Reviving Democratic Citizenship?*

Bruce Ackerman

Politics & Society, 2013, vol. 41, issue 2, 309-317

Abstract: Many of our inherited civic institutions are dead or dying. We need an ambitious reform program to revive democratic life. This essay advances a four-pronged “citizenship agenda†: (1) a campaign finance initiative granting each voter fifty “patriot dollars†to fund candidates and political parties of his or her choice; (2) a proposal for a new national holiday, Deliberation Day, held before each national election, enabling citizens to deliberate on the merits of rival candidates; (3) a system of federally financed electronic news-vouchers to permit professional journalism to survive the destruction of its traditional business model; and (4) a new form of citizenship inheritance, which provides $80,000 to all Americans as they start off life as adults. Working with collaborators, I have developed each of these initiatives at book length. This essay suggests how the “citizenship agenda†yields a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts.

Keywords: distributive justice; deliberative democracy; campaign finance reform; journalism; citizenship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:41:y:2013:i:2:p:309-317

DOI: 10.1177/0032329213483103

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