Downsizing Democracy

Matthew A. Crenson is a professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University whose books include Building the Invisible Orphanage and Neighborhood Politics. Benjamin Ginsberg is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study of American Government at the Johns Hopkins University. His books include Politics by Other Means and American Government: Freedom and Power.

• PrefaceChapter 1. From Popular to Personal DemocracyChapter 2. The Rise and Fall of the CitizenChapter 3. Elections Without VotersChapter 4. The Old Patronage and the NewChapter 5. Disunited We StandChapter 6. From Masses to Mailing ListsChapter 7. The Jurisprudence of Personal DemocracyChapter 8. Movements without MembersChapter 9. Privatizing the PublicChapter 10. Does Anyone Need Citizens?NotesIndex

A welcome corrective to what has been a stampede in recent years toward blaming citizens . . . How we act is affected by how our government treats us, the processes for influencing decision-making that are available to us and the societal structures that provide us with more or less time, resources, incentive and opportunity to venture into the public sphere . . . But I don't think this book lets citizens off the hook . . . Crenson and Ginsberg have taken an important step in identifying and describing that relationship [between formal democracy and everyday democracy], and their work calls us to pay attention to whether institutional processes today support or undermine everyday democracy.—Palma J. Strand, The Nation