Citizen Action was a national liberal consumer and public activist group that was active in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. State-level affiliates have continued on in Connecticut , New York , Ohio , and Wisconsin . The affiliates of Citizen Action are part of the People's Action national network.
113-601: The origins of the group lies in various state-level organizations founded by veterans of Students for a Democratic Society and the Indochina Peace Campaign . In 1980 a national organization called Citizen Action was formed as a federation of state groups in Ohio, Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Illinois, with a national office in Washington, D.C. Its first president was Heather Booth and its first executive director
226-595: A legislative body . Referendums afford citizens greater decision-making power by giving them the ultimate decision, and they may also use referendums for agenda-setting if they are allowed to draft proposals to be put to referendums in efforts called popular initiatives . Compulsory voting can further increase participation. Political theorist Hélène Landemore raises the concern that referendums may fail to be sufficiently deliberative as people are unable to engage in discussions and debates that would enhance their decision-making abilities. Switzerland currently uses
339-423: A random representative sample of citizens to gauge their opinion. The same individuals are then invited to deliberate for a weekend in the presence of political leaders, experts, and moderators. At the end, the group is surveyed again, and the final opinions are taken to be the conclusion the public would have reached if they had the opportunity to engage with the issue more deeply. Philosopher Cristina Lafont ,
452-454: A "rethinking conference" to establish a coherent new direction for the organization failed. The conference, held on the University of Illinois campus at Champaign-Urbana over Christmas vacation, 1965, was attended by about 360 people from 66 chapters, many of whom were new to SDS. Despite a great deal of discussion, no substantial decisions were made. SDS chapters continued to use the draft as
565-509: A Democratic Society ( SDS ) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left . Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships and parliamentary procedure, the founders conceived of the organization as a broad exercise in " participatory democracy ". From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in
678-632: A Democratic Society , was founded in 2006. Progressive Era Repression and persecution Anti-war and civil rights movements Contemporary SDS developed from the youth branch of a socialist educational organization known as the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). LID itself descended from an older student organization, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society , founded in 1905 by Upton Sinclair , Walter Lippmann , Clarence Darrow , and Jack London . Early in 1960, to broaden
791-538: A century" in which "to be idealistic is to be considered apocalyptic", Students for a Democratic Society would seek a "new left ... committed to deliberativeness, honesty [and] reflection." The Statement proposed the university, with its "accessibility to knowledge" and an "internal openness", as a "base" from which students would "look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice." "The bridge to political power" would be "built through genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between
904-636: A college experience that the Port Huron Statement had described as "hardly distinguishable from that of any other communications channel—say, a television set." Students were to start taking responsibility for their own education. By the fall of 1965, largely under SDS impetus, there were several "free universities" in operation: in Berkeley, SDS reopened the New School offering " 'Marx and Freud,' 'A Radical Approach to Science,' 'Agencies of Social Change and
1017-594: A communist-exclusion clause in the SDS constitution. When in 1965 those who considered this too obvious a concession to the Cold-War doctrines of the right succeeded in removing the language, there was a final parting of the ways. The students' tie to their parent organization was severed by mutual agreement. In drafting the Port Huron Statement, Hayden acknowledged the influence of a Bowdoin-College German-exchange student, Michael Vester. He encouraged Hayden to be more explicit about
1130-460: A confederal structure. Policy and direction would be discussed in a quarterly conclave of chapter delegates, the National Council. National officers, in the spirit of "participatory democracy", would be selected annually by consensus. Lee Webb of Boston University was chosen as national secretary, and Todd Gitlin of Harvard University was made president. In 1963, "racial equality" remained
1243-438: A critic of deliberative opinion polling argues that the "filtered" (informed) opinion reached at the end of a poll is too far removed from the opinion of the citizenry, delegitimizing the actions based on them. Public consultation surveys are surveys on policy proposals or positions that have been put forward by legislators, government officials, or other policy leader. The entirety of the deliberative process takes place within
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#17328442947051356-538: A jail cell in Albany, Georgia, where he landed on a Freedom Ride organized by Sandra "Casey" Cason ( Casey Hayden ). It is Cason that had first led Hayden into the SDS in 1960. Although herself regarded as "one of the boys", her recollection of those early SDS meetings is of interminable debate driven by young male intellectual posturing and, if a woman commented, of being made to feel as if a child had spoken among adults. (In 1962, she left Ann Arbor, and Tom Hayden, to return to
1469-527: A large demonstration against Dow Chemical Company recruitment at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on October 17. Peaceful at first, the demonstrations turned to a sit-in that was violently dispersed by the Madison police and riot squad, resulting in many injuries and arrests. A mass rally and a student strike then closed the university for several days. A nationwide coordinated series of demonstrations against
1582-454: A legislative body to decide how the country could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions with social justice in mind. It consisted of 150 citizens selected by sortition and stratified sampling , who were sorted into five sub-groups to discuss individual topics. The members were helped by experts on steering committees . The proceedings of the CCC garnered international attention. After nine months,
1695-639: A less participatory system because of the irrationality of voters in a representative democracy . He proposes several mechanisms to reduce participation, presented with the assumption that a vote-based system of electoral representation is maintained. Comparing an untested voter to an unlicensed driver, Brennan argues that exams should be administered to all citizens to determine if they are competent to participate in public matters. Under this system, citizens either have one or zero votes, depending on their test performance. Critics of Brennan, including reporter Sean Illing, found parallels between his proposed system and
1808-449: A new left of young people and an awakening community of allies." It was to "stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across the country" that the SDS were committed. For the sponsoring League for Industrial Democracy there was an immediate issue. The Statement omitted the LID's standard denunciation of communism: the regret it expressed at
1921-590: A rallying issue. Over the rest of the academic year, with the universities supplying the Selective Service Boards with class ranking, SDS began to attack university complicity in the war. The University of Chicago's administration building was taken over in a three-day sit-in in May. "Rank protests" and sit-ins spread to many other universities. The war, however, was not the only issue driving the newfound militancy. There were new and growing calls to seriously question
2034-546: A response to the Yellow vests movement . It consisted of 18 regional conventions, each with 100 randomly selected citizens , that had to deliberate on issues they valued the most so that they could influence government action. After the debate, a citizens' convention was created specifically to discuss climate change , "la Convention citoyenne pour le climat" (the Citizens Convention for Climate , CCC), designed to serve as
2147-461: A rigorous system of referendums, under which all laws the legislature proposes go to referendums. Swiss citizens may also start popular initiatives , a process in which citizens put forward a constitutional amendment or propose the removal of an existing provision. Any proposal must receive the signature of 100,000 citizens to go to a ballot . In local participatory democracy, town meetings provide all residents with legislative power. Practiced in
2260-463: A stable system. He also states that achieving equal direct participation in large and heavily populated regions is hardly possible, and ultimately argues in favor of representation over participation, calling for a hybrid between participatory and representative models. A third category of criticism, primarily advanced by author Roslyn Fuller , rejects equating or even subsuming instruments of Deliberative Democracy (such as citizens’ assemblies) under
2373-557: A strong central directorate. National Office staffers worked long hours for little pay to service the local chapters, and to help establish new ones. Following the lead of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), most activity was oriented toward the civil rights struggle. By the end of the academic year, there were over 200 delegates at the annual convention at Pine Hill, New York , from 32 different colleges and universities. The convention chose
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#17328442947052486-472: A student voice in faculty hiring; (3) support for university employees; and (4) support for black students. The December 1967 convention took down what little suggestion there was of hierarchy within the structure of the organisation: it eliminated the Presidential and Vice-Presidential offices. They were replaced with a National Secretary (20-year-old Mike Spiegel), an Education Secretary (Texan Bob Pardun of
2599-523: A willingness to make some amends. The Women's Liberation Workshop succeeded in having a resolution accepted that insisted that women be freed "to participate in other meaningful activities" and that their "brothers" be relieved of "the burden of male chauvinism". The SDS committed to the creation of communal childcare centers, women's control over reproduction, the sharing of domestic work and, critically for an organization whose offices were almost entirely populated by men, to women participating at every level of
2712-486: Is a type of democracy , which is itself a form of government . The term "democracy" is derived from the Greek expression δημοκρατία (dēmokratia) (δῆμος/ dēmos : people, Κράτος/ kratos : rule). It has two main subtypes, direct and representative democracy . In the former, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ; in the latter, they choose governing officials to do so. While direct democracy
2825-538: Is indispensable for a just society. In the early 21st century, participatory democracy has been more widely studied and experimented with, leading to various institutional reform ideas such as participatory budgeting . Democracy in general first appeared in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity . It was first established under Cleisthenes in 508–507 BC. This was a direct democracy, in which ordinary citizens were randomly selected to fill government administrative and judicial offices, and there
2938-439: Is its function of greater democratization . [T]he argument is about changes that will make our own social and political life more democratic, that will provide opportunities for individuals to participate in decision-making in their everyday lives as well as in the wider political system. It is about democratizing democracy. With participatory democracy, individuals or groups can realistically achieve their interests, "[providing]
3051-461: Is moving to the right. Students are going to be the revolutionary force in this country. Students are going to make the revolution because we have the will. After a three-hour open mike meeting in the Life Sciences building, instead of closing with the civil-rights anthem "We Shall Overcome", the crowd "grabbed hands and sang the chorus to 'Yellow Submarine ' ". SDSers understanding of their "own"
3164-533: Is not considered participatory democracy. Participatory democracy is primarily concerned with ensuring that citizens have the opportunity to be involved in decision-making on matters that affect their lives. It is not a new concept and has existed in various forms since the Athenian democracy . Its modern theory was developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century and later promoted by John Stuart Mill and G. D. H. Cole , who argued that political participation
3277-400: Is the disbelief in citizens' capabilities to bear the greater responsibility. Some reject the feasibility of participatory models and refutes its proposed educational benefits. First, the self-interested, rational member has little incentive to participate because he lacks the skills and knowledge to be effective, making it cost-effective to rely on officials' expertise. Critics conclude that
3390-463: Is utilized by Pirate Parties for intra-party decision-making. Participatory budgeting allows citizens to make decisions on the allocation of a public budget . Originating in Porto Alegre , Brazil, the general procedure involves the creation of a concrete financial plan that then serves as a recommendation to elected representatives. Neighbourhoods are given the authority to design budgets for
3503-491: The 1996 U.S. elections , including staging a $ 7 million education and get-out-the-vote drive. The effort was successful in putting many Republican congressional candidates on the defensive. However, this emphasis was to the dissatisfaction of some of its state affiliates; following the election, the Ohio and Indiana affiliates withdrew from the organization, taking away some 650,000 of the national group's 2 million members. A director for Ohio Citizen Action said, "what happened
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3616-622: The United Automobile Workers union (UAW) paid for a range of expenses for the 1962 convention, including use of the UAW summer retreat in Port Huron. The Port Huron Statement decried what it described as "disturbing paradoxes": that the world's "wealthiest and strongest country" should "tolerate anarchy as a major principle of international conduct"; that it should allow "the declaration 'all men are created equal... ' " to ring "hollow before
3729-541: The United Kingdom , one was used to enable domestic violence survivors to testify to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence and Abuse while preserving their anonymity . Another e-democratic mechanism is online deliberative polling , a system in which citizens deliberate with peers virtually before answering a poll. The results of deliberative opinion polls are more likely to reflect
3842-539: The United States , particularly in New England , since the 17th century, they assure that local policy decisions are made directly by the public. Local democracy is often seen as the first step towards a participatory system. Theorist Graham Smith, however, notes the limited impact of town meetings that cannot lead to action on national issues. He also suggests that town meetings are not representative as they disproportionately represent individuals with free time , including
3955-501: The agenda-setting and decision-making powers of the people by giving citizens more direct ways to contribute to politics. Also called mini-publics , citizens' assemblies are representative samples of a population that meet to create legislation or advise legislative bodies. When citizens are chosen to participate by stratified sampling , the assemblies are more representative of the population than elected legislatures. Assemblies chosen by sortition provide average citizens with
4068-713: The literacy tests the Jim Crow laws that prevented black people from voting in the United States between. Brennan proposes a second system in which all citizens have equal rights to vote or otherwise participate in government, but decisions made by the elected representatives are scrutinized by an epistocratic council. This council could not make law, only "unmake" it, and would likely be composed of individuals who pass rigorous competency exams. Scholars have recently proposed several mechanisms to increase citizen participation in democratic systems. These methods intend to increase
4181-468: The quality of life for residents. In the early 21st century, experiments in participatory democracy began to spread throughout South and North America , China , and across the European Union . In a US example, the plans to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were drafted and approved by thousands of ordinary citizens. In 2011, as a response to citizens' growing distrust in
4294-410: The "perversion of the older left by Stalinism" was too discriminating, and its references to Cold War tensions too even handed. Hayden, who had succeeded Haber as SDS president, was called to a meeting where, refusing any further concession, he clashed with Michael Harrington (as he later would with Irving Howe). As security against "a united-front style takeover of its youth arm" the LID had inserted
4407-483: The 1967 convention in Ann Arbor there was another, perhaps equally portentous, demand for equality and autonomy. Despite the winding down of SDS leadership support for ERAP, in some community projects struggles against inequality, racism and police brutality had taken on a momentum of their own. The projects had drawn in white working class activists. While open in acknowledging the debt they believed they owed to SNCC and to
4520-503: The 1980s due to financial and organizational ups and downs, but saw its role as putting pressure on the political system for policy issues it was concerned about. By the early 1990s the group had affiliates in 34 states. Its policy specialist Cathy Hurwit was a well-known figure in discussions about health care reform in the United States , and the group was a strong advocate for single-payer health care . Group funding often came from labor unions such as AFSCME , CWA , and ILGWU . With
4633-590: The 1990s in the US. The American Talks Issue Foundation led by Alan Kay played a pioneering role. The largest such program is the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland 's School of Public Policy, directed by Steven Kull , conducting public consultation surveys on the national level, as well as in states and congressional districts. They have gathered public opinion data on over 300 policy proposals that have been put forward by Members of Congress and
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4746-465: The 20th century, practical implementations began to take place, mostly on a small scale, attracting considerable academic attention in the 1980s. Experiments in participatory democracy took place in various cities around the world. As one of the earliest examples, Porto Alegre , Brazil adapted a system of participatory budgeting in 1989. A World Bank study found that participatory democracy in these cities seemed to result in considerable improvement in
4859-499: The Austin chapter), and an Inter-organizational Secretary (former VP Carl Davidson). A clear direction for a national program was not set but delegates did manage to pass strong resolutions on the draft, resistance within the Army itself, and for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. There was no women's-equality plank in the Port Huron Statement. Tom Hayden had started drafting the statement from
4972-562: The Black Panthers , many were conscious that their poor white, and in some cases southern, backgrounds had limited their acceptance in "the Movement". In a blistering address, Peggy Terry announced that she and her neighbors in uptown, "Hillbilly Harlem", Chicago, had ordered student volunteers out of their community union. They would be relying on themselves, doing their own talking, and working only with those outsiders willing to live as part of
5085-597: The Executive Branch, in a variety of areas. Such surveys conducted in particular Congressional districts have also been used as the basis for face-to-face forums in congressional districts, in which survey participants and House Congressional Representative discuss the policy proposals and the results of the survey. The questionnaires used in the surveys by the Program for Public Consultation, which they call “policymaking simulations”, have also been made available for public use, as educational and advocacy tools. Members of
5198-859: The New Movements'; in Gainesville, a Free University of Florida was established, and even incorporated; in New York, a Free University was begun in Greenwich Village, offering no fewer than forty-four courses ('Marxist Approaches to the Avant-garde Arts', 'Ethics and Revolution', 'Life in Mainland China Today'); and in Chicago, something called simply The School began with ten courses ('Neighborhood Organization and Nonviolence', 'Purposes of Revolution'). By
5311-638: The SDS "from licking stamps to assuming leadership positions." However, when the resolution was printed in the NO's New Left Notes it was with a caricature of a woman dressed in a baby-doll dress, holding a sign "We want our rights and we want them now!" Little changed in the two years that followed. By and large the issues that were spurring the growth of an autonomous women's liberation movement were not considered relevant for discussion by SDS men or women (and if they were discussed, one prominent activist recalls, "separatism" had to be denounced "every five minutes"). Over
5424-532: The SDS a household name. Membership again soared in the 1968–69 academic year. More important for thinking within the National Office, Columbia and the outbreak of student protest which it symbolized seemed proof that "long months of SDS work were paying off." As targets students were "picking war, complicity, and racism, rather than dress codes and dorm hours, and as tactics sit-ins and takeovers, rather than petitions and pickets." Yet Congressional investigation
5537-536: The SDSers in "a politics of adjustment". Lyndon B. Johnson 's landslide in the November 1964 presidential election swamped considerations of Democratic-primary, or independent candidature, interventions—a path that had been tentatively explored in a Political Education Project. Local chapters expanded activity across a range of projects, including University reform, community-university relations, and were beginning to focus on
5650-773: The SNCC in Atlanta). Seeking the "roots of the women's liberation movement" in the New Left, Sara Evans argues that in Hayden's ERAP program this presumption of male agency had been one of the undeclared sources of tension. Confronted with the reality of a war-heated economy, in which the only unemployed men "left to organize were very unstable and unskilled, winos, and street youth," the SDSers were disconcerted to find themselves having to organize around "nitty-gritty issues"—welfare, healthcare, childcare, garbage collection—springing "in cultural terms ... from
5763-462: The Texas State Capitol during a visit by Vice-President Hubert Humphrey . The example set a precedent for campus events across the country. The winter and spring of 1967 saw an escalation in the militancy of campus protests. Demonstrations against military-contractors and other campus recruiters were widespread, and ranking and the draft issues grew in scale. The school year had started with
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#17328442947055876-513: The UT West Mall. A summary ban by the UT administration ensured an even bigger, more enthusiastic, turnout for the second Gentle Thursday in the spring of 1967. Part of "Flipped Out Week", organized in coordination with a national mobilization against the war, it was a more defiant and overtly political affair. It included appearances by Stokley Carmichael, beat-poet Allen Ginsberg , and anti-war protests at
5989-536: The Union building a twenty-foot banner proclaimed "Happiness Is Student Power". A booming address announced: We're giving notice today, all of us, that we reject the notion that we should be patient and work for gradual change. That's the old way. We don't need the Old Left. We don't need their ideology or the working class, those mythical masses who are supposed to rise up and break their chains. The working class in this country
6102-612: The advent of the Clinton administration in 1993, the group began changing from being a nonpartisan grassroots organization to being a direct player in Democratic Party politics. Citizen Action argued publicly for single-payer health care, but behind the scenes worked to support the managed competition proposals of the 1993 Clinton health care plan as the only feasible approach. This created some unhappiness among members and aligned organizations. The national group got heavily involved in
6215-492: The bi-monthly of the War Resisters League , under the title "Sex and Caste". As "the final impetus" for organizing a "women's workshop," Evans suggest it was "the real embryo of the new feminist revolt." But this was a revolt that was to play out largely outside of the SDS. When, at the 1966 SDS convention, women called for debate they were showered with abuse, pelted with tomatoes. The following year there seemed to be
6328-589: The campuses called "Ten Days of Resistance" and local chapters cooperated with the Student Mobilization Committee in rallies, marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, and on April 18 in a one-day strike. About a million students stayed away from classes that day, the largest student strike to date. But it was the student shutdown of Columbia University in New York that commanded the national media. Led by an inter-racial alliance of Columbia SDS chapter activists and Student Afro Society activists, it helped make
6441-650: The cause célèbre. In November 1963, the Swarthmore College chapter of SDS partnered with Stanley Branche and local parents to create the Committee for Freedom Now which led the Chester school protests along with the NAACP in Chester, Pennsylvania . From November 1963 through April 1964, the demonstrations focused on ending the de facto segregation that resulted in the racial categorization of Chester public schools, even after
6554-434: The chapters. FBI Director Hoover's general COINTELPRO directive was for agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities and leadership of the movements they infiltrated. The National Office sought to provide greater coordination and direction (partly through New Left Notes , its weekly correspondence with the membership). In the spring of 1968, National SDS activists led an effort on
6667-519: The citizenry is disinterested and leader-dependent, making the mechanism for participatory democracy inherently incompatible with advanced societies. Other concerns are whether such massive political input can be managed and turned into effective output. David Plotke highlights that the institutional adjustments needed to make greater political participation possible would require a representative element. Consequently, both direct and participatory democracy must rely on some type of representation to sustain
6780-478: The citizens and city agencies. Participatory democracy was a notable feature of the Occupy movement in 2011. "Occupy camps" around the world made decisions based on the outcome of working groups where every protester had a say. These decisions were then aggregated by general assemblies. This process combined equality , mass participation, and deliberation . The most prominent argument for participatory democracy
6893-448: The community, and of "the working class", for the long haul. With what she regarded as an implicit understanding for Stokely Carmichael 's call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations, Terry argued that "the time has come for us to turn to our own people, poor and working-class whites, for direction, support, and inspiration, to organize around our own identity, our own interests." Yet as Peggy Terry
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#17328442947057006-402: The considered judgments of the people and encourage increased citizen awareness of civic issues. In a hybrid between direct and representative democracy , liquid democracy permits individuals to either vote on issues themselves or to select issue-competent delegates to vote on their behalf. Political scientists Christian Blum and Christina Isabel Zuber suggest that liquid democracy has
7119-511: The contradictions "between political democracy and economic concentration of power", and to take a more international perspective. Vester was to be the first of a number of close connections between the American SDS and the West German SDS ( Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund ), a student movement that was to follow a similar trajectory. In the academic year 1962–1963, the president
7232-654: The convention outlined 149 measures in a 460-page report, and President Macron committed to supporting 146 of them. A bill containing these was submitted to the parliament in late 2020. In recent years, social media has led to changes in the conduct of participatory democracy. Citizens with differing points of view are able to join conversations, mainly through the use of hashtags . To promote public interest and involvement, local governments have started using social media to make decisions based on public feedback. Users have also organised online committees to highlight local needs and appoint budget delegates who work with
7345-569: The country to incorporate the "participatory democracy, community organizing and synthesis of politics and culture that the New Left of the midsixties was trying to develop." Inspired by a leaflet distributed by some poets in San Francisco, and organized by the Rag and the SDS in the belief that "there is nothing wrong with fun", a "Gentle Thursday" event in the fall of 1966 drew hundreds of area residents, bringing kids, dogs, balloons, picnics and music, to
7458-527: The course of the tumultuous decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000 supporters recorded nationwide by its last national convention in 1969. The organization splintered at that convention amidst rivalry between factions seeking to impose national leadership and direction, and disputing "revolutionary" positions on, among other issues, the Vietnam War and Black Power . A new national network for left-wing student organizing, also calling itself Students for
7571-452: The dispossessed" had been misplaced: "It is through the experience of the middle class and the anesthetic of bureaucracy and mass society that the vision and program of participatory democracy will come—if it is to come." Hayden, who committed himself to community organizing in Newark (where he witnessed the "race riots" in 1967) later suggested that if ERAP failed to build to greater success it
7684-854: The draft led by members of the Resistance, the War Resisters League , and SDS added fuel to the fire of protest. After conventional civil rights tactics of peaceful pickets seemed to have failed, the Oakland, California, Stop the Draft Week ended in mass hit and run skirmishes with the police. The huge (100,000 people) October 21 March on the Pentagon saw hundreds arrested and injured. Night-time raids on draft offices began to spread. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), mainly through its secret COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram) and other law enforcement agencies were often exposed as having spies and informers in
7797-543: The end of 1966 there were perhaps fifteen. Universities understood the challenge, and soon began to offer seminars run on similar student-responsive lines, beginning what SDSers saw as a "liberal swallow-up". The summer convention of 1966 was moved farther west, to Clear Lake, Iowa . Nick Egleson was chosen as president, and Carl Davidson was elected vice president. Jane Adams, former Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteer and SDS campus traveler in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri,
7910-423: The facts of Negro life"; that, even as technology creates "new forms of social organization", it should continue to impose "meaningless work and idleness"; and with two-thirds of mankind undernourished that its "upper classes" should "revel amidst superfluous abundance". In searching for "the spark and engine of change" the authors disclaimed any "formulas" or "closed theories". Instead, "matured" by "the horrors of
8023-480: The field as naive and doomed to failure. Their view of the poor and of what could be achieved by consensus was absurdly romantic. Placing a premium on strong local leadership, structure and accountability, Alinsky's "citizen participation" was something "fundamentally different" from the "participatory democracy" envisaged by Hayden and Gitlin. With the election of new leadership at the July 1964 national SDS convention there
8136-557: The first major challenge to campus governance. On October 1, 1964, crowds of upwards of three thousand students surrounded a police cruiser holding a student arrested for setting up an informational card table for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The sit-down prevented the car from moving for 32 hours. By the end of the year, demonstrations, meetings and strikes all but shut the university down. Hundreds of students were arrested. In February 1965, President Johnson dramatically escalated
8249-505: The five tumultuous days of the final convention in June 1969 women were given just three hours to caucus and their call on women to struggle against their oppression was rejected. Inasmuch as women felt both empowered and thwarted in the movement, Todd Gitlin was later to claim some credit for SDS in engendering second-wave feminism . Women had gained skills and experience in organising but had been made to feel keenly their second-class status. At
8362-637: The government following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 , Ireland authorised a citizens' assembly called "We the Citizens" . Its task was to pilot the use of a participatory democratic body and test whether it could increase political legitimacy . There was an increase in both efficacy and interest in governmental functions, as well as significant opinion shifts on contested issues like taxation . The French government organised "le grand débat national" (the Great National Debate ) in early 2019 as
8475-473: The greater region and local proposals are brought to elected regional forums. This system lead to a decrease in clientelism and corruption and an increase in participation, particularly amongst marginalized and poorer residents. Theorist Graham Smith observes that participatory budgeting still has some barriers to entry for the poorest members of the population. In binding referendums , citizens vote on laws and/or constitutional amendments proposed by
8588-407: The individual state affiliates carried on with more than 400 employees among them. In late 1999, Heather Booth founded a new national organization, USAction , that has purposes and structure somewhat similar to Citizen Action. USAction includes some of the same state affiliates, which carry on the "Citizen Action" name. Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization) Students for
8701-465: The issue of the draft and Vietnam War . They did so within the confines of university bans on on-campus political organization and activity. While students at Kent State, Ohio, had been protesting for the right to organize politically on campus a full year before, it is the televised birth of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley that is generally recognized as
8814-443: The landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka . The racial unrest and civil rights protests made Chester one of the key battlegrounds of the civil rights movement . However, within the Congress of Racial Equality , and within the SNCC (particularly after the 1964 Freedom Summer ), there was the suggestion that white activists might better advance the cause of civil rights by organising "their own". At
8927-647: The mass demonstrations called by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam to coincide with the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In the event, under a mandate to recruit and to offer support should the Chicago police "start rioting" (which they did), national SDSers were present. On August 28 national secretary Michael Klonsky was on Havana radio: "We have been fighting in
9040-471: The means to a more just and rewarding society, not a strategy for preserving the status quo ." Participatory democracy may also have an educational effect. Greater political participation can lead to the public to seeking to also make it higher quality in efficacy and depth: "the more individuals participate the better able they become to do so", an idea already promoted by Rousseau , Mill , and Cole . Pateman emphasises this potential as it counteracts
9153-516: The military and, again, ranking for the draft. Despite the absence of a politically effective campus SDS chapter, Berkeley again became a center of particularly dramatic radical upheaval over the university's repressive anti-free-speech actions. One description of the convening of an enthusiastically supported student strike suggests the distance travelled from both the Left, and the civil rights, roots of earlier activism. Over "a sea of cheering bodies" before
9266-436: The moral horror of the war, others concentrated on its illegality, a number argued that it took funds away from domestic needs, and a few even then saw it as an example of 'American imperialism'. This was Oglesby's developing position. Thereafter, on November 27, at an anti-war demonstration in Washington, when Oglesby suggested that U.S. policy in Vietnam was essentially imperialist, and then called for an immediate ceasefire, he
9379-416: The opportunity to exercise substantive agenda-setting and/or decision-making power. Over the course of the assembly, citizens are helped by experts and discussion facilitators , and the results are either put to a referendum or sent in a report to the government . Critics of citizens' assemblies have raised concerns about their perceived legitimacy . Political scientist Daan Jacobs finds that although
9492-576: The other peace groups, 25,000 attended. The first teach-in against the war was held in the University of Michigan , followed by hundreds more across the country. The SDS became recognized nationally as the leading student group against the war. The National Convention in Akron (which FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported was attended by "practically every subversive organization in the United States") selected as President Carl Oglesby (Antioch College). He had come to SDSers' attention with an article against
9605-786: The perceived legitimacy of assemblies is higher than that of system with no participation, but not any higher than that of any system involving self-selection. Regardless, the use of citizens' assemblies has grown throughout the early 21st century and they have were often used in constitutional reforms, such as in British Columbia 's Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in 2004 and the Irish Constitutional Convention in 2012. Trademarked by Stanford professor James S. Fishkin , deliberative opinion polls allow citizens to develop informed opinions before voting through deliberation . Deliberative polling begins with surveying
9718-488: The poor". By the end of 1964, ERAP had ten inner-city projects engaging 125 student volunteers. Ralph Helstein , president of the United Packinghouse Workers of America , arranged for Hayden and Gitlin to meet with Saul Alinsky who, with 25 years experience in Chicago and across the country, was the acknowledged father of community organizing. To Helstein's dismay, Alinsky dismissed the SDSers' venture into
9831-683: The potential to improve a legislature's performance through bringing together delegates with a greater awareness on a specific issue, taking advantage of knowledge within the population. To make liquid democracy more deliberative, a trustee model of delegation may be implemented, in which the delegates vote after deliberation with other representatives. Some concerns have been raised about the implementation of liquid democracy. Blum and Zuber, for example, find that it produces two classes of voters: individuals with one vote and delegates with two or more. They also worry that policies produced in issue-specific legislatures will lack cohesiveness . Liquid democracy
9944-667: The public can take the policymaking simulations to better understand the proposal, and are given the option to send their policy recommendations to their elected officials in Congress. E-democracy is an umbrella term describing a variety of proposals to increase participation through technology. Open discussion forums provide citizens the opportunity to debate policy online while facilitators guide discussion. These forums usually serve agenda-setting purposes or are sometimes used to provide legislators with additional testimony . Closed forums may be used to discuss more sensitive information: in
10057-469: The same time, for many, 1963–64 was the academic year in which white poverty was discovered. Michael Harrington's The Other America "was the rage". Conceived in part as a response to the gathering danger of a "white backlash," and with $ 5,000 from United Automobile Workers union, Tom Hayden promoted an Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). SDS community organizers would help draw neighborhoods, both black and white, into an "interracial movement of
10170-585: The scope for recruitment beyond labor issues, the Student League for Industrial Democracy was reconstituted as SDS. They held their first meeting in 1960 on the University of Michigan campus at Ann Arbor, where Alan Haber was elected president. The SDS manifesto, known as the Port Huron Statement , was adopted at the organization's first convention in June 1962, based on an earlier draft by staff member Tom Hayden . Under Walter Reuther 's leadership,
10283-518: The streets for four days. Many of our people have been beaten up, and many of them are in jail, but we are winning." But at the first national council meeting after the convention (University of Colorado, Boulder, October 11–13), the Worker Student Alliance had their line confirmed: attempts to influence political parties in the United States fostered an "illusion" that people can have democratic power over system institutions. The correct answer
10396-430: The survey. For each issue, respondents are provided relevant briefing materials, and arguments for and against various proposals. Respondents then provide their final recommendation. Public consultation surveys are primarily done with large representative samples, usually several thousand nationally and several hundred in subnational jurisdictions. . Public consultation surveys have been used since
10509-434: The system", "building alternative institutions," and "revolutionary potential", credibility on the doorstep rested on their ability to secure concessions from, and thus to develop relations with, the local power structures. Regardless of the agenda (welfare checks, rent, day-care, police harassment, garbage pick-up) the daytime reality was of delivery built "around all the shoddy instruments of the state." ERAP had seemed to trap
10622-414: The term of Participatory Democracy, as such instruments violate the hard-won concept of political equality ( One Man, One Vote ), in exchange for a small chance of being randomly selected to participate and are thus not ‘participatory’ in any meaningful sense. Proponents of Deliberative Democracy in her view misconstrue the role sortition played in the ancient Athenian democracy (where random selection
10735-504: The union gave $ 475,000 to Citizen Action; in return, Citizen Action and some of its donors gave more than $ 100,000 to a direct-mail firm under contract to the Carey campaign. Financial contributions collapsed, and in late October 1997, the Citizen Action national office in Washington shut down and all 20 employees were laid off. Liberals mourned the loss of the national organization, although
10848-512: The war in Vietnam. He ordered the bombing of North Vietnam ( Operation Flaming Dart ) and committed ground troops to fight the Viet Cong in the South. Campus chapters of SDS all over the country started to lead small, localized demonstrations against the war. On April 17 the National Office coordinated a march in Washington. Co-sponsored by Women Strike for Peace , and with endorsements from nearly all of
10961-573: The war, written while he had been working for a defense contractor. The Vice President was Jeff Shero from the increasingly influential University of Texas chapter in Austin. Consensus, however, was not reached on a national program. At the September National Council meeting "an entire cacophony of strategies was put forward" on what had clearly become the central issue, Vietnam. Some urged negotiation, others immediate U.S. withdrawal, still others Viet-Cong victory. "Some wanted to emphasize
11074-414: The widespread lack of faith in the capacity and capability of citizens to meaningfully participate, especially in societies with complex organisations. Joel D. Wolfe asserts his confidence that such models could be implemented even in large organizations, progressively diminishing state intervention . Criticisms of participatory democracy generally align with criticism of democracy . The main opposition
11187-464: The women's sphere of home and community life." Sexism was acknowledged as commonplace in the anti-war and New Left movement. In December 1965, the SDS held a "rethinking conference" at the University of Illinois. One of the papers included in the conference packet, was a memo Casey Hayden and others had written the previous year for a similar SNCC event, and published the previous month in Liberation ,
11300-500: Was Hayden, the vice president was Paul Booth , and the national secretary was Jim Monsonis. There were nine chapters with, at most, about 1000 members. The National Office (NO) in New York City consisted of a few desks, some broken chairs, a couple of file cabinets and a few typewriters. As a student group with a strong belief in decentralization and a distrust for most organizations, the SDS had not developed, and never would develop,
11413-514: Was Ira Arlook. Some of the affiliates had their own history, with Connecticut Citizen Action Group being founded by Ralph Nader in 1970. Ohio Citizen Action was founded in 1975 as the Ohio Public Interest Campaign. The Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana was founded in 1974 and made its name in dealing with utility company rates and associated investigations. The national group experienced various changes in membership during
11526-448: Was a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves , foreigners (μέτοικοι/ métoikoi ) and youths below the age of military service. Athenian democracy was the most direct in history as the people controlled the entire political process through the assembly, the boule and the courts , and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in public matters. During
11639-495: Was a very old story: an office in Washington which was set up to serve the interests of states grew up to think it had created the states." In 1997, Citizen Action got caught up in the Teamstergate affair, due to reports that the group was involved in improperly funding the 1996 reelection campaign of Teamsters president Ron Carey . Federal investigators found that Carey's advisers created an illegal contribution scheme in which
11752-433: Was already dissent. The "whole balance of the organization shifted to ERAP headquarters in Ann Arbor", the new national secretary, C. Clark Kissinger cautioned against "the temptation to 'take one generation of campus leadership and run!' We must instead look toward building the campus base as the wellspring of our student movement." Gitlin's successor as president, Paul Potter, was blunter. The emphasis on "the problems of
11865-483: Was because of the escalating U.S. commitment in Vietnam: "Once again the government met an internal crisis by starting an external crisis." Yet there were ERAP volunteers more than ready to leave their storefront offices and heed the anti-war call to return to campus. Tending to the "less exotic struggles" of the urban poor had been a dispiriting experience. However much the volunteers might talk at night about "transforming
11978-409: Was declaring her independence from the SDS as a working-class militant, the most strident voices at the convention were of those who, jettisoning the reservations of the Port Huron old guard, were declaring the working class as, after all, the only force capable of subverting U.S. imperialism and of effecting real change. It was on the basis of this new Marxist polemic that endorsements were withheld from
12091-462: Was elected Interim National Secretary. That fall, her companion Greg Calvert , recently a History Instructor at Iowa State University, became National Secretary. The convention marked a further turn towards organization around campus issues by local chapters, with the National Office cast in a strictly supporting role. Campus issues ranged from bad food, powerless student "governments", various in loco parentis manifestations, on-campus recruiting for
12204-428: Was increasingly colored by the country's exploding countercultural scene. There were explorations—some earnest, some playful—of the anarchist or libertarian implications of the commitment to participatory democracy. At the large and active University of Texas chapter in Austin, The Rag , an underground newspaper founded by SDS leaders Thorne Dreyer and Carol Neiman has been described as the first underground paper in
12317-496: Was limited only to offices and positions with very limited power whereas participation in the main decision-making forum was open to all citizens). Fuller's most serious criticism is that Deliberative Democracy purposefully limits decisions to small, externally controllable groups while ignoring the plethora of e-democracy tools available which allow for unfiltered mass participation and deliberation. Business philosopher Jason Brennan advocates in book Against Democracy for
12430-527: Was the original concept, its representative version is the most widespread today. Public participation , in this context, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of a polity . It can be any process that directly engages the public in decision-making and gives consideration to its input. The extent to which political participation should be considered necessary or appropriate is under debate in political philosophy . Joining political parties allows citizens to participate in democratic systems, but
12543-412: Was to find that most chapters continued to follow their own, rather than a national, agenda. In the fall of 1968 their issues fell into one or more of four broad categories: (1) war-related issues such as opposition to ROTC, military or CIA recruitment, and military research, on campus; (2) student power issues including requests for a pass-fail grading system, beer sales on campus, no dormitory curfews, and
12656-666: Was to organize people in "direct action". "The 'center' has proven its failure ... it remains to the left not to cling to liberal myths but to build its own strength out of the polarization, to build the left 'pole ' ". Participatory democracy Participatory democracy , participant democracy , participative democracy , or semi-direct democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected representatives . Elements of direct and representative democracy are combined in this model. Participatory democracy
12769-415: Was wildly applauded and nationally reported. The new, more radical, and uncompromising anti-war profile this suggested, appeared to drive the growth in membership. The influx discomfited older members like Todd Gitlin who, as he later conceded, simply had no "feel" for an anti-war movement. No consensus was reached as to what role the SDS should play in stopping the war. A final attempt by the old guard at
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