A New Engagement?
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$24.99 (01)Description
Young people turned out in the 2004 presidential election in record numbers, stimulated by the high stakes of the choice and the intense campaign waged by parties, interest groups, and civic organizations to mobilize them. While 2004 broke a trend of declining electoral engagement by younger Americans, and demonstrated that many among the newest generation of citizens can be mobilized to participate in traditional electoral politics, their participation still fell far short of that of their elders. But elections tell only one of the tales about how people participate in the civic and political life of the country.A New Engagement challenges the conventional wisdom that today's youth is plagued by a severe case of political apathy. The book tells a second tale about the changing nature of citizen engagement in American society. Instead of participating less, young people may be participating differently. Using the results from an original set of surveys on civic engagement and many other surveys tracking participation over the past 50 years, the authors conclude that young people do not lag behind their elders in volunteering, community activism, and using the economic muscle of consumerism. A new and distinctive cohort has emerged after Generation X--the DotNets--with views on political issues that are distinctly more liberal than those of Generation X and who show signs of reversing the trend of declining electoral participation among youth.
The authors conclude with prescriptions for how to increase citizen engagement and a vision of how things might be different if a larger group and variety of citizens were to become engaged. Exposing the different ways in which the different generations contribute to their society, this book offers a clear-eyed view of how our politics will change when today's youth are running business and government a few decades from now.
Reviews
"This book stands among the best that have ever been written about civic and political engagement in America, and deserves a place on your shelf next to other classics such as Who Votes? , Voice and Equality , and Bowling Alone . It exemplifies model social science--as relevant as it is rigorous."--Political Science Quarterly
"Packed with evidence and insights, A New Engagement captures the changing nature of citizen participation in America. Generational differences underlie that change, which is remaking our civic and political life. This breakthrough study should be read by all-scholars, pundits, politicos, activists, and citizens-who seek a better understanding of tomorrow's America." --Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard University
"Based on an impressive array of evidence, this is the fullest and most important work to date on the social and political engagement of all sorts--or the lack of it--of different age cohorts in contemporary America. It persuasively shows how history, perceptions of government performance, and social, cultural, and economic experiences have shaped and distinguished the social and political outlooks and behavior of different generations of adults in the United States." --Robert Y. Shapiro, Columbia University
"This book is an outstanding study of shifting patterns of civic engagement among successive generations of American citizens. A key finding: generational differences matter, and we should pay more attention to indications of declining political involvement among young adults."--William A. Galston, Saul Stern Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
"Understanding the future of democracy in America requires us to understand how young people are being mobilized into public life. The impressive range of data collected for and presented in this book are unparalleled in scope or quality for their insights into the public involvement of young Americans. This highly original study is indispensable for understanding how Americans under 30 are orienting themselves to civic life." --Scott L. Althaus, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
"This book builds on previous literature to paint an important picture of generational engagement. Further, the nuances of this book's argument are both notable and intriguing. Indeed, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of citizen engagement that undoubtedly will lead to additional research and new hypotheses."--Public Opinion Quarterly
Product Details
272 pages; 26 line illus.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-518317-7ISBN10: 0-19-518317-7About the Author(s)
Cliff Zukin is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Rutgers University. He is President of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). Scott Keeter is Director of Survey Research at the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC. Molly W. Andolina is Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePaul University. Krista Jenkins is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Michael X. Delli Carpini is Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
