Online Meeting
The American Politics Speaker Series (APSS) welcomes Hahrie Han, Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University.
“The Unequal Landscape of Civic Opportunity in America”
Abstract: The ability of the global community to address some of its most pressing challenges, from climate change to the coronavirus pandemic, has been stymied by public unwillingness to engage in measures (such as vaccines or climate mitigation activities) designed to support the common good. Scholars have speculated that dense civic infrastructure in a community may make people more likely to adopt publicly-oriented behaviors, but empirical research on this point remains unclear. History shows that civic infrastructure can be a crucible of either pro-social, publicly-oriented democratic norms and behaviors, or anti-social, authoritarian ones. Previous research has lacked the data to be able to differentiate between the two. Mining administrative, social media, and other data about the roughly two million civic organizations across the United States, however, shows that inequalities in particular types of civic infrastructure help explain variation in things like vaccine hesitancy and the emergence of mutual aid—and provide insight into society’s ability more generally to engage people in pro-democratic, other-regarding behaviors.
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This seminar is part of the American Political Speakers Series, sponsored by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and co-sponsored by CAPS.