Civic Agency and the Cult of the Expert

"In this Kettering Foundation paper, Boyte traces this history of various trends that threaten the development of civic agency: technocracy, specialism, and a consumer-view of the citizen, among others. He also draws on his experience in the Obama campaign to explain how even organizations that have benefited from grassroots civic agency have a tendency to relapse into the habit of simply mobilizing the troops to push predetermined issue agendas. But he also identifies signs of a new...
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"In this Kettering Foundation paper, Boyte traces this history of various trends that threaten the development of civic agency: technocracy, specialism, and a consumer-view of the citizen, among others. He also draws on his experience in the Obama campaign to explain how even organizations that have benefited from grassroots civic agency have a tendency to relapse into the habit of simply mobilizing the troops to push predetermined issue agendas. But he also identifies signs of a new civic movement already impacting the fields of development, public health, resource management, climate change, and education reform. He concludes by presenting a modular, visual comparison of three frameworks for civic engagement: distributive justice, communitarian, and civic agency." --Kettering Foundation web site