Electoral Decay in the Book,

Electoral Decay

In the book, Politics by Other Means, Benjamin Ginsberg and Martin Shefter consider the state of democracy in the United States and its relationship to the format that politics and political goals are assuming at the beginning of the 21st century. The main argument appears to revolve around the generally low voter turnout during presidential elections, and the relationship of this lacking display of public participation with the trend among politicians to use non-democratic means to achieve their goals. According to Ginsberg, the type of democracy manifest today differs greatly from this ideal a century or even 50 years ago. While this is undoubtedly true, the authors appear to focus on a rather one-sided view of the situation. They do not for example appear to consider the mistrust or lethargy of voters in terms of political policies and indeed politicians themselves. Nor do they appear to consider the integrity of politicians themselves. While they do not deny these phenomena, it seems that the authors do not attach any importance to such relatively negative factors in terms of voter numbers, nor do they consider the implications of these problems for the democratic process itself.

There is no doubt that Ginsberg and Shefter argue their point well, both in Politics by Other Means and in other works. In order to discuss the use of non-democratic and indeed non-political means of achieving political aims, the authors for example mention the tabloid-type attacks that candidates tend to launch during election campaigns. Rather than for example focusing on policy issues, politicians aim to discredit each other in this way. The authors view this as an attempt by politicians to speak to voters on their own level. Instead of attempting to explain to the public the complexity of economic policies, for example, they use means of discourse that the television-enslaved masses can understand.

Other means that politicians often use to reach their goals, according to the authors, is court legislature rather than the democratic vote and other democratic processes. This is an increasing phenomenon that the authors refer to as "judicial activism." In this, politicians often use courts to bypass the democratic process. One example of this is the Clinton administration. The presidential aim was to use HUD and liberal mayors to orchestrate lawsuits against the manufacturers of firearms instead of using democratic channels in an attempt to ban firearms. The difficulty in achieving the latter goal is what often encourages the political and indeed creative use of legislative bodies to indirectly gain success.

It appears that actions such as these, used in order to gain control of public policy instead of the democratic process, is one of the causes that discourage voters to participate in elections. The authors appear to focus mostly on the actions of politicians in obtaining reasons for the lack of public participation and low voter turnout. A further point in this regard is the lack of effort by politicians to encourage voting. The authors believe that politicians are simply not making the effort to connect with their public, but instead focus on their own agendas and means of achieving their political goals.

I find the author's apparent conception of voters interesting. They appear to believe that voters in fact care about politics and respect their politicians. They do not seem to address the cynicism, active mistrust, and apathy concerning politics and politicians. One must however take into account the time of writing. The terrorist attacks during 2001 and all its associated political blunders were more than ten years in the future. When therefore criticizing the book for not taking into account the current voter attitude, the critic must admit some degree of bias.

Having said that, however, a book on democracy and politics in general is necessarily considered in terms of its applicability to the current political climate. I therefore do agree with the authors that democracy is indeed changing. However, I do not believe that this is only due to low voter turnout or solely to the actions of politicians, whether corrupt or otherwise.

The current political climate has September 2001 to thank for a large amount of its difficulty. Many voters completely lost their confidence in the political and indeed the "democratic" process by legislation that apparently removed the very power of the vote by certain actions. Atrocities such as detention and torture on the basis of race, ethnicity and even religion for example occurred regardless of countrywide public outcry. Objections to legislation such as the Patriot Act and its successor were also largely ignored. Increasingly, the Bush administration also removed certain elements of the right to privacy and freedom of the press for the "good" of the public without using the appropriate democratic process. Hence questions that the authors raise about the very nature of democracy are certainly applicable, even 19 years after the book appeared.

Democracy has changed in more ways than the authors could possibly anticipate. Indeed, the events after 9/11 has proved democracy to be a fluid and arbitrary process. Indeed, it appears to change as required by the circumstances. This is not only true today, but was so every since the inception of the concept as the cornerstone of the United States.

Fourteen years after the publication of Politics by Other Means, Ginsberg wrote in partnership with Crenson (in Stanton and Ginsberg 3). With the perspective of 2001 in mind, the authors address the fact of the fluidity of the democracy concept. They note that American politics no longer has as its main foundation the factor of grassroots mobilization. In other words, collective participation in political activism is no longer a common phenomenon in American politics. The beginning of the twentieth century was characterized by a large amount of activism, such as women, African-Americans, and other minority groups were fighting for their rights on various platforms.

The format in which politics operate today however provide for rights in such a way that it no longer appears necessary for collective groups to fight for their rights in this way. In this way, both the nature of citizenry and the nature of democracy have changed significantly. This change is then used as one of the reasons for the lower voting rates, along with the original reasons provided in the 1990 work.

Once again, the authors note that politics have an important role in the lack of voter interest, and they particularly mention the example of the Bush administration in 2001, after the September 11 attacks. President Bush, according to the authors, exemplifies the relative unimportance of the citizen in the political process by his address immediately after the attacks. Citizens were informed of his plans, and asked to think and act in a patriotic way, which generally entailed that they simply follow the presidential directive. The authors state that the government had "little need for citizens" (Stanton and Ginsberg 3).

This of course directly influenced the democratic process and the role of citizens in shaping this process. As already mentioned, the government apparently disregarded all public outcry against undemocratic policies and simply did what it deemed necessary to win the war on terrorism. Interestingly, instead of mobilizing a large collective of citizens to engage in political activism and reviving democracy in its previous form, the government's policies seemed to, at least for a while, further erode the activism of citizens. President Bush was elected for a second term, regardless of the fact that he was increasingly regarded as incompetent at best and destructive at worst. This appears to imply that those Americans who were against the many questionable policies of the government at the time simply did not care enough or were too disgusted to vote. At the time, there was a serious erosion of citizen trust in a government upon which they have come to rely.

As in Politics by Other Means, the authors do not address this disgust or apathy in their 2004 writing. Instead, they note that the citizenry has changed concomitantly with politics. Public participation has also changed its format from collective to largely individual. This could also be used as a reason for the lack of collective mobilization after 9/11. Crenson and Ginsberg (Stanton and Ginsberg 4) refer to this as a "stagnation in political activism." This stagnation not only occurred since the beginning of the new millennium, but was evident since the middle of the 20th century.

According to the authors, this does not however mean that citizens have stopped their involvement in politics altogether. Instead, new types of opportunities have presented themselves to become involved on a more individual level. Interestingly, the authors mention that this is true for both ordinary citizens and politicians. In terms of activism, citizens who want to be involved in a specific cause have tended to become involved in community service projects rather than political issues themselves. Politicians on the other hand have begun to use the market, courts, and administrative procedures to achieve their aims rather than attempting to mobilize citizens for their cause.

It appears then that the authors believe that democracy has taken a very different form from its position less than a century ago. Citizens and politicians no longer work together to achieve the democratic aim. Instead, both sectors use the means at their disposal to make the differences that they deem necessary on an individual rather than a collective level.