Government Works Weekly #4
Welcome to your weekly roundup of opportunities, events, and information about how government works—and how government can work better—to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities.
APPLY YOURSELF – jobs, internships, and other ways to get involved
Research Fellow (apply by 12 June), The Center for Election Innovation & Research [Washington, D.C. / Remote]
Deputy Director, Center for Civic Design [Remote / U.S.]
Vice President, Modernizing Government (and more), Partnership for Public Service [Washington, D.C.]
Research Assistant (Governance Studies), Brookings Institute [Washington, D.C. / Hybrid]
Research Manager, Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age [Remote]
Communications and Marketing Expert, Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age [Remote]
GAO Analyst Graduate Intern (Management and Program Analyst), Government Accountability Office [Washington, D.C.]
Program Officer, Global Programs & Partnerships (and more), Open Government Partnership [Belgium or Washington, D.C.]
Associate Director, Special Projects, Elections & Voting (and more), Democracy Fund [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Program Assistant, International Forum for Democratic Studies (and more), National Endowment for Democracy [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Program Manager, Strengthening Democracy Initiative, SPLC [Washington, D.C.]
Senior Program Associate, Democracy Program (and more), The Carter Center [Hybrid / Atlanta]
UPCOMING EVENTS – webinars, conferences, and other human things
11 JUNE:
2024 Trust Summit: The Role of Civil Servants in Democracy [Partnership for Public Service]
Is Public Deliberation the Key? How Citizen Assemblies can Accelerate Climate Action [Part of the The Stockholm Series of Public Lectures on Climate Change and Democracy from International IDEA]
Funding for Information and Media: Government, Private Philanthropy, and Beyond [Co-hosted by the Center for International Media Assistance, the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
12 JUNE:
Public sector capacities for transformative public policies [Part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Forum 2024 – Rethinking the State]
Elections, Technology & Trust: Understanding the Benefits, Limitations, and Challenges [National Academy of Public Administration]
The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference 2024 [TICTeC]
13 JUNE:
Creative Bureaucracy Festival 2024: Digital Livestream [Creative Bureaucracy Festival]
17 JUNE:
American democracy is under threat. How do we protect it? [Brookings]
EYES & EARS – reading, podcasts, and other good stuff
PODCAST: When Democracy Breaks: Final Thoughts with Archon Fung, David Moss and Arne Westad – The long-running podcast Democracy Paradox just wrapped up a four-part series called “When Democracy Breaks,” based on an (open-access!) edited volume of the same name from Oxford University Press and made in partnership with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.
While my primary remit in this space is to focus on how to make government work, equally important is understanding when, how, and why governments stop working. The via negativa of Government Works. And this podcast delivers on that front. Previous episodes looked at cases of democratic breakdown in Athens, Japan, and Argentina, while the latest episode gathered the editors of the OUP volume—Professors Archon Fung, David Moss, and Odd Arne Westad—for a recap.
The most interesting section, for me, was when the host, Justin Kempf, asked the guests to discuss what “can be done to help rejuvenate a democratic culture when it feels like it’s in decline.” They each highlighted, in different ways, how the exercise of democracy at the local level is a way to create a kind of muscle memory to prevent democratic breakdown. Excerpts of the responses follow, but do listen to the whole thing. First, Professor Moss says:
“...one other thing I guess I’d highlight is when you look at where confidence in government is greatest in the United States, tends to be at the local and state level. That also tends to be where there are the most extensive democratic institutions. If you look at how many elected offices there are, they’re largely at the local and state level.
They’re very narrow at the federal level. There was never an assumption the federal government would be as extensive as it is. Maybe we need to think a little bit. Does there need to be a greater dose of democratic participation?”
Professor Westad continues:
“There is almost an idea that there is almost always a regression or a line towards democracy over time, which I think is one of the biggest misunderstandings of the 20th century. Democracy has to be learned like all other practices. It has to be learned and emphasized in schools. It has to be emphasized in other contexts. First and foremost, as David said, it has to be learned through participation and almost always that participation starts at the local level. So, it starts with democratic practices as they develop, as they evolve over time within the local setting.”
And Professor Fung follows:
“One thing that’s been lost a little bit in the field’s focus on democratic fragility and erosion and breakdown and backsliding is that oftentimes we think of that in institutional and electoral terms. There’s a focus on parties and campaigns and elites and leaders and to Arne and David’s point, much of the history of democracy has been struggling with the problem about how people learn to be citizens.
So, Tocqueville’s school of democracy was civic associations and for Carole Pateman, it was participatory democracy in workplaces. So where do we learn these skills of democracy – working out our differences at the micro level without having an autocrat or going to war with each other and then project that upward? I do think a fair amount of that has been lost. Civic education is a very important component, but then doing democracy in these different spaces is, many people have thought, absolutely essential to creating citizens.”
Much, much more can be found in the podcast series and in the book.
[Democracy Paradox, 6 June 2024]
WATCH: Inclusive Democracy Innovations Learning Webinar – Previewed in the events section of last week’s newsletter, this was a great webinar (available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French) covering “the latest innovations in inclusive democracy and new resources to help governments, funders, and civil society support more inclusive democratic practices.”
[Watch on YouTube via People Powered, 7 June 2024]