American Democracy: From Tocqueville to Town Halls to Twitter

by Andrew J. Perrin

In this groundbreaking book, sociologist Andrew Perrin shows that rules and institutions, while important, are not the core of democracy. Instead, as Alexis de Tocqueville showed in the early years of the American republic, democracy is first and foremost a matter of the shared ideas, practices, and technologies that help individuals combine into publics and achieve representation. Reinterpreting democracy as culture reveals the ways the media, public opinion polling, and changing technologies shape democracy and citizenship. As Perrin shows, the founders of the United States produced a social, cultural, and legal environment fertile for democratic development and in the two centuries since, citizens and publics use that environment and shared culture to re-imagine and extend that democracy. American Democracy provides a fresh, innovative approach to democracy that will change the way readers understand their roles as citizens and participants. Never will you enter a voting booth or answer a poll again without realizing what a truly social act it is. This will be necessary reading for scholars, students, and the public seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities for democratic citizenship from Toqueville to town halls to Twitter.

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 10, 2014

Reviews

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

In American Democracy, Andrew Perrin pushes back on the argument that democracy is falling apart. He argues, instead, that the culture around democracy has changed and the reforms we take to "fix" democracy must focus more on the culture of how we interact with each other rather than purely structural changes usually seen in voting reform. He discusses the idea that we are all constantly interacting with each other in various publics, whether that be through direct conversation, watching TV, angrily tweeting at each other, or protesting outside an elected official's office. The way that these conversations are moderated and channeled up and down the "ladder" between citizens' preferences and ultimate public policy decisions ultimately shape what we think of as democracy.

I find many problems with Perrin's argument against structural changes to help voters feel and in reality be better represented in the government. It seems that Perrin created a "typical" American who may or may not vote based on how much they feel they are being included in democracy and the importance of their vote. Therefore, he can conclude that since various states that had voter suppression still ended up voting for Obama, tackling structural barriers to voting like voter ID laws and the lack of access to polling locations are not priorities. He even ventures to argue that long lines at the polls increase voter turnout (54, 122, 174). This fully ignores the discriminatory elements of most voter suppression efforts (i.e. closing polling locations in low-income POC neighborhoods where people literally cannot give up 3 hours of their day - losing wages, having to pay for childcare, transportation costs, etc - to go vote) and the simple idea that voting is a Constitutional right, not a cultural phenomenon that can be adjusted as needed. Similarly, Perrin argues that the biggest problem with the electoral college is simply that people feel that they aren't being directly represented in their democracy. Granted, he did not have the hindsight of the 2016 election to show that, again, the popular vote did not align with the ultimate outcome of the election. Though he quotes Hamilton in the book saying that "the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station," he doesn't seem to care how anti-democratic it is to say that a small group of people should have the power to override the votes of the general public (178). Again, this structural barrier to democracy seems like a much bigger danger than the idea that we are not speaking to each other with "civility," a word that Perrin does not necessarily have the hindsight to see the harm it has done to marginalized communities.

Perrin does challenge some visions of democracy that we today consider "normal," or essential to the meaning of democracy in a way that is interesting. He explains how, while Americans see it as a natural way of organizing voters, most democracies don't select representatives based on geographic location (105). Rather, they proportionally allocate representatives to the government based on the percentage of people that voted for each party. Additionally, he argues that opinion polling should be much less important than it is now, since not only is it not a pure reflection of all the opinions in America, we don't even know for sure if the things being polled are the most important things to the American public. Pollsters create the questions (and may word them differently), which shapes the discussion around what is important in society. Perrin's research in the role of media and technology seem to reflect recent studies as well, and these things in addition to polls are certainly changes that have shifted cultural attitudes towards democracy. However, I think Perrin takes his stance of advocating for purely cultural changes over structural changes too far, ignoring the fact that many structural barriers are doing exactly what they were intended to do.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

While thorough and easy to read, I think Perrin could have gone deeper and focused more on media. At times I felt like I was reading a history book.