Hi Paul,

These are interesting questions that seem to indicate with a fair degree of precision the limitations of a liberal political imaginary that holds sway over teacher education and educational theory. I think that citizenship or civic education can proceed without referencing, or even privileging, elections or a strictly electoral conceptualization of politics. If anything, I would say it's crucial for critical approaches. That's not to say, like you mention, that elections are not an integral issue in contemporary political problems. Obviously the current status of the U.S. presidential election make this clear. But what is more intriguing, I think, is challenging the centrality of the electoral imaginary in mainstream liberal democratic thought. The relationship between elections and citizenship education should, at least in many contexts, bring up quite quickly how liberalism tends to hinge on binaries of inclusion and exclusion, and thus forefronts politics of recognition or fulfillment rather than more transfigurative or revolutionary modes of politics.

A question that your own sparks for me is: what might political education or even a problematized democratic education look like outside of the normative liberal scope of citizenship education. I'm sure that citizenship education, in some corners (perhaps your own), has troubled the hegemony of citizenship and nation-state power as legitimate modes of sovereign power and belonging, but still, I wonder to what degree those problematic notions linger in secondary or even teacher education just by dint of the name. Perhaps citizenship education is overdetermined by a somewhat narrow vision of what politics and democracy actually consist of.

These may not be particularly useful insights, and I admit I'm not especially up-to-date on these fields of study (citizenship/civic ed, social studies ed, etc.), but as they pertain to or are influenced by broader issues in educational theory, I'm excited by the idea of challenging, perhaps even rupturing, the liberal imaginary's stronghold on these very debates. What might happen to citizenship education if it departed initially from a direct problematization of the question and meaning of politics itself? It seems as if your decade of study suggests teacher education students might be receptive to this rupture; perhaps some might even yearn for it. As a teacher education student myself not quite a decade ago, I would have been.

So, in that roundabout way, I'm suggesting that, at least from my perspective, the exciting potential for a citizenship education unfettered by the bonds of a liberal electoral imaginary is the indeterminacy of the questions of politics and political life themselves. These are such open-ended questions that can lead into a vast wealth of intellectual, political, and epistemological traditions. While, in the U.S. at least, such inquiry is constrained by high-stakes accountability and impoverished politics of knowledge and curriculum, the possibility remains. Perhaps the next question then would be how to rupture the norms of citizenship education and inquiry so that students can more easily pursue those many paths.

I hope these thoughts are useful, and I would be happy to chat more on the topic. Be well.

Best,

Graham Slater

Perhaps the attached can help.

Best regards,

Debra

Article Citizenship education in initial teacher education in the Su...

You may try teaching 'citizenship education' in a global perspective. A very good publication is provided in the link below. In this publication, no single word 'election' was mentioned.

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002277/227729e.pdf

Thanks. I'm quite familiar with that document as well as some of the authors. Best regards.

Check out what Digital Media and Learning are doing with citizenship education and connected learning:  http://dmlcentral.net/ 

Hi Barb,

Many thanks for that!! Really an interesting site.

Best regards

Paul

Thanks Jared! I agree that focusing on teacher education necessarily should involve de-centering the focus. Making citizenship education a multi-/inter-disciplinary project would enhance it by bringing in other voices, perspectives and actors. 

Best regards

Paul

Hi Paul,

I think teaching about and for citizenship without referencing elections and voting would have grave consequences for democracy and good governance in society in general. The right to vote is a fundamental citizenship right which in some countries had to be fought for through protracted struggles.  A citizen is, according to Aristotle, someone who is not only ruled but participates in ruling in turn.  And elections and voting are an important avenue for this participation.  It is apathy by those who want tolerant and accountable governments which has led to the rise of  intolerant and self-serving ruling parties and regimes.  It is said that a society gets the kind of government it deserves.  In my view, students should be empowered through citizenship education by learning that it is, in principle, possible to vote out self-serving and uncaring regimes using the ballot box.  The question to ask, and not to shy away from, is why, in practice, participation in elections often fails to bring about the desired  change. This will prompt them to explore ways of strengthening democratic practices in their own communities and the wider society.

Warm regards

Oswell

Greetings Oswell,

Thanks for your comments.

I am writing from Mexico where I am attending a symposium on democracy, and where the question of elections has been extensively critiqued. My own sense is that increasingly people, especially the 18-45 group, minorities and marginalize groups, notably the poor, have or are losing confidence in the notion that corporately controlled elections will respond to their needs. People want democracy, I believe, but not the present form of what I would refer to as "normative, representative democracy," which seems to further entrench societies, in some ways, in anti-democratic processes imbued in war, social inequalities, and impoverishment. The rise of Trump and the extreme right in many European countries combined with increasing levels of abstention re: voting are some of the signs that the present model of the two-party system is not working out for the vast majority. 

Having said that, I do believe that we should critically engage with a multitude of issues, including the relevance of elections but should not over-focus on elections as the ultimate outcome of democracy, which is a process, not a penultimate solution.

I also believe that it is important to engage with colleagues around the world to enhance perspectives, insight, knowledge and thinking around how citizenship, democracy and education are connected.

All the best,

Paul

I always enjoy your articulate and thoughtful posts and provocations, Paul, and thought that I would contribute on this strand.

I agree with you and other contributors that it may well be unhelpful to think in terms of a top-line point of citizenship education being to get out the youth vote. This perspective starts from seeing young people as apathetic and in deficit when actually, in responding to the electoral campaigning endeavours of the main parties, a resounding yawn and intelligent disdain may be an entirely rational response to what they see unfolding before them. Australia is experiencing a notably turgid and uninspiring election campaign by both of the major political parties at the time of writing. Without the compulsory voting which exists here, voting for either of these alternatives looks logically unappealing (which explains a rise in the popularity of minor and independent parties – and a relatively strong Green Party provides a home for some idealistic younger voters).

For me citizenship education is about the broader development, encouragement and experience of political literacy and civic engagement. You sound to be very well-informed in this academic space and two of my favourite academics are Carole Hahn and Ian Davies. They argue for a form of citizenship education that involves hands-on, authentic involvement in projects addressing current contemporary local, national, and global issues. These can provide students with genuine and meaningful opportunities to become active and engaged citizens. In other words, students DO citizenship and can advocate, campaign and seek to make a difference. A colleague and I have talked about this in the Australian context [Tudball, L., & Brett, P. (2014). What matters and what’s next for civics and citizenship education in Australia? The Social Educator, 22(4), 35-43].

A student recently alerted me to this paper that I had missed:

Lenzi, M., Vieno, A., Sharkey, J., Mayworn, A., Scacchi, L., Pastore, M., & Santinello, M. (2014). How school can teach civic engagement besides civic education: The role of democratic school climate. American Journal of Community Psychology, 54, 251-261.

I should declare an interest which might enable you to shoot me down in flames! I was the author, in a 2002 English Citizenship Studies textbook for 14-16 year olds, of a six-page chapter called ‘Why bother to vote?’ (p.52-57) [also accessible to anyone interested in this topic to check out on my Researchgate page]. I looked back at this in trepidation given the views that you and others have expressed, but at least my approach was exploratory and critical rather than didactic and preachy. I ask:

What is the evidence that young people are a ‘disengaged generation’?

How could more people be persuaded to use their votes?

Should voting be compulsory?

What are the arguments in favour of reducing the voting age?

I had students organizing an election for a class representative to a student council and deciding what voting system they would use to achieve this.

Finally I had students creating leaflets to provide adults with basic information about local elections and motivating them to vote. The idea was that the leaflets might then be distributed through local libraries, garages or newsagents.

I like that Winston Churchill 1947 quotation: ‘No-one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time’.

I also like that the Council of Europe describes this space not as ‘Citizenship education’ but as ‘Education for Democratic Citizenship’.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the wonderful comments.

The easiest and perhaps most simple way to crystallize the equation, as you noted in relation to Hahn and Davies, is to Do democracy... you have to actually DO democracy. Of course, to DO it means opening up to the unknown, the alternative, the imaginary, and taking a harsh look at hegemony and the look. But I do believe that there is lots of reason to have hope even if the mainstream lens does not shine on those DOing demcracy.

We'll have to touch base if and when I make it back to Aus. Do you know David Zyngier and Marc Pryun at Monash? 

Best regards,

Paul

Cheers Paul

Yes - I know (and like) both David and Marc.

Talking Melbournites - there is an excellent article in the age today by an academic called Mark Triffitt, essentially echoing our thinking:

Some excerpts:

". .Small targets, micro-campaigns and three-word soundbites.... When only about 40 cent of Australians think it matters which party wins government, these are desperate days for democracy.

But let's remember something important. Democracy at its heart remains an amazing political invention. It is the only political system geared to seeking out moderation. It remains the best way to pursue decency in public life. ...

Bad politics succeeds because good people do not engage, or do not vote. Democracy has become a stamping ground for the worst of our collective aspirations because we have allowed it to. It is sold to the highest bidder because we have let it happen. And so with each election campaign, we curse the darkness without bothering to think how we might light a candle......

Why aren't we calling for our democracy – with its dud products and misleading slogans – to be cleaned out and overhauled.....

We now live in a world of endless possibilities to connect with strangers to build unstoppable constituencies for change....

It is now much, much easier than ever to help a decent cause or a worthy voice to make a wildly asymmetrical impact. We might do it once and that's called "viral". But repeat, organise and sustain it, and that becomes "politics". And we run a mile because our politicians have taught us that "politics" is a dirty pursuit that ends in failure. As citizens of a democracy we are a political community whether we want to be or not....."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/generations-why-you-should-all-give-a-political-damn-20160610-gpgrdy.html#ixzz4BKkfVvtD 

Peter

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/generations-why-you-should-all-give-a-political-damn-20160610-gpgrdy.html#ixzz4BKkYjHHp

Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/generations-why-you-should-all-give-a-political-damn-20160610-gpgrdy.html#ixzz4BKjvVX2P

Dear Paul, in my opinion voting and informed citizenship are part of the sustainability forces that keep democracies, even the most distorted ones, in check and alive.  I think it is good for democracy to go once in a while through storms to shake up the citizens and bring about the best of people, in all democratic countries....After the storm(a bad party or political leader in the eyes of a minority) the sun comes out(A new party or new political leader in the eyes of the majority)....That way no goverment will take its citizens for granted....they have to deliver...

As you may know in the case of last federal election in Canada students/the youth came out to vote....an outlier situation perhaps, but it may become the norm in the knowledge/information society as voting methods are improved(e.g. internet) and straetgic voting becomes the way to go(e.g. leadnow coalition)...

However I thought it would be a good idea to bring to your attention three things as food for thoughts while sharing two documents you may find interesting::

a) traditional democracies work on independent choice so it is consistent with the traditional market model that also works on independent choice and preference ranking a la Arrolw Impossibility theorem and theory...

b) But in 2012/UNCSD there was a shift from the traditional market model (indpendent preference based market model) to the green market model(codependent based market model, and this means that the democratic choice will have to change soon to codependent choice if we are living now under green market based democracy and if this is true it will lead to adjustment in the citizen education curriculum....

The Unintended Consequences of Paradigm Death and Shift: Was the Arrow Impossibility Theorem Left Behind?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299879934_The_Unintended_Consequences_of_Paradigm_Death_and_Shift_Was_the_Arrow_Impossibility_Theorem_Left_Behind

c) it is possible to see liberal democracy and development from the sustainability point of view:

Moral and Practical Sustainability Gaps: Implications for the Current Liberal Development Model

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282331974_Moral_and_Practical_Sustainability_Gaps_Implications_for_the_Current_Liberal_Development_Model

Wish you a nice day where ever you are.

Respectfully yours;

Lucio

Article The Unintended Consequences of Paradigm Death and Shift: Was...

Article Moral and Practical Sustainability Gaps: Implications for th...

Greetings Lucio,

Many thanks for the thoughtful comments.

I've been increasingly critical of normative, representative democracy (elections) over the past several years, and sense that they are not a good barometer of where the people are. Money, restrictive voting tactics, corporate media, limited voting choice, constrained debates, binary positioning, the lack of representation/voice/thought, etc. all diminish the notion of democracy.

But I do understand and take your point seriously, and, for what it's worth, do vote, myself, and do hope that elections can cultivate meaningful debate.

As for the 2015 Canadian federal election, the percentage of eligible voters participating was only 68%, which is up from 60% the previous time, and although more young people did vote there is still a huge issue of people boycotting elections. They do so for many reasons but I believe that the fact that a huge number (30-40%, and much more for youth) are not even considered by formal structures (i.e., polling, media, parties, strategists, lobbyists, etc.) because they do not vote is a real dilemma for those hoping for participatory, critically-engaged, and transformative democracy.

Having said all of that, some form of election is desirable but, I believe, should never replace the four years between elections, nor should it over-shadow all of the fundamental and pivotal work required of a (hopefully political literate) citizenry, especially in relation to education, in order to actually build a democracy.

Sadly, I have found that governments generally measure the degree of democratic participation by voting rates. Additionally, why people vote (their motivation) is most interesting, and it appears that many/most vote against something (Trudeau was not even in the equation until the last 2-3 weeks of the federal campaign, for example, and the US case is even more bizarre). 

Governments, once elected, seem to believe they have a mandate (check out the masterful book Absent Mandate, which I read in 1984 as an undergrad in political science, and which postulates that people vote for too many diverse reasons to give a government a mandate; for example, some people voted for the Liberals to support marijuana legislation, others against Harper, others because they believed that Muclair couldn't win, others because they liked their local candidate, others because they want an end to the wars, etc.), and they often function in a manner that what counts is the party, not the society. My own work in government was a real revelation to me on that end, and the power that is wielded to protect the party is quite substantial, at least from the vantage-point I had (but I say this in a very open and self-critical way, knowing that I do not have the one and only answer, and that lots of different voices, critiques and inputs are required to flesh out this and other debates.

There are so many wonderful initiatives/voices/people/movements that seem to run parallel to the normative, representative democratic model, and my hope would be that the formal would embrace, in a meaningful way, the informal, and that these power differentials could be expressed and considered before, during and after elections. Of course, this is a broad, sweeping statement, and I do not mean to infer that everyone involved in formal politics is somehow working against the "people". 

My concern with linking democracy and education is articulated in many of my publications/research, and I have had many wonderful collaborations over the years that give me great hope that civil society democracy can produce some powerful counter-hegemonic results.

Once again, many thanks for the comments and references. I hope to be able to read them at some point during the holiday-period.

By the way, I'm in Canada. Hope all is well, wherever you might be.

Paul

Dear all,

just yesterday my eighteen years old son explained to me as to why he would not vote.  He said he was not informed enough and no good could come out of uninformed people making decisions, which are bad decisions judging from the outcome. He also seems to think reading PPE at university will qualify him to be informed.

I am not convinced of his line of thought regarding being informed having anything to do with higher education though, and I pointed out to him that there are masses of "educated" people who are still misinformed and still contribute to bad decisions made all over the world, by voting and enabling certain political lines to carry on of a world of inequalities and perpetual wars around the globe.

Perhaps citizenship education ought to include questioning the "citizenship" itself and "voting" to decide between two or more similar puppets of the same ideology that is permitted to be on offer in all elections. But then again "education" is an important part of making sure everything stays as they are: poor stay poor, and rich get richer by the day when everything is geared up for the private ownership and profit making for those individuals in power and control of the world.  

If we want real changes we have to find ways of realising those and being able to contribute to the younger generation's education should include a thorough critical thinking ability, as well as taking responsibility of practically building our future together. The decision of what kind of a future surely rests with the youth as the dynamo of the society, if they can free themselves of all the mind-fog presently they are mostly being infected with, through non questioning "education" and indoctrination in general. 

Although there is not much of an empirical evidence so far that youth may indeed engage themselves into making a real difference in complicated and unjust societies that their parents and grand-parents created so far, I still would like to believe that they will, because in a world with so much nuclear weaponry in the hands of so many irresponsible, personal power driven individuals, there will be no world left, if they do not.

Dear Sibel, some personal thoughts here.

I had the same conversation with one of my daughters recently for election time, and she expressed similar thinking, it seems it is an entry leve university student thinking that can still for ever, but I just told her my personal experience and why I vote even when I do not like anyone's views, the less of all evils approach sometimes ;and why in some places you are willing to die just for that one change to get to the polls and in one stroke scream in silence what you really feel....a secret vote, a secret scream...

I think that you need to live what is not to have any type of chance in a democracy to realy dream it  and want it.... In other words you need to be outside the box to undertand what you do not have so that when you are inside the box you do not take it for granted,,,,If there was a practicum for citenzip education requiring student to go to places where democracy is more distorted or non existent for a while their perceptions may chance as reality speaks loudly....

Inside the box of democracy through time you feel you can live without it so you do not bother to show up to vote, no conseuences there are usually if you do that...you take it for granted and some people in the political process like to see that....easier to be elected if less people show up to the polls....power with few votes is the same a power with many votes in their minds....But if you know what is to be outside the democratic box, you will be probably the first in line to vote even if that cost you your life because that is the right thing to do...it is our responsibiility...

I found out later that my daugher had decided for whom to vote and voted,  not because of my personal experence, but because participating was the right tthing to do...

My warm greetings Sibel

Dear Lucio,

Thank you for your response. I think we ought to question things thoroughly ourselves, before accepting certain things as "the right things to do". Let me elaborate, as I see it, what is being proposed as "democracy" in most part is not anywhere near what it does imply. Democracy is meant to be the rule of the majority, and majority is ruling nowhere. In fact it is an absolute minority that rules the world.

We had another discussion thread here with some other colleagues some months ago regarding inequality and what can be done about it, and one of them referred to this year's Oxfam report about 62 individuals having half the assets of the world in their possession and the statistics that show how this number decreases from year to year, meaning the capital concentrates into the hands of less and less people yearly. What I am driving at is this, whether we have a right to vote or not, the choices given are not real enough to change the basic fundamental inequalities of the societies in which we are meant to play our role and cast a vote. There is no real choice, when we are only given some options, all of which will keep the system as it is, and choosing the lesser of the two evils has never been a favourable option to me personally. 

As for not knowing what we have, unless we do not have it for a while, or not at all, I can relate to that, as I grew up in a country that the state together with civil fascists deliberately attacked its own people, in order to bring a fascistic military regime - more than once - and succeeded winning a civil war that ended up with the Constitution change that brought Mussolini's laws lifted wholly into the "new" constitution, and fascists were secured into higher placement of the state organism. They are still there securely sitting in their chairs, and there is no military regime anymore, but some staged "democratic elections", that certainly does not allow anything that could possibly threaten this state of affairs into the election options.

As you can see, I have some idea of what it entails not to have rights, as well as doing the right thing, especially if we consider to do these right things one had to put their lives in danger, when I was young. Lessons learnt that hard are not easy to forget, and I do not want to "participate" into charades that pass as "democracy", when the inequality of the private ownership and profit based capitalist economy, ruled by the super rich international finance capital, which by the way operates openly above the national sovereign states as seen through TTIP and CETA kind of "agreements" they are making nowadays - at least by the ones who can correctly identify these core truths  anyway - still carries on and we are given some none real options as if they are options to choose from. I rather pass that "opportunity".

I am more than aware these experiences and the lessons learnt are my own and I do not expect my children or my students to understand those. They have their lives in different societies and circumstances are not as open and brutal as they were in my youth.  I still trust them to find their ways by learning form their own mistakes. 

All the best to you and your family,

Sibel

Dear Sibel, that is why I let my daugther go her way, make her own decision, but if I can avoid the pain of losing what she has....by having her fully inform, what she get at univeristy and what university will not give her...And she went here way....

True democracy is about equal participation, equal representation and equal opportunity to benefit....if you use those three components to build a democracy model, you will find that there are 6 types of distorted democracies and only one true democracy....I associate the citicen education question being dealt here as associated with true democracy....

Also democracy is related to the market and both are based on independent choice....see that if we assume three compoennts, society, the economy, and the environment you can build an economic model and you will find tghat 6 are distorted markets and only one is a sustainability market..... in an ideal world, true democracy would exist only under sustainability markets....but that market does not exist yet, and as you point  out in your comment true democracy may not exist yet....but the fall of the soviet union shows us that dirtorted markets and distroted democracies are the best we can get right now as paradigm evlution continues...

If we know that oustide the democratic box, even distroted, our children will be worse off, should we let them fall and learn the hard way?.... I would not let them fall without telling then why not to fall, but if they still fall for their own will that is fine with me....There is a saying where I grew up ''''Those who died for their own will should be burry standing up"....

Had my daughter not voted, that would have be fine with me, as I did my part.  And if everybody else did their part as I did, my daugther vote would be in the minority anyway....

Keep in mind, if market are evolving, we shifted from the traditional market to the green market in 2012, democracies will have to evolve too...e.g. traditional democracy and traditional market---->bare capitalism....green democracy and green markets---->green capitalism., that is where the world is right now albeit perhaps few can see it right now...

Have a nice day Sibel

Dear Lucio,

Thank you again for your response and good wishes for my day.  I will try to have a nice day :)

But I also want to say that, I do not let either my children or my students to fall, without giving them the option of benefiting from the lessons I have learnt, either, if and when they chose to listen.  The decisions are always theirs and theirs alone and they have to bear the consequences of their own decisions at the end like everyone of us has to.

You are right about "few" seeing a "green capitalism", I myself cannot see anything green from all the fracking, exhaust smoke and all the rest of the pollution caused around the globe, but then again if this "green capitalism" is as real as you say it is, sooner or later we all we see it. I am also assuming that if it has never been the objective reality in the first place, then the few, who think they see "green" at the moment, will have to recognise the real colour of things at some point in their lives. 

Seeing the world as it is - as opposed to seeing it as we wish to see it - should help all the evolutions and the revolutions of the world!

Have a nice day too! :D

I would suggest you take a look at this book:

Banks, J. A. (2007). Educating citizens in a multicultural society (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

It is a great resource about citizen education, and explores epistemological and research issues, pedagogy and decision making.

Dear Sibel, good day.  I see the UK at the center of those countries promoting the green economy and low carbon development, I am surprised to hear you have not heard about it.....the 2015 Paris agreement to deal with global warming and develolpment gave global polical endorse me to the shift from the traditional makret to green market that took place in 2012/UNCSD Rio plus 20.  Now we have the green economy behind the UN 17 sustainable development goals and the 8 Millenium development goals.....Pure capitalist would never go green unless the survival of the pure market is at stake so going green for them is a decision to survive...going slow in the actual transition should be expected....  Notice that change is also taking place in former socialist countries, there in 1991 the fall of the soviet bloc brought the death of Karl Mark's world/red socialism and a shift took place from red socialism to socially friendly capitalism or socio-capilalism or red capitalism, including in China.  So the world has changed, the ideas of two great thinkers, Adam Smith/traditional market and Karl Marx/red socialism are now both dead and new partnership based paradigms have replaced them....

I will leave it here and wish you a nice day.

If you have time you can read the following article and take it a food for thoughts as again is markets and paradigms evolved the model of democracy has to evolve too.

Adam Smith and Karl Marx Under the Sustainability Eye: Pointing Out and Comparing the Sustainability Gaps Behind these Two Great Simplification Failures.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290607852_Adam_Smith_and_Karl_Marx_Under_the_Sustainability_Eye_Pointing_Out_and_Comparing_the_Sustainability_Gaps_Behind_these_Two_Great_Simplification_Failures

Article Adam Smith and Karl Marx Under the Sustainability Eye: Point...

Dear Sibel, I see now the UK is under a huge democratic chock, the murphy's law, what people thought could not happen happened....A simple majority ruling to leave that apparently was not expected...

Apparently as usual older voters turned out to vote in bigger numbers that young voters I hear.  It is almost a certainty that the true cost of leaving the EU will be higher than the leave group expected leading to a sense of "we were better in the EU after all" in the short to medium term....

That will affect the stability of everything in the UK internally(economic, social, state associations perhaps even the monarchy) and externaly(the EU, the world...) and set a precedence or create the legal path/roadmap to the break up of other economic unions or other system structures.  What is your sense?

Wish you a nice day

Hi Paul,

This discussion has finally reached the point, through a few comments of some contributors, to the point where the real issues of teaching citizenship and democracy lie.  I will now contribute. Uncharacteristically I will try to be brief. [Ed: post scriptum ..but characteristically I see that I have failed...again!]  More on my thoughts can be found by examining my timeline.

Political and economic participation in society are two facets of the single reality of human social behaviour.  All else is personal in nature - family, metaphysics, art, music, education, learning and thought.  Those two facets cannot be isolated in practice, although institutions within our present hegemony try to do so for reasons that benefit the individuals who try to control and direct those institutions.

I now insert my recent text in answering the RG question:

Subrata Singh 2.67

Foundation for Ecological Security

Dominant relationship of larger villages/towns on the smaller villages in relation to natural resource use and access?

We are trying to look at the relationships between larger villages and smaller villages in terms of the natural resource use. Larger villages are usually a dominant group in this relationship because of the access to information, political influence, economic power etc. Can anyone suggest research on this?

My answer is intended to illustrate how our social cooperation in the access, utilisation, transformation and allocation of the resources 'collectively available' to humans in maintaining life has both a political facet to it and a complementary facet of derived economic power. I show how economic power creates the opportunity to access political power.  I identify that the vision of democracy enshrined in the aspirant norms and values by which we view and plan for our future is a concept requiring the access to political power to be sited in every individual.  Consequently all aggregation and centralisation of that power must always remain derivative and subject to that of the individuals in whom it must always reside.  Thus 'representative democracy' as understood and implemented today in major countries is a clear oxy-moron and that formal political parties are anti-thetical to the concept of democracy rather than being evidence of it.  Please do not respond to that by claiming I speak of anarchy.   Accountable representation of communities which coincide with local council boundaries, rather than of arbitrarily defined local districts, in which the representative is contractually bound to represent the majority view on matters of binary choice and to represent the interests of each special interest in the constituency/community according to the contract which is that representatives offered manifesto, and in whereby all representatives dynamically join in different formations at regional and national level voting forums according to the matter under consideration, and in full view of their contractual partners who elected them, is not anarchy.  It is called democracy.

However, if the economic hegemony is to concentrate economic power in the hands of the few, and hence also real access to real political power then to call any 'popular' institution of political involvement 'democracy' is  a philosophic fraud and could easily be judged to be criminal by an independent judiciary operating within those countries in which the constitution is the supreme authority of the land.  Such as is possible in South Africa. 

So by way of some illustration then, in response to the RG question:

......Dominant relationship of larger villages/towns on the smaller villages in relation to natural resource use and access? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Dominant_relationship_of_larger_villages_towns_on_the_smaller_villages_in_relation_to_natural_resource_use_and_access#577007e1dc332de6fd3f03c3 [accessed Jun 26, 2016].

I have also written:

The development of settlements of increasing size to a high degree reflect the economic advantages to economic enterprises of access to scale, technological choice and to a labour force increasingly dependant upon the supply of jobs and economic activities by third party economic enterprises. With this concentration of economic reward comes concentration in the power to influence the society in which those activities take place. With concentration of economic power comes concentration of political power under the influence of those with economic power. Looking back down the process the larger communities are seen to dominate, economically and politically, the smaller communities. This is consequential upon the economic neoclassical model and is consistent with it and the socio-psychological myth of 'economic ' or 'rational' man. On the other hand the social proto-institution (for it does not yet exist) that is 'democracy,' and which lives within those social institutions which do exist and which are the vectors of our acquired norms and values and the source of much of mankinds' hopes and visions for the future, is based upon the reverse conception of the direction' in which political power is expected to flow. It follows therefore that we might expect the domination of smaller communities in terms of economic disadvantage and exploitation can only be achieved if the economic power of larger settlements is derivative of, and dependant upon, the economic power of the smallest units of economic enterprise and that this containment of economic power be accompanied by institutional bounds and sanctions which implement political power in larger settlements as being similarly derivative.

If citizenship education in political responsibilities and moral aspirations and the exercise of civil obligations by every individual in a democracy is to have any meaning, and to have any effect upon participation levels of the youth now and in future populations, then it is these messages concerning the reality of the present and the reasons for our dissatisfaction with it which must be directly addressed in schools and universities in all courses of all schools.  This latter being determined by the fact that all disciplines exist on account of the skills and knowledge they teach make necessary contributions to our societies and the progress we all aspire to.

The consequence of not teaching about voting, elections and the truth of what they represent and who is empowered by them and who is not empowered, or is disadvantaged by them and why... and so on is to ask the educationalists to acquiesce in the role of propagandist for the 62 people to continue owning half of the worlds wealth... as it continues to be replenished each day by the work that we each contribute.  The last remark being just to emphasise that you cannot teach citizenship without teaching that it is irreducible from having at least two facets - power over economic institutions i.e. politics and how those economic institutions contribute or do not contribute to human well-being i.e. economics.  A third facet being morality and ethics in the context of establishing sustainable, resilient, durable universal experience of well-being for all, and what well-being is and how that may be different under different philosophies of life and society amongst mankind.... but in the end that we need to be bound by the active defence of some universal binding principles that all viewpoints subscribe to, and will defend.   I believe those to be based on the survival of an evolving human organism capable of doing so within the continuing cosmic evolution we see about us, and for each of us to enjoy a multidimensional well-being throughout each of our lifetimes as we each contribute to the common goal to the extent we can.

Does anybody know of an education department that would not view such realism as anything but dangerously subversive and not do everything it could to suppress it?  Teachers must each decide what their role is... educator in the wonder and glory of life and the individual dignity of humanity.. or propagandist for the development of acquiescent minds as suitable targets of exploitation  (cf Risse et all on International Trade Theory... a RG paper) in the hegemony of today?

Have 'good' day

Robin

'good'? - acting in everything consistently with  achieving  'the common goal'...

I think in a lot of countries, elections are a touchy issue...North Korea, for example.  However, elections and voting can always be discussed and should be.   One might, in certain countries try to avoid talking about that countries elections.  Metaphors for actual voting, like  migration (voting with feet), could be talked about too.