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Shingai Thornton's avatar

I can't remember if I've already shared this, but I really enjoyed Other Internet's research on neighborhood associations as "social technology". Great case studies.

https://otherinter.net/research/local-gov/

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Greg Jordan-Detamore's avatar

Nice post! I've been thinking about this a bunch recently, as I just wrote a Substack post about U.S. civics education—specifically its general neglect of (1) policy implementation/the bureaucracy, and (2) state/local government: https://civicinsighter.com/p/us-civics-education-has-two-blind-spots

Building on that, something I have been thinking about (and perhaps could be a subject for a future post) is how if we broad the discussion of government to include a much bigger focus on policy implementation and the bureaucracy, what kinds of citizen engagement should also be brought more fully into the picture. At the level of politics and lawmaking, the common ways to get engaged are things like running for office, voting, contacting your elected officials, forming interest groups that lobby elected officials, etc., so that's what if often spotlighted when teaching “how you can get involved in government.” But I think there also needs to be highlighting of things like attending community meetings, submitting tangible suggestions on the details of proposed actions (e.g. here's a specific spot you could put a park bench for X specific reason), getting to know civil servants, working for government yourself, etc.

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