Welcome To “The Art of Association”
How does civil society impact the health of democracy in the United States? In turn, how do politics and policy in the public sector affect what happens in the voluntary sector? These are big questions. As a political scientist who has worked in Congress and spent much of my career advising and funding nonprofit organizations, I have wrestled with them for some time.
Several trends and developments—not least the COVID-19 crisis—have persuaded me that I need to consider these questions anew. I am launching “The Art of Association” to sketch out my revised answers. In doing so, I hope to engage colleagues and leaders in civil society and public service who are likewise grappling with how to improve civil society’s impact on our democracy, and vice versa.
The link between the health of civil society and democracy was a major theme of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. When he toured the U.S. in 1831, he observed that, “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all minds are constantly joining together in groups.” Time and again he saw Americans associating to build and run schools, churches, libraries, hospitals, etc., and to advocate for causes like temperance and abolition.
Tocqueville noted that Americans had neither the landed aristocracy nor the strong central government that spurred collective action in Europe. Americans thus had to tackle the challenges they faced jointly, or not at all. Hence the knack for association that still is a hallmark of our democracy.
Summing up this theme, Tocqueville proposed that, “in democratic countries, the science of association is the fundamental science. Progress in all the others depends on progress in this one.” If citizens in a democracy are “to remain civilized, or become so, they must develop and perfect the art of associating to the same degree that equality of conditions increases among them.”
Tocqueville’s axiom provides both the title and the challenge for this blog. Subsequent posts will build on the work of social scientists who are illuminating how and why we are associating in ways that support democracy (or not). I will also bring in the voices and innovations of civil society leaders and organizations that exemplify the art of association so we can learn from their mastery.
I will cover a range of topics, but expect to focus on the following:
COVID-19: The pandemic is challenging our society in ways that we have not seen since the Great Depression and World War II. How are the activities and solidarity in our associational life helping the nation cope with and respond to the crisis? How might the social strains and economic fallout of the crisis erode these sources of strength?
Polarization: Hyper-partisanship, at least among political elites and activists, threatens to rip our social fabric apart. To what extent are philanthropists and the advocates they fund implicated in the spread of tribalism? Can new groups and patterns of behavior in civil society help depolarize the country?
Technology: The Internet and social media make it easier for people with common interests and values to find each other and associate online– for better and for worse. How has this changed our associational life? How can we harness the potential of technology to improve civil society and our democracy?
Federalism: While most of the politics and media we observe and consume are national in scope, most of the actual governing in the U.S. continues to be done at the state and local level. What is happening across these venerable laboratories of democracy? What can we do in civil society to revitalize experimentation within them?
Demographic change: Millennials and younger Americans have just come to outnumber those borne before 1980. In another generation, people of color will constitute a majority of the population. How are these demographic sea changes playing out in the voluntary sector? What will they usher out—and perhaps make possible?
The Art of Association will reflect what I have learned over the years in directing the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s grant making to strengthen U.S. democracy, but I should note here in my first post that I am sharing these reflections in my personal capacity, not as a representative of the foundation.
Thank you for starting the journey with me. I look forward to your questions, feedback, and alternative perspectives along the way. My goal is to host an ongoing conversation that will be helpful to others who care about the art of association. The blog will thus ultimately be successful if it becomes an example of this art.
