Which form of political participation is the most effective and why? Include a news article from the last four weeks that illustrates this form of participation in action and how effective it is. Also

129 c h aPt e r 7  c onclusion CrE A tiv E p A rti Cip Ation in th E t w Ent y -F ir st C Entury A central goal of this book is to show that several different concepts of politi - cal participation exist. This variety is analogous to the variety of concepts of representation demonstrated by political philosopher Hanna Fenichel Pitkin and now accepted by the various branches of political science. A s with political representation, so it is with political participation. Indeed, political scientists normally recognize that there are different concepts of participation, but such recognition is stated unclearly and in the form of partial statements. For instance, it is conventional to contrast the idea of participation as being part of a debate about community issues with one expressing one’s interests within a system of political institutions. A nd it is also the conventional understanding that discus - sions of participation as civic engagement differ from discussions of participa - tion as voting and contributing to an interest group. However, others have not identified the five forms of participation as I have in this book. Political scientists are familiar with the four types of political participation identified as the forum, interests and institutions, civic engagement, and politi - cal movements. Therefore, it was not my priority in this book to write a chapter about each of the four with numerous citations to the literature, as Pitkin did in her work on representation. Such a task may fall to some other writer, who likely may have some partial objection to my list of five types of participation. Instead, I have emphasized the idea of creative participation as civic inno - vation, a fifth concept of political participation that has not been identified in McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 129 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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13 0 c h aPt e r 7 the literature. This springs from the observation that there are circumstances in which considerable numbers of scattered individuals lack an established in - stitutional mode to pursue public action to achieve some commonweal goal (a common good). At times such scattered individuals devise new modes of politi - cal participation. They engage in creative political participation for some civic innovation. This often involves new techniques, such as uses of the Internet.

Indeed, the term “creative participation” might be an ordinary language usage for Internet political participation, such as uses of e-mail, Facebook, meet-ups, and so forth. However, in this book I normally use creative participation in the more restrictive sense of the fifth type of participation. The idea of creative political participation is tied to the paradoxes of par - ticipation. There are instances of political action in which joint action seems impossible, fruitless, or not sustainable, even though the goals of such joint ac - tion are vital to the community. By now social science is familiar with Mancur Olson Jr.’s logic of collective action in which the few defeat the many because the many lack incentives to mobilize and maintain organizations to achieve the public goods they seek. Political scientists are generally familiar with Garrett Hardin’s tragedy of the commons, formulated by Elinor Ostrom as the dilemma of common-pool resources, in which individuals have the incentive to rush to deplete them rather than to organize together to sustain the common pool. Often citizens are caught in the famous situation of the prisoner’s dilemma, in which problems of communication prevent joint action to achieve the commonweal.

Instances of creative political participation cited in this book are means by which individuals overcome these paradoxes of political participation. Creative participation at the mass level includes contributions to environmen - tal lobbies in the United States, the recycling of household throwaways, tens of thousands of local protests by rural Chinese, cross-class activity by Wisconsin town dwellers against corruption in the 1890s, demonstrations in the capitals of countries undergoing “color revolutions,” the reaction against Shell Oil in the Brent Spar incident, Internet-coordinated protests against ExxonMobil as a reaction against corporate power, boycotts against Nestlé and various cloth - ing manufacturers contracting with Asian factories, and global social forums.

Examples of creative participation by elites include participation in transnational advocacy networks, environmental lobbying at headquarters in Washington, D.C., and publicity campaigns against corruption by Transparency International. From the standpoint of political issue areas, environmental issues commonly provide contexts for creative participation. Environmental issues have been McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 130 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 131 often characterized as issues appealing to numerous, scattered citizens, lacking established political institutions to provide means for public action. Accordingly, public-interest lobbies and transnational advocacy networks have been created to pursue the attainment of environmental public goods. A lmost by definition, political-corruption issues provide contexts for creative participation because, in this area, the established political institutions are the target for reform, if only the scattered reformers can create new modes of public participation. Political consumers sometimes act directly against a large business corporation or other producer in the economic market. At the national or transnational levels, con - sumer boycotts might initially seem to be hopeless, but effective publicity for a boycott can erode the economic worth of a brand name and accompanying corporate logo, thereby giving political consumers leverage. Established political institutions in one nation frequently appear ineffective in influencing the public policies of other countries. In this case, creative politi - cal participation leads to the formation of transnational advocacy networks that may act in the politics of the second country. The advocacy network may be mobilized into an interest group in the first country with the hope of lobbying its national parliament to take foreign policy actions against the second country, resulting in the so-called boomerang effect. But why then should creative participation be seen as one of a series of dif - ferent concepts of political participation? A first reason is the simple academic reason. Since there is such a series of different concepts, scholars should be aware of this while doing their work. But to move beyond this, the five con - cepts provide a context for each singular concept in conducting scholarship.

A n important example is the relationship between the now preeminent civic- engagement concept and the creative-participation concept (see Chapter 1).

The publications of leading civic-engagement scholars such as Robert Putnam and Theda Skocpol leave one confused as to their ideas about the role of public-interest lobbies, transnational advocacy networks, political consumer - ism, and other such modes of political participation. These do not involve civic engagement, but how do they fit in to the authors’ overall views about political participation? Putnam refers to individuals as contributors to, but not “mem - bers” of, such groups. Skocpol paints a negative picture of elite Washington lobbies, directed by professional organizers and lobbyists, without much tie to a membership (see Chapters 1 and 2). It would advance the discussion to recognize that public-interest lobbies play an important role in dealing with the paradoxes of participation, even while civic engagement enhances social McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 131 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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132 c h aPt e r 7 trust. The political reality of representation here is one of two different modes of participation.

Creative participation enriches the discussion of politics by dealing with questions arising from the paradoxes of participation. In the forum, everyone is together and communicating. There is no such paradox. In the framework of interests and institutions, Olson’s logic of collective action leads to an observation that the few defeat the many, probably in most public-policy areas. But this does not happen so often, at least not so simply, and we need to turn to the creative participation of forming citizens lobbies to understand the reality of political representation. As noted, almost by definition, the theory of civic engagement excludes the paradoxes of participation because civic engagement is based on the idea of face-to-face interaction as leading to the formation of the social capital of trust. Political-movement participation is more similar to creative participation in that new forms of political and social action are created by movement partici - pants. However, political movements normally seek to redefine the identity of participants and to advance the welfare of some particular group, unlike creative participation in its search for the commonweal. Two or more forms of participation may be linked in a time sequence. During the years from 1970 to 1974, it was creative participation to form a Washington lobby to further environmental or clean-government legislation. Subsequently, however, such commonweal lobbying became institutionalized so that people with public-interest concerns would know automatically how to send in a check.

Creative participation gave way to a form of interests-and-institutions partici - pation. Or protests against contamination of local water supplies might bring together scattered citizens within the local community, who might then con - tinue to associate in a face-to-face manner, developing social trust—hence the social capital of civic engagement. Or the causal processes can go from political movements toward creative participation. For instance, the political movement of environmentalism can influence scattered citizens to engage in recycling, a form of creative participation. Or the previous educational efforts of the en - vironmental movement might make northern Europeans sensitive to the idea of a multinational corporation’s polluting the North Sea, leading to political consumerist protest against oil companies. In the case of environmentalism, it seems that political-movement and creative participation overlap because environmentalism is a commonweal movement, unlike many other political movements. Some activists may be basically move - ment oriented regarding the environment, in A lberto Melucci’s (1996) sense McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 132 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 133 of a political movement as embodying “critical codes” in relation to existing institutions. Environmentalists advocating major changes in political and legal institutions thus advocate a critical code and engage in political-movement par - ticipation. This would differ from those engaging in creative participation, such as advocating recycling, or the political consumerism of buying local food for the sake of the environment. Observers of environmental activism would find the two forms of participation coexisting, while a particular individual might move from one to another as, for instance, creative political participation may be radicalized into movement militancy.

Balanced Participation Balanced participation is a very important idea for the understanding of political participation in a democracy. I find that there are five different types of participa - tion; others might argue for a different number. But the exact number may not matter that much. It is important for democratic government that none of the five types of participation be seen in isolation from the others. For democracy it is important that none of the types be exaggerated beyond a due proportion. Democracy is not all political discussion in the forum. Nor is it all the expression of interests to be represented in a system of institutions. Nor is democracy just civic engagement, trust, and the formation of social capital or just the development and expression of social and political identity in move- ments. Nor is it just creative participation as scattered individuals create new modes of public action. Democracy requires each of these five forms of political participation. Further, democracy is enhanced when the different types of political participa - tion are balanced. The concepts of the political forum and expressing interests through institutions were briefly separated until, following the initiation of the discussion known as the theory of “deliberative democracy,” political scientists saw that these two modes needed to be related and joined (Fishkin 1992). It is not democracy if interests are expressed but never discussed; nor is it wise to theorize about democracy as if everyone lived today in city-states resembling ancient Athens. The two concepts of the forum and institutional representation of interests must be seen in some mode of balance. Similarly one should not separate the political participation concepts of civic engagement and expression of interests in institutions. As the best treatments of civic engagement recognize, McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 133 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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13 4 c h aPt e r 7 face-to-face interaction at the level of neighborhoods and communities usually does build trust and social capital, which is a foundation for the act of voting and for the mobilization and maintenance of interest groups. Again the two concepts of participation must be seen as acting in balance for the appropriate enhancement of democracy.

Balanced participation is important for democracy as we view the relation- ship of creative participation to the other concepts. The creative participation of the first stages of expressing an environmental concern will give way to the institutional stage of the Washington lobby, entailing bureaucracy, professional management, and “politics as usual”(Bosso 2005). On the other hand, the Washington lobby should continue to act in balance with forms of creative par - ticipation as partial insurance against neglecting its public interests for the sake of organizational interests. The civic-engagement perspective must be balanced with the recognition of the very strong demands of the logic of collective ac - tion. Scattered individuals desiring some commonweal goal must in some sense get together to start to develop social trust among themselves, and finding the means to get together is a form of creative participation. First there must be creative participation, then civic engagement, then institutional expression of some commonweal goal (interest). A very important participatory balance is that required to enhance democracy in the implementation of public policy. One must not forget that after a law has been debated, possibly supported by a political movement and by groups dependent on social capital, and after legislation has been enacted through the processes of representation of interests in institutions, the law and its public policy must be implemented and effectively implemented over a succeeding period of perhaps a decade. As a great amount of research indicates, public attention and debate, as well as the political movement supporting many laws, wane after enactment. Accordingly, and as specified by Olson’s emphasis on the few defeat - ing the many by the organization of political oligopolies to reinterpret a public policy according to their own agendas, the intentions of the original legislators may be undermined by the well-organized influence of a group acting for its own interests. This is a well-known problem of policy implementation that can often be countered by creative participation, as when Chinese rural dwellers rush to protest local corruption or Progressive Midwesterners created new forms of public action against the corruption of local utility contracting. In the field of A merican national environmental policy and regulation, creative participation has led to the formation of effective watchdog lobbies to prevent regulation from McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 134 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 135 being redefined and limited in the interests of those to be regulated. While face- to-face participation in local civic-engagement processes is an important form of political participation, such local engagement cannot produce the type of political participation necessary to monitor and influence environmental implementation policy, often highly technical in nature. Political participation must be balanced to enable effective and fair implementation of environmental laws.

This is not to say that creative participation is always a good thing or that it always enhances democracy. Many readers would conclude that the Dixie Chicks boycott in support of President George W. Bush did not enhance the commonweal by, in this case, arguing that the office of U.S. president must be respected by not criticizing its current holder outside U.S. borders. Some anti-immigration advocates may join vigilante groups out of a sincere belief that immigration policy must be fairly implemented in the face of the efforts of economic special interests who hire immigrants at low wages, thereby undermining laws designed to express a commonweal interests such as control of the borders, public health, and public safety.

Creative Participation and Worldwide Social Change As we move deeper into the twenty-first century, we will likely see more of creative participation as a response to worldwide social change. Despite its overuse, the term “globalization” is still useful in directing attention to the increasing fre - quency and necessity of using a worldwide frame of reference for political action.

Issues have become more and more planetary, going beyond the framework of the nation-state. This is especially true of environmental issues, which almost by definition eventually surpass the local and wind up with a planetary frame of refer - ence, as our final environment is, of course, the planet Earth as a whole. Creative political participation is particularly oriented to the paradoxes of political action in the situation of common-pool resources and the need for political participation to cooperate to preserve such commonweal resources. Issues such as global warming, the preservation of ocean environments including fish and fisheries, the relation - ship of local forests to the overall planetary environment, and the use of limited natural resources, such as petroleum, fresh water, or various minerals, have become global. In terms of global issues, political action naturally transcends state bound - aries, calling for the formation of transnational advocacy networks as a creative participatory response of scattered individuals concerned with the commonweal McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 135 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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136 c h aPt e r 7 of the planet. Or within the boundaries of democratic or even semiauthoritarian states, creative participation occurs as citizens use new technologies to forge envi - ronmental associations and lobbies to influence their own governments. Creative participation is not only manifested in global political action but also forms a part of local political action. In itself, the creative participation of 700 million Chinese rural villagers is public action by 12 percent of the planet’s population. As noted, rural Chinese act in tens of thousands of recorded protests per year against corrupt local officials manipulating land sales, desecrating the environment, directly or indirectly stealing public funds, and manipulating lo - cal village elections. This is not exactly social-movement participation because the protestors accept the status quo of political authority in China and seek to apply the status quo of legality to their local village. One might go beyond this 12 percent of humanity and look for similar local creative participation in other places. Such examples can be found in rural and small-town protests against corruption against the backdrop of modern manufacturing and infrastructure development. As another example, small farmers in India have acted to block the construction of a major automobile factory, whose owners have a kind of eminent domain authority to preempt ownership of farmland. We may tend to sympathize with the economics of modernization, but creative participation includes local resistance to changes in land control imposed by authorities seeking economic development (Sengupta 2008). Creative participation is manifested locally in environmental actions. Such action is not limited to uncoordinated, environmentally oriented decisions by individuals, such as the decision to recycle. Both in rural China and in Woburn, Massachusetts, local residents have formed new mechanisms of public action to combat environmental degradation, including unsafe pollution, in their neighborhoods. The so-called negative externalities (effects) of manufacturing enterprises and infrastructural construction projects occur daily in thousands of places around the world. We can thus expect numerous examples of creative participation by people seeking to restore the commonweal good of an uncor - rupted environment in their localities. Locally oriented creative participation for the environment may be one of the more striking political phenomena of the t went y-fi rst centur y. In the capital square phenomenon, creative participation melds the local and the national—as when creative participation in a “color” revolution is automati - cally coordinated and expressed in the geographical layout of a capital city. I witnessed a more local form of protest in 2008 in Oaxaca, Mexico, where a score McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 136 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 137 of leftist and indigenous groups protested the state governor by establishing a multiyear encampment of about 1,000 people in the central square.

Many strands of creative participation can be woven into public action during the policy-implementation stage of the governing process. Pollyannaish civics teachers and law yers fixed on categories may suppose that politics ends with leg - islative decisions, but those concerned with the effects of public policy—citizens, businesspersons, interest-group employees, lobbyists—know that the passage of a law is not the end of the process. Laws can be partially, or even wholly, reversed during the policy-implementation process. Special interests can continually press for change when they are no longer opposed by reformist morning glories (open in the morning but closed in the afternoon) in the image of Boss G. W. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. Local-level creative participation against environmental deg - radation is often a protest against the lack of implementation of environmental laws, whether in Szechuan or Massachusetts. A major goal of the formation of environmental lobbies in the United States is to see to the continued enforce - ment of environmental laws and regulations, which may not be enforced by politicians who avoid interference in the marketplace, simply favor increased corporate profits, or are courting those who make campaign contributions. I would now characterize the formation of environmental lobbies as an instance of balanced participation, with the original act of organization entailing creative participation; as such lobbies become established, they become another instance of the institutionalization of interests, although the interests represented are purportedly for the common good rather than special interests. Certainly the formation of analogous groups in countries other than the United States will likely become a common form of political participation, and like such groups in the United States, environmental groups elsewhere will be - come institutionalized and participate in the policy process in their own arenas, even in authoritarian systems such as that of China. We do have evidence that the formation of transnational environmental advocacy networks, a somewhat different phenomenon from public-interest groups, has burgeoned during the last generation (Keck and Sikkink 1998, ch. 1).

New Technologies The new technologies of the Internet and cell phones are becoming very much a part of creative participation. This is not to say that the use of new technologies McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 137 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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13 8 c h aPt e r 7 is limited to creative participation: Blogging is a new type of forum participation; Internet fund-raising is having a major impact on A merican electoral finances; civic-engagement groups such as parent-teacher associations can coordinate activities by establishing Facebook networks. However, creative participation by definition involves the creation of new modes of political participation by previously scattered individuals who lack established institutions to pursue commonweal goals. The Internet, by its very nature, is a technology that brings together scattered individuals, that is, those who lack the face-to-face interaction of civic engagement or activity within established institutions. For the most part, we can regard scattering as referring to geographically separated individuals who do not see one another and, for the most part, do not even know about each other (although they assume unknown others share their common-good goals).

However, a scattering need not refer only to individuals. Thus, a scattering may at once include geographically separate individuals, interactive social networks, and even organized groups. Creative participation occurs as individuals and perhaps representatives of social networks and organized groups somehow communicate, possibly then meeting, to form a vehicle for political action.

A striking case of the links between creative participation and Internet use occurred in the Iranian anticorruption protests concerning that country’s June 2009 election. A lmost every press account regarding the initial mass protests stressed the significance of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and various forms of Internet communication to inform supporters of Mir-Hossein Moussavi about the flow of events in various places and to include information about the time and place of ongoing mass demonstrations. Individuals outside of Iran joined the Iranian protest activity on the Internet; similarly, software developed by Falun Gong, the Chinese exercising religion, was given to the protestors to elude server shutdowns and other Internet-control measures (K ristof 2009). The U.S.

State Department actually requested that Twitter delay a scheduled maintenance shutdown for the area including Iran (Landler and Stelter 2009). This book provides examples of creative participation preceding the wide - spread use of the Internet, but many of these participatory actions are likely to flourish even more in the present and future world of online ubiquity. In par - ticular, Internet-coordinated protest groups have formed in relation to certain multinational corporations, such as ExxonMobil and Shell Oil, and while often dormant and only marginally effective, they can serve as core communication units to spread information about protest as major new issues arise in relation to global warming, relations to indigenous people, environmental scandals, McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 138 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 139 and so forth. In the area of political consumerism, Internet communication can facilitate boycotting or preferential buying behavior, as individuals on e-mail networks and Facebook learn about the formulation of action through the In - ternet. Authoritarian governments such as those in Iran or China can fight back against the new technologies by the direct means of shutting down servers or blocking numerous websites. However, multinational corporations do not have these powers and, thus, may find themselves continually subject to influence exercised by Internet protestors. The anti–Dixie Chicks protest developed out of new technology. It origi - nated with Internet networks of country music fans spreading Natalie Maines’s statement that condemned President G. W. Bush. Within twenty-four hours, right-wing, patriotic Internet networks picked up this information and promul - gated the idea of boycotting the Chicks. The original report was a review in the traditional medium of a newspaper, but within a few days it had spread to hun- dreds of thousands of Internet users as interpreted within the frame of speaking disloyally about the president in a foreign country. It then affected the playlists of country music radio stations and subsequent CD sales, both older technolo - gies. This example reminds us that new technologies in creative participation can be used by citizens with traditional views about political authority, as well as by “cool” technologists rebelling against tradition. It is important to realize that Internet technology does not simply create new local networks and bring them into politics to act by themselves. A key technological step in present and future politics is whether locally created In - ternet networks will manage to federalize themselves throughout the nation- state. For instance, in tens of thousands of Chinese rural villages, local protest networks can form on the Internet to communicate about local corruption in a single village of perhaps 1,000 people. This would not be highly threatening to the Communist regime, especially if almost all of these local Internet networks spread information about laws of the national regime and urged all parties to follow them. However, to the extent that hundreds or even thousands of local protest networks link with one another, the potential for sudden criticism of the regime’s overall national policies becomes apparent. A similar situation could occur in Iran if local Facebook groups and Twitter users moved toward federal - izing into a nationwide network, informing one another of regime blunders and resulting local protests. New frameworks of political interpretation and calls for public action can then circulate if there is a national communications flow among hundreds of local networks. However, authoritarian national governments will McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 139 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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14 0 c h aPt e r 7 strive to prevent such nationwide linkages among local networks, resulting in a contest of communications strategies as authorities try to block Internet usage while reformers work up new modes of evading the blockades, normally with the assistance of foreign computer experts.

Widely dispersed new types of visual technology are having a significant im - pact upon politics, including creative participation. By now we are familiar with images recorded by portable video cameras later circulating on television and, more recently, on YouTube. The video recording of three Los A ngeles police officers beating Rodney K ing in 1991 precipitated a huge political controversy, and even a major riot, and may be remembered as a landmark event illustrating the political impact of new video technology. Surreptitious videos taken by ani- mal rights activists in breeding factories and slaughterhouses were later shown to millions of people. With the emergence of YouTube, it became possible for Iranian protestors to circulate videos of demonstrators being beaten in Teheran in almost real time. In 2010, the full impact of YouTube technology on politics has yet to become apparent. Internet technology obviously has a significant potential for enhancing the organization of international advocacy networks as forms of creative participa - tion. However, I am not in a position to make definitive statements, and we must await the systematic collection of data about the use of new technologies in transnational organizing. Yet I can point to specific types of examples. We need to take more seriously the Falun Gong (exercise religion) move - ment in China and its activities after being forced into oppositional politics by the persecution of the Beijing regime, perhaps out of fear of a recreation of the huge, religion-based, nineteenth-century Taiping rebellion. To my surprise, it seems that Falun Gong adherents are world leaders in the technology of hiding the source of Internet messages, apparently relying on a global Internet network based in China and the United States. This same group gave Internet-security advice to the Iranian protestors in June 2009. Unpublished research by University of Illinois, Chicago, graduate student Herman Maiba indicated that transnational committees of Internet coordina - tors played a key role in organizing at least some of the international protests between 1999 and 2005 against international organizations and governments alleged to be forcing neoliberal policies on Third World nations (e.g., world trade undermining indigenous economies). While now apparently in decline, such demonstrations with international support in Seattle, Genoa, Barcelona, and elsewhere attained worldwide attention. A s noted, new Internet technolog y McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 140 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 141 seems to be a necessary condition for the organization of watchdog groups, each focused on the activities of a single multinational corporation.

A visit to the Greenpeace and A mnesty International websites indicates the usefulness of the Internet in communicating a transnational advocacy network’s activities to its international constituency and at least serving as a means for increasing contributions. A mnesty International has its own network on Face - book and posts its own blog; I take its activities to be typical of many groups expressing themselves on the Internet. Similarly, parallel groups in different countries, such as those in Britain and the United States protesting the use of baby formula and promoting breast feeding, can read one another’s websites for new ideas while raising one another’s morale and demonstrating that their cause is truly global. Straightforward uses of the simple cell phone should not be neglected in a discussion of new technologies and creative participation. Reports indicate that the cell phone was important in organizing the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine (McFaul 2005, 12), which focused on mass demonstrations in the gov - ernment square in K iev. Cell phones are clearly useful in organizing and directing demonstrations, cancelling out the advantage of police use of shortwave radio, which demonstrators have used less frequently during the last generation. In the United States, at least, protest demonstrations have often been coordinated by a leadership group using electrically enhanced megaphones, or microphones and amps, which may not be effective tools for coordinating very large dem - onstrations, for giving route directions during marches, or for communicating sudden changes in activity by police or counterdemonstrators. Demonstrations can usually be broken down into subnetworks of participating groups or simply into networks of friends and neighbors demonstrating together (Danaher and Burbach 2000; Rucht, Teune and Yang 2007). It improves the coherence and morale of a demonstration if such subgroups can readily form and communicate with one another, which is much more feasible in a world in which everyone possesses a cell phone. The technological revolution of the Internet should not mask our obser va - tion of the introduction of technologies into creative participation and social movements in earlier times, even though with the Internet, references to such earlier technologies now seems mundane. For instance, the Brent Spar protest as described in Grant Jordan’s book largely occurred as the result of television news broadcasts of images of Greenpeace protestors being attacked with fire hoses.

Television images of dogs attacking peaceful protestors on the bridge in Selma, McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 141 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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142 c h aPt e r 7 A labama, did much to enhance the Dr. Martin Luther K ing Jr.’s civil rights movement. Television images of the Santa Barbara oil spill and the E x x o n Va l d e z tanker disaster in A laska strengthened the environmental movement. Such visual images have a greater effect on audiences than sound portrayals on radio. The introduction of early computer coordination and labeling from potential contributor lists greatly aided mass-mailing techniques in organizing public- i nterest groups in the early 1970s. The introduction of long-distance telephone s er vice, and its enhancement and much lower cost after 1960, is another technology that aided creative participation and other forms of political activity (McFarland 1976, 21–22; McFarland 1984, 31–32). Both technological and political change surely stretch way back into history; consider the numerous effects of the invention of the print - ing press. The Internet surely is revolutionary and will produce major changes in political organization. Many will occur in elections, lobbying, civic engagement, and other familiar forms of political activity, but Internet-induced change will play a special role in creative participation due to the medium’s merging of scattered individuals and networks to take coherent public action.

Twenty-First Century Practices and Behavior The earthshaking social trends of the times sometimes generate creative participa - tion. Meeting the challenges of planetary environmental degradation calls forth transnational advocacy networks. Preservation of common-pool resources, such as the riches and purity of the oceans, also elicits citizen participation. The new need for national and planetary energy policy affects citizens concerned with cost, conservation, and ecological responsibility. Political corruption has always been with us, but new and challenging modes of special-interest privateering develop with the increasing complexity of technology and government regulation.

Capitalist corporations grow larger and more complex, transcending national borders and creating irritation, frustration, and an ethical sense of responsibility for workers and consumers across the globe. Such issues of social change and political policy exist not only at the level of planetwide action but also at the levels of national, local, and even individual action, such as household recycling. Creative participation around the world is likely to flourish as citizens act to meet such challenges. This form of participation thus deserves study and discussion—not dismissal as lacking in civic engagement or sometimes leading only to action by educated activists skilled in technology. Yet, I do not expect McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 142 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 143 creative participation to replace civic engagement or standard participation in institutions such as elections or interest groups. Research and discussion will show how creative participation is linked to the other four forms of participation in a balanced manner.

Let us be more specific about the practices and behavior that will flourish in the twenty-first century due to the planetwide challenges and other issues just cited. First, throughout the world in nations allowing latitude for citizens to pet it ion government, public-interest groups will become more numerous. This will occur through a parallel mechanism to events in the United States around 1970: Scattered citizens desiring public action to achieve some commonweal goal will work with resource mobilizers to form an organization to influence elites. Governments have become larger, more complex, and more embedded with technology. Policy implementation remains a centerpiece of governance in every country. Because of the logic of collective action, ordinary citizens have dif ficulty influencing the policy-implementation process. Such frustrated citizens are likely to form public-interest groups to organize and maintain citizen interests during the policy-implementation process. In addition to citizen action on domestic policies and their implementation, transnational advocacy networks will expand and become more numerous as citizens worldwide seek modes by which they can personally act to protest and influence public policies within nations other than their own. A n increase in trans - national advocacy groups actually has been apparent since 1985, while since 1995 use of the Internet has made them much easier to mobilize and maintain. One interesting possibility is that there could be an increase in transnational action to combat corruption, as the world discovers that corrupt governments in their local policies undermine worldwide action on environmental issues, such as reducing carbon emissions. A planetwide civil society is developing from transnational citizens groups and their advocacy networks, a significant phenomenon but one that we should not overplay as some kind of trend toward world federalism. Protests, uprisings, and creative participation in rural China occur within a demographic of 700 million people, 12 percent of the population of the planet, a population greater than that of Latin A merica. As such Chinese rural protest deserves major attention from the standpoint of political participation and public action. In this case, perhaps public policies from the Chinese center will substan - tially decrease the number of protests by the year 2030. New modes of public participation will probably develop in China to express in more institutionalized fashion the civic aims of Chinese rural residents. McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 143 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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14 4 c h aPt e r 7 As the Chinese example illustrates, creative participation may be local and need not be aimed directly at global issues. Accordingly, throughout the world, creative participation exists on an individual level in the daily practices of citi - zens, many of whom might be seen as average, “everyday” people. In particular, creative participation is manifested in individual household efforts at recycling.

Such “everyday-makers” in the millions come to restrain energy usage and their consumption of consumer items in the interest of conser ving common-pool resources, such as water and forests. Creative participation will continue to find expression in behavior and prac - tice as political consumerism. Of particular interest is transnational political consumerism in an era of continuing economic globalism and the multinational corporation, such as Nestlé or ExxonMobil. Entities of international capitalism will increasingly affect people’s lives, and they will occasionally protest directly to the offending corporation or organization. In other cases, numerous scat - tered citizens will conclude that they should assume responsibility for the ethical treatment of foreign workers and foreign environmental conditions by their own corporations. At times, protest to existing transnational organizations or one’s domestic government will seem unsatisfactory—as unlikely to have an effective result—leading to political consumerism. The frequency of consumerist action will likely increase because of the pos - sibilities of coordinating through Internet technology the desire for public action by scattered citizens. This is especially true in the case of transnational political consumerism. Of course, political consumerism need not be transnational but may be directed at a domestic corporation or other economic actors, including media celebrities. In any case, the corporate logo has become an increasingly im - portant form of symbolic expression and presents an inviting target for consumer protest, stimulating increased support for political consumerist activity. Indeed, coordinated through the Internet, apparently long-lasting protest networks have mobilized and directed themselves against specific corporations, such as Walmart, ExxonMobil, and Nestlé. A Neo-Progressive Era?

I speculate here that A merican politics is moving into a new era, a neo-Progressive era, and that creative participation will be a part of this. We may observe politics becoming more oriented toward public-interest protest and regulating business, McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 144 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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conclusion 145 in a fashion similar to the changes in A merican politics following the end of the Gilded Age and beginning around the time of Teddy Roosevelt’s accession to the presidency. This period, often dated 1901 to 1914 and usually described as an era of progressive reform in A merican politics, is symbolized by the domestic actions of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. This was a time when the untrammeled power of monopolistic corporations and urban political machines met with successful challenges by Progressive reformers, who tended to hail from the rising strata of the new professionals of the middle class (Wiebe 1967), though sometimes Progressive coalitions were community wide, as noted by David Thelen (see Chapter 3 above). The politics of the Progressive era re - volved around the pursuit of the “public interest” against the “special interests” as represented by corporate monopolies and urban patronage machines. Robert Putnam, the chief theorist of civic engagement, actually calls for a return to Progressive politics in the last chapter of Bowling Alone. In fact, this may actually happen, with creative participation forming part of such a new political era. We note that a neo-Progressive era is not so similar to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal—a coalition of local political-party groups, unions, and liberals—working to stabilize the economy, redistribute income, and provide the basis for a limited welfare state. Nor is neo-progressivism so similar to the identity, antiwar, and lifestyle movements of the 1960s. There is an overlap, however, in the environmental movement, which got a new start around 1968. A neo-Progressive political era would likely incorporate the goals of environ- mentalism and conservation of common-pool resources, opposition to political and corporate corruption, and concern for the implementation of public policies to render them more than symbolic. The earlier Progressives were particularly concerned with the implementation of public policies; however, overly impressed with the new scientific professionalism, they overemphasized the possibilities for effective implementation by apolitical, independent regulatory commissions (Bernstein 1955). Like Teddy Roosevelt, neo-Progressives will be more ready to regulate business. Like Woodrow Wilson, they will be concerned with democ - racy and human rights in foreign nations. The neo-Progressives will constantly affirm that they represent the public interest and are the true opponents of the special interests. They have this affirmation in common with Progressives and creative par - ticipationists. A ll see themselves as opposing political and economic corruption, as representing the consumer against the excesses of corporate profit taking, and as protecting the environment and common-pool resources against the McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 145 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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14 6 c h aPt e r 7 shortsighted actions of the special interests. The original Progressives looked to scientific regulator y agencies to shepherd the implementation of public policy; the new creative participationists look to the more political actions of public- interest lobbies wielding countervailing power to special-interest iron triangles.

The Progressives, neo-Progressives, and creative participationists tend to be led by technically sophisticated, middle-class professionals (Wiebe 1967; Skocpol 2004).

Creative participation may be a factor characteristic of a neo-Progressive political era, while neo-Progressive norms and ideals will induce further creative participation. This does not mean that creative participation will be a dominant political characteristic of a new political era. However, creative participation may become a more important political phenomenon than it is now. The politics of interests and institutions will continue to carry more weight than creative participation, which lends itself to eventual institutionalization into continu - ing public-interest lobbies. Creative participation may partially replace civic engagement as the widespread use of Internet coordination replaces face-to-face interaction in neighborhoods. Thus, creative participation and its use of the Internet will become a more important political characteristic in protests against environmental pollution, depletion of common-pool resources, political corruption, inept corporate poli - cies, and the desire to be politically active across national borders. To a great degree, creative participation is now bound up with the use and development of Internet technolog y. The phrase “creative participation” has a positive ring in its reference to the efforts of scattered citizens to create new forms of public action when established forms seem not to provide a means to pursue commonweal goals. For the sake of balance, I note that some observers will object to the actions and goals of some such participatory activists, as some would object to casting idealistic opponents of immigration into a positive light. On the whole, those engaging in creative participation strive to deal with paradoxes of human cooperation that might place severe limits on democracy.

Those active in creative participation normally assume personal responsibility for improving society and the welfare of others, not just themselves. As such creative participation is a form of ethical conduct that serves as a basis for ethi - cal citizenship. McFarland, Boycotts and Dixie Chicks.indb 146 1/17/13 9:12 AM McFarland, A. S. (2010). Boycotts and dixie chicks : Creative political participation at home and abroad. Taylor & Francis Group.

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