Political Parties as “Great Schools” of Civic Education

Joseph Postell ()
Additional contact information
Joseph Postell: Department of Politics, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, MI 49252, USA

Laws, 2025, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Current attempts to improve civic education through higher education should be supplemented by a focus on political parties, which have traditionally served as the “great schools” of civic education. America’s nineteenth-century parties drew voters out of their private concerns, engaged them in social life, and taught them to tolerate and bargain with each other. Legal changes over the past century have deprived them of the tools needed to fulfill this role. Policymakers should reconsider campaign finance laws that cripple parties, especially state and local organizations. Moreover, parties themselves should dedicate more time and resources to building a permanent presence in local communities and engaging citizens on the ground.

Keywords: political parties; polarization; campaign finance law; Alexis de Tocqueville; civic education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/14/1/10/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/14/1/10/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:14:y:2025:i:1:p:10-:d:1582190

Access Statistics for this article

Laws is currently edited by Ms. Heather Liang

More articles in Laws from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().