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“The book provides a remarkable synthesis of data from a variety of sources on Western Democracy, and Milner accomplishes an amazing amount in a brief volume.”—Political Communication
A comparative, international analysis of political participation and the decline in civic engagement.
Scholars, pundits, and politicians, both in the US and abroad, have warned of a decline in citizen involvement in public life. Many (following the lead of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone) have focused on the "social capital" allegedly created by the participation of citizens in a wide range of voluntary associations. But Henry Milner, a noted scholar of comparative politics, argues that a society's level of civic literacy -- the knowledge and capacity of citizens to make sense of their political world -- offers a better basis for understanding the civil societies of disparate cultures, and comparing the effectiveness of their democratic institutions.
In a clear, accessible style, Milner marshals a wealth of data from the US, Canada, western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand to show how civic literacy underpins effective democracies. Masterfully weaving together philosophical debates over citizenship and community with the empirical findings of social scientists and his own first-hand experience of a variety of cultures, Milner shows that a population's degree of civic literacy is the single best predictor of its level of political participation. Drawing on the experience of the high civic literacy societies of Northern Europe, he sets out a series of policies -- policies linked to the role of the media, to adult and civic education, and to the informativeness of partisan political debate -- that lay the groundwork for the exercise of the responsibilities of citizenship in the 21st century.
Reviews:
“Civic Literacy is a remarkable book in its scope of comparative analysis, theoretical insights, and implications for reform”—Public Opinion Quarterly
“An important book that effectively summarizes current research, advances our understanding of the impact of knowledge on political participation, and demarcates new areas of productive inquiry.” —Journal of Politics
“An empirically rich book with a new argument about one of the most important questions in political science.”—American Political Science Review: Perspectives on Politics
Endorsements:
"This book makes a significant contribution to scholarship in the area of civic engagement in politics and its consequences for public policy. Milner presents evidence linking several well-known phenomena in novel ways, and the broad sweep of his book is unique."—Scott Keeter, George Mason University
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HENRY MILNER is a Political Scientist at the Universities of Laval in Canada and Umea, in Sweden, and co-editor of Inroads, a journal of policy and opinion. His most recent books are Social Democracy and Rational Choice (1994) and Sweden: Social Democracy in Practice (1989).
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