Skip to content

Category Archives: Local Government

On the “political wetlands”

Posted by Bill Ball on Monday, November 16, 2009.

In a series of recent articles David Matthews, President of the Kettering Foundation, has offered the concept of  the “political wetlands” as a wellspring of an organic and deliberative form of democracy.1 He argues that the political wetlands lie underneath the superstructure of institutional politics where in “informal gatherings, ad hoc associations, and the seemingly [...]

Also filed in Democratic Theory | | Comments (0)

The Promise of Local Government as a ‘School of Democracy’ (Part Two): The City of DeLand, Florida

Posted by Bill Nylen on Thursday, November 5, 2009.

“Not only did citizens see their local governments as more relevant; they were also more accessible.  Relevance and accessibility, de Tocqueville argued, translated into active citizen participation — in local government bodies and in numerous voluntary associations — and what political scientists today would call high feelings of personal efficacy.” [from Part One of this [...]

Also filed in Democratic Theory | | Comments (1)

Reconnecting with America’s Invisible Democracy

Posted by Paul Lachelier on Saturday, September 12, 2009.

Ask Americans to tell you whatever comes to mind when they think of the word “politics” and to no one’s surprise, a lot of what they say will be negative.  But beyond the negative association with politics, there is another pattern less often noted yet perhaps just as significant for democracy in America: when most [...]

Also filed in Higher Education, Voting | | Comments (3)

The Closing of the Florida Frontier?

Posted by Bill Ball on Sunday, August 30, 2009.

Recent feature articles in the New York Times (August 29, 2009) and Orlando Sentinel (August 17, 2009) have highlighted the beginning of the decline of population in Florida. After a century of rapid population growth that provided the mainstay of economic development and dominated state politics, Florida appears to be entering a new era.
It is [...]

Also filed in Economic Development | | Comments (2)

The Promise of Local Government as a ‘School of Democracy’: Alexis de Tocqueville (part 1)

Posted by Bill Nylen on Thursday, August 27, 2009.

Alexis de Tocqueville is widely considered to be the founding father of studies in community-based empowerment and participatory democracy.  Researching and writing his famous Democracy in America back in the early 1800s, he was the first to argue the relationship between, in the first instance, a particular democratic institutional design (“administrative decentralization,” and vibrant local-level [...]

Also filed in Democratic Theory | | Comments (1)