Participating American Publics

In this seminar, we explore reasons that civic and political participation are important for democracy and self-determination as well as the multiple possible pathways - many of which are beyond the ballot box - for engaging in participation. We will also examine who participates, who’s participation is impeded and why, as well as what social structures are, what barriers to participation exist, how such barriers can be understood as systematic, and what happens in democracies when people are denied the opportunity to participate or – for a variety of reasons –refuse to participate. This course is premised on the conviction that democracy requires an active citizenry but that the activity of people in communities does not have to be entirely limited or circumscribed by existing institutional arrangements and distributions of power but may also require organized efforts to alter those