The Soss article suggests that different government policies may affect how people view government, in turn affecting levels of civic participation . Soss argues that although welfare was created with the positive intentions of providing temporary assistance to those in need, it may have negative affect of decreasing levels of participation and engagement in politics. Programs such as AFDC make citizens feel marginalized. Some of the ideas in the article are very convincing, including the idea that policies leading to broader political issues and a heightened sense of political efficacy.
But isn’t this assuming a correlation between those on welfare and civic particpation to be a causal relationship? Welfare may provide people with “direct exposure to government institutions” (376) But this does not mean their views about the government were shaped by this exposure. Even if their ideas were shaped by the programs, would there level of civic participation have been different if they were not on welfare? It's hard to say. So why would we assume that removal of or a change in these policies would lead to increased participation? The fact that you need to be welfare may say something about you that indicates a predisposal to decreased civil participation.
The article states that AFDC participants are less likely to vote than SSDI participants. The data controls for age, race, income, etc. But what about the number of children they have and age of those children? The fact that someone needs AFDC suggests that they have more children than they are able to support. Aren’t children (specifically preschool children) one of the biggest time drainers? So is the difference in particpation really because of the type of policy? Or is it because AFDC participants are too busy trying to figure out how to take care of their children making minimum wage salary to bother with “political participation” ?
I think it would have been more effective to look at the level of civic participation of one person right before and right after they applied for AFDC. If Soss is correct, the person would become less politically active and less likely to vote after becoming an AFDC participant.
Citizen Competence in American Democracy
The point you've raised is very interesting, as I failed to take into account Soss' assumption of a causal relationship between welfare and civic participation. We really have no way of knowing whether or not AFDC membership is directly correlated to things such as voting because there are so many other factors in our everyday lives that keep us from participating in the political realm. Maybe AFDC members are more politically uninterested than most just by mere coincidence? Most likely not, but welfare recipients have a larger stake in government than most people because they are literally dependent upon the government to survive in some cases. Shouldn't that make them more politically involved? Since they clearly are not, however, we should look at the other aspects of their lives that may keep them from participating, as the above post mentions. I do not entirely buy the idea that AFDC members are turned off by the political process due to their status as welfare recipients. I'm not personally familiar with their experiences as AFDC members, but could it really be so terrible that they've forgone their democratic duties as a result? Changing the policies would be a drastic measure; maybe we need to change the attitudes of welfare recipients instead.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above, the change or removal of such policies would not necessarily improve political participation. In fact, it may do just the opposite, creating more discontent with AFDC members, etc. Could it be the case that they are just bitter with their lives in general and therefore do not see the need to put any effort into changing their situations because they are more or less hopeless? It is definitely a stretch, but it seems odd that the very people who are most dependent on government are the least likely to be involved in the political process.