play in other communities across our nation. Arguably, then, individual acts of civic engagement often have racial or ethnic, socioeconomic, and educational attainment correlations.
Everyday Democracy’s work in some of the most low-resource communities in Connecticut — e.g. Hartford — illustrates how low educational attainment and low socio-economic status can often be indicators of low voter participation rates, lower levels of political accountability and responsiveness, and lower levels of overall civic participation. To the extent that high civic participation, and, hence, civic health strengthens communities and our democracy, I have also witnessed how the reverse is also true in communities with low socio-economic resilience, lower levels of political participation, and lower levels of social cohesion.
Needless to say, these findings highlight how larger socio-economic factors influence individual as well as collective civic participation and also impact the health of communities and our broader democracy.
But, based on my own personal experience, there are some bright spots! Although, generally speaking, most people see their volunteerism and civic engagement as an individual act that makes them “feel good” etc., some of those who become civically involved, and see others become involved, build a sense of being a part of something larger than themselves. They also build life-long habits of collective responsibility and agency that go beyond feeling good about themselves.
As the Director of Community Service at Trinity College, I saw this dynamic first-hand. Young people often came to our office with a perspective of service as something that would beef up their resume, but after actually participating in that service — whether it was building homes with Habitat for Humanity, working with youth, or working in a community garden, etc. — most students elected to continue being of service, long after their commitment had been fulfilled. Time and again, they told me they felt more connected to community, in the larger sense of the word, and their civic action as having larger community wide impact.
In the work that is Everyday Democracy’s Dialogue to Change process, individual engagement is where collective civic action and agency begin: we see the work of everyday citizens furthering the collective enterprise that is democracy every day. In some instances, this level of engagement directly impacts policy change through “policy forum” efforts derived from the community dialogues and action forum discussions. Similarly, in supporting community capacity for this kind of civic engagement, we also emphasize how communities can build power through collective action that leads to change. In that regard, power is something that resides in community and not just individuals. The power to create change becomes both, very personal and yet collective in nature. Everyone has a voice and agency; not just certain people. This power also builds an ethos of civic participation that is so vital to our democracy.
As civic engagement practitioners, we know the myriad ways that civic engagement — both individual and collective — lead to better, more resilient communities and a better democracy for all. National civic leader, speaker, and author Eric Liu, talks about individual citizens tending the gardens of democracy through individual acts of civic participation — indeed as “super-carriers” of great democratic citizenship — to create a civic “contagion” that nurtures and strengthens both, our communities and our democracy. His message seeks to connect the individual and collective views of democracy and civic life — building a better democracy for all through a collective of individual acts of citizenship.
PACE’s Civic Language Perceptions Project surfaced another finding that is relevant here: that most Americans also lack a clear vision for what a healthy democracy looks like. Perhaps that is a result of the divisions in our current political moment. Perhaps it is the result of many Americans feeling the promises of the American dream never reached their communities. Disparities in civic health and participation across American communities are well documented, and should inform the work of civic engagement funders and practitioners.
As we continue to paint the image of a collective democratic garden, ensuring that all Americans see themselves as an integral part of that vision will be key to its realization. With intention, this diverse and resilient garden, tended by diverse and resilient Americans, can become part of our collective consciousness through hands-on civics education and civic practices that connect individual civic action to larger social outcomes and impact. Civic engagement can help us reinvigorate the civic ethos of democracy.
Valeriano Ramos joined Everyday Democracy as Director of Strategic Alliances and Partnerships in December of 2010. In that role, Val develops and implements a variety of outreach and partnership strategies to build alliances with national, regional and local organizations, groups, institutions, and foundations. Val promotes the work of Everyday Democracy through these alliances and partnerships, focusing on the common goal of strengthening our nation’s democracy through inclusive dialogue that promotes sustainable and meaningful community change with a focus on racial equity outcomes. Val also coordinates the Connecticut Civic Health Project working with a strong Advisory Group. He also serves as Everyday Democracy’s Equity Officer, and in that role contributes to the organization’s ongoing learning and practice towards addressing institutional and systemic racism and infusing racial equity practices within the organization and in the work with partners and communities. Previously, Val served as Director of Constituent Affairs for Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, where he handled constituent outreach and services, public policy research and legislative affairs, minority business development projects, and Latino voter outreach. Val also has extensive experience in the fields of public and higher education and arts programming and advocacy, and has served on over twenty-five community and leadership boards.
