Academics' View of What Makes Us Work

                 Academics' View of What Makes Us Work

The current discussion of the government participation in the Corona virus problem raises images of Trump and Li in white lab coats. This may not be far from the truth, the truth as least as government would like us to see it.
In her article, “Crossing the Great Divide: Coproduction, Synergy, and Development,” Elinor Ostrom suggests that the distorted emphasis offered in textbook accounts of public life has created a distorted view of how essential we view national-level political processes--and how essential they see themselves.

Scholars of public administration prioritize improving efficacy within government bureaucracies over improving efficacy of problem-solving within communities. Economics textbooks focus on possible market failures without considering possible government failures. Textbooks in political science prioritize articulating processes of national government over processes of local government and self-governance through non-state organizations like clubs, churches, and professional associations.

A couple years later, in her Presidential address to the American Political Science Association, Ostrom puts a finer point on the matter of why she is concerned about these fundamental biases. When scholars of public administration, economics, and political science ignore organized efforts outside the realm of war, conquest, and statecraft, we may actually be eroding our capacity to peacefully co-exist within a democratic society.

“All too many of our textbooks focus exclusively on leaders and, worse, only national-level leaders. Students completing an introductory course on American government, or political science more generally, will not learn that they play an essential role in sustaining democracy. Citizen participation is presented as contacting leaders, organizing interest groups and parties, and voting. That citizens need additional skills and knowledge to resolve the social dilemmas they fact is left unaddressed.”

She concludes:
“It is ordinary persons and citizens who craft and sustain the workability of the institutions of everyday life. We owe an obligation to the next generation to carry forward the best of our knowledge about how individuals solve the multiplicity of social dilemmas—large and small—that they face.”