Page 215 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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same body of citizens engaged in politics in the past. Direct evidence
about the backgrounds of participants in most events such as the
Million Mom March and the Know Your Customer protest is not avail-
able,soitisnotpossibletoassessdirectlywhethertheywerecitizensnewly
mobilized into politics. Other, broader, forms of evidence are available,
however, and these present an interesting picture. They show substantial
differences between organizational-level and individual-level effects of
information.
The history of previous information revolutions provides mixed clues
about whether engagement expands or contracts (or neither) as changes
in political information and communication occur. For one thing, it is
importanttonotethattheideaofalinkbetweeninformationandengage-
ment is as much a product of politics as a source. Despite its apparently
deep Madisonian resonance, the familiar belief in the necessity of in-
formed citizenship did not originate in the nation’s founding. It arose
during the time that the second American information revolution was
under way, as attacks on patronage and party power led to the evolution
of a new ideal of citizenship and as the rise of new policy problems and
processes created new informational demands on citizens and public of-
ficials.AsMichaelSchudsonshows,theideaoftheinformedcitizenasthe
good citizen owes more to Progressive politics than to Federalist ideas
2
or the successes of nineteenth-century mass politics. The ideal of the
informed citizen was to the Progressive citizen what the rise of policy
experts, rationalized bureaucracy, and technocracy was to the Progres-
sive government institution. The new ideal displaced nineteenth-century
norms of citizenship rooted in social association, which were manifest
in bedrock partisan loyalties, torchlight processions, brass bands, spoils,
and so on.
The norm of informed citizenship was not associated with increased
levels of citizen engagement, however, at least in the voting booth. Be-
tween 1852 and the 1896, voting participation in presidential elections
had fluctuated between 70 and 80 percent of eligible citizens. By 1904,
it dropped to about 65 percent, and by 1912 was under 60 percent.
By 1920, when the Twenty-second Amendment passed, participation
in presidential elections was in the neighborhood of just 50 percent,
3
comparable to current levels. The reasons for this decline are multiple
2
Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (New York:
Martin Kessler, 1998).
3
HaroldW.StanleyandRichardG.Niemi,VitalStatisticsonAmericanPolitics1997–1998
(Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1998).
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