Challenges of Ordinary Democracy

Karen Tracy is Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

• ContentsList of Figures and TablesAcknowledgments1. Public Meetings: Ordinary Democracy’s Home2.A Historical Snapshot: Three Years of BVSD Life3.“Democracy”: An Ideal with Traction4.Citizen Participation, Doing Dissent5. Newspapers in the Cycle of Political Upheaval6.The Campaign: The Usefulness of Platitudes and Personal Attack7. A Fight over Words and Policy8. One Meeting: Six Observations9.Reasonable Hostility in Ordinary DemocracyPostscript: Education Governance in Twenty-First-Century AmericaAppendix: The Method and DataReferencesIndex

“In Challenges of Ordinary Democracy, Karen Tracy draws us close to the workings of self-government in modern America. There, we can see the balance that must be struck between deliberative norms of civility and the emotional power of dissent and grievance. Tracy’s provocative idea of ‘reasonable hostility’ as a model for effective local politics will stir controversy, but she will certainly have stimulated more grounded thinking about the complex interactions of officeholders and citizens in free societies.”—John Gastil, University of Washington