Gov94CZ (From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in a Digital Age) was an undergraduate seminar course offered in Harvard’s Department of Government in fall 2016. Students discussed a number of topics related to digital civic agency, including changing communication patterns, policymaking processes, and emerging ethical issues. In the following class project, students chose a case (any group, any organization, or any single person) and investigated it using the Ten Questions framwork. The resulting projects explored cases from all corners of the participatory politics landscape. Here, we spotlight four: Veganism, Reclaim Harvard Law, Get Out To Vote (GOTV), and the Harvard CIVICS Program.
Is Veganism Political? The Frontiers of Participatory Politics
In "Veganism: A Platform for Participatory Politics,” Alice Jeon and Sarah Wu looked at how veganism has gained ground along with the rise of digital technology. Among the discussed topics were how social media played a role in community building, information sharing, and identity formation among vegans and, intriguingly, whether or not veganism is political. Their project pushed Alice and Sarah to delve into the changing notion of participatory politics and what counts as political. This resulted in a interesting and important discussion of the distinctions between intention and perception in civic activism and between means-based vs. ends-based civic groups. Alice and Sarah conclude that understanding veganism and its (non)political character requires an understanding of expanding margins of participatory politics – territory that has largely gone undefined and unclaimed. Read more.
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Reclaim HLS: Law Students Respond in the Age of Black Lives Matter.
In “Reclaim Harvard Law: Students Voices Reshape an Institution,” Gabbi Giotti, Michaela Murrow, and Kailash Sundaram studied the organization of Reclaim Harvard Law, a student movement at Harvard Law School focusing on issues of inclusion and diversity. They argued that Reclaim HLS was a hard-reach group, due to the high sensitivity of their core concerns and the risks involved in advocating for them. Gabbi, Michaela, Kailash focused specifically on how activists were nonetheless able to channel their voice into actual change, by any media necessary. Similarly, they documented the strategies activists used to deal with pushback against their efforts, including both straightforward discrimination and claims to "free speech." Their analysis traced how civic activism can resonate well beyond a movement's immediate aims: Reclaim HLS was never meant to go on a national level, but because of the Harvard brand and the national backdrop of Black Lives Matter, its influence quickly expanded well beyond Harvard Law. In discussing the risks, challenges, and consequences of civic agency, this case study explored the political significance of sacrifice, a virtue that is both necessary for achieving equity and a necessarily a burden for the individuals bearing it. Read more.
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Get Out the Vote: Participatory Politics' New Suffrage Movement?
While unglamorous and sometimes frustrating, voting is one of the most important and oldest forms of political participation and remains essential to modern democratic politics. Yet, it is all too often pushed to the sidelines in discussions about participatory politics. In “A Transmedia Perspective of Voting: How ‘Get Out the Vote’ Organizations Use Online and Offline Strategies to Encourage Participation,” Avika Dua and Jonah Hahn challenged this neglect and argued for placing voting back at the core of participatory politics. In this case study, Avika and Jonah compared two Get Out the Vote (GOTV) organizations––Rock the Vote and Mia Famila Vota. The two organizations originated from different goals for voting and nurtured different organizational visions. Avika and Jonah scrutinized how Rock the Vote and Mia Familia Vota developed different transmedia strategies according to these diverging goals. Avika and Jonah contextualized the groups in the flow dynamics model of discourse, with Rock the Vote representing structural change and Mia Famila Vota representing expressive change. Read more.
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Harvard Civics: Teaching Civics as Political Action
Teaching students civics provides them with tools for responsible citizenship in a changing political landscape. But civic education goes well beyond formal teachers. Lukas Petry and Carolina Portela-Blanco examined the Harvard CIVICS Program , which places motivated undergraduates in classrooms throughout the Boston area to teach civics and government classes and inspire students to grow into active members of our society. Carolina, a civics teacher in the program herself, and Lukas studied the passion and motivation of undergraduate participants and the challenges they faced teaching young students. Carolina and Lukas frame teaching civics as political action using the Ten Questions. They write, “[Undergraduate volunteers] are not merely talking about the problem of the lack of civic instruction in K-12 schooling and how it affects participation in community, but they are doing something about it. The program takes teachers to the school – it acts upon perceived issues and intends to remedy it through education.” Read more.
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