Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy

November 2023 Searching for a New Paradigm: Collective Settings A partnership between More in Common and the SNF Agora Institute This report resulted from a collaboration between four authors at More in Common and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University: Dan Vallone, Hahrie Han, Emily Campbell, and Isak Tranvik. The entire team developed and shared the ideas reflected in this report collaboratively, but specific people took leadership in authoring particular sections, as indicated in the table of contents. We also thank Kate Carney and Alexandra Dildine for their participation in the collaboration. Finally, we would like to thank Lumina Foundation for their support of this work. TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary by Dan Vallone and Hahrie Han Essay: “Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy” by Isak Tranvik Case Studies by Emily Campbell Case Study 1: Braver Angels Case Study 2: Alaskan Voting Reforms Case Study 3: The Blue Mountain Forest Partners Appendix A: Methods Notes 1 5-22 7 7 15 19 23 25 2 3 4 5 Executive Summary Dan Vallone and Hahrie Han Searching for A New Paradigm Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy I 1 Paradigms guide action. Particularly in moments of crisis, those paradigms—or cohered sets of assumptions about ourselves, each other, and the world around us—shape the intentions we develop, the solutions we imagine, and, ultimately, the actions we choose. What happens when the paradigms we carry are limited or, worse, wrong? This report seeks to recover an underappreciated paradigm—focused on collective settings—for guiding efforts to revitalize American democracy. Focusing on something as abstract as a paradigm might seem misguided in this moment when American democracy seems to be teetering on a precipice, with one foot on solid ground and the other swinging into the abyss. But history tells us this is precisely the moment when we must examine our core assump- tions about how to best strengthen democracy. Consider this story that Dan heard when he was in the Army about a misguided US effort in Afghanistan. A new American unit had deployed to a village in a mountainous province in eastern Afghanistan eager to “win hearts and minds.” Reducing public support for the Taliban and other insurgents, they believed, depended on improving the material lives of Afghans. Immediately, the Americans noticed the arduous, daily journey women from the village had to make up and down the mountainous terrain to retrieve water from the valley. The solution seemed clear: Build a well. The Afghans could have more control over their water supply and save considerable time. The Americans went to work, sure that the well would gain widespread acclaim. Ribbons were cut, photos taken, and inaugural buckets drawn from the well. By the next day, however, an enormous pile of rocks filled the well. Certain that the Taliban was trying to sabotage their efforts, the American soldiers removed the rocks and cleaned up the well. But the next day, the rocks were back. And the next day. And the next. Finally, the soldiers convinced a villager to reveal the culprit: It was not the Taliban, but the local Afghan women. Why would the women jeopardize efforts to make their lives easier? As the Americans soon learned, the long, arduous walk to the river was the only time when the women were free of men, allowed to talk and interact without male supervision. The women valued this autonomy, camaraderie, and social connection far more than the efficiencies gained from the well. The Americans had been so sure that increased control over water was a universal desire that they never thought to ask the people what they wanted. Instead of advancing their cause, the well had failed to benefit the Afghans and inadvertently undermined American efforts to build a strong relationship with the villagers. This story illustrates the way our paradigms implicitly or explicitly shape the solutions we develop to solve problems. The American soldiers acted like the man who lost his keys and looked for them under a street- light. When a passerby asks him if he’s sure he lost the keys near the light, the man says, “No, but this is where the light is.” Paradigms are like the streetlights in this story: As much as they illuminate possibilities for change, they also constrain where we look. The wrong paradigm leads us to misread situations, over- look opportunities, and pursue the wrong solutions. This is true in war, and it’s true today with American democracy. The need to strengthen American democracy is clear. Close to three in five Americans express dissatis- faction with the way democracy is functioning. 1 Recognizing the crisis, philanthropists have more than tripled funding for reform efforts since 2010 (from approximately $750 million to $2.5 billion in 2020) 3 — but we still seem to be dangling over the precipice. Perhaps the democracy field needs another paradigm. Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy I 2 Executive Summary Although it is impossible to stuff a rich, complex ecosystem of democracy reformers into two buckets, a very crude characterization might identify two dominant (and worthy!) paradigms: (1) institutional reform efforts and (2) individual, psycho-social interventions. The first argues that by improving the rules that govern how democracy (especially elections) work, we can reshape incentives and thereby reduce polar- ization and strengthen democracy. Advocates argue that redistricting reform or electoral reforms like ranked-choice voting can improve politics by making candidates and parties more responsive to a broad population. The second paradigm seeks behavioral interventions that address people’s tribal psychology, increase inter-group contact, reduce bias, foster healthier media habits, and, ultimately, reduce polarization and strengthen democracy. Both are foundationally important paradigms for building a healthy, pluralistic democracy, and we applaud—and have gratefully partnered with—both. But our two organizations came together three years ago with a shared sense that these two paradigms, by themselves, were insufficient. As much as we might achieve with what we find under these two streetlights, we must also cast light into areas

improve politics by making candidates and parties more responsive to a broad population. The second paradigm seeks behavioral interventions that address people’s tribal psychology, increase inter-group contact, reduce bias, foster healthier media habits, and, ultimately, reduce polarization and strengthen democracy. Both are foundationally important paradigms for building a healthy, pluralistic democracy, and we applaud—and have gratefully partnered with—both. But our two organizations came together three years ago with a shared sense that these two paradigms, by themselves, were insufficient. As much as we might achieve with what we find under these two streetlights, we must also cast light into areas currently obscured by darkness. In particular, both paradigms presume a more stable and predictable world than currently exists. Both institutional and behavioral reform efforts usually start by defining desired outcomes—reducing affective polarization, for example—then work backward to identify interventions that demonstrate quantitative improvements on those outcomes. People and communities become objects to be treated by appropriate dosages of these interventions. But what if we live in a world in which intervention x does not always lead to outcome y? In a dynamic, uncertain world, we need new paradigms. Berkeley professor David Teece is a management scholar who has devoted his career to studying why some firms are better than others at succeeding in dynamic market environments. The firms that succeed are not those that only have the best, most efficient processes for doing things that are predictable, such as managing their supply chains, developing market- ing campaigns, or building effective human-resources systems. Instead, successful firms differentiate them- selves by their capability to respond thoughtfully and nimbly to contingency. As Teece says, they not only do the right thing, they do the right thing at the right time. Firms that operate in stable markets can sometimes succeed without building such capabilities, but those in dynamic markets fail without them. Twenty-first century American society is in a moment of economic, demographic, and technological flux that mirrors such dynamic markets, but our paradigms are still made for a more constant world. Building the capabilities we need to respond to a dynamic world necessitates flipping the model for designing “interven- tions” on its head. Instead of working backward from an outcome we define, we must instead seek paradigms that assume people are subjects designing their own futures, can provide guidance in an uncertain world, and develop capabilities that prepare for us a future we cannot predict. Particularly in a pluralistic society, we con- tend that doing so depends on equipping people and communities of all kinds to become architects of their own futures. Anyone concerned with strengthening American democracy must admit that we don’t always know what they will need or who will be deciding, so our task now is to strengthen the processes and capabili- ties that enable all people to engage productively in building the world they need. Hiding in Plain Sight: A Paradigm of Collective Settings Isak Tranvik’s essay cited in this report synthesizes theoretical, historical, and empirical research to shine a light on such a paradigm for making democracy work: collective settings. His argument is not that it is a new paradigm but instead one that has quietly asserted itself throughout history. Emily B. Campbell conducted a series of case studies to describe how collective settings play out relative to behavioral and institutional approaches (see Appendix A for a description of her methodology). Her studies of electoral reform in Alaska, the behavioral interventions of Braver Angels of Central Texas, and the “everyday democracy” of Blue Mountain Forest Partners in Oregon draw on 47 original interviews and hundreds of hours in the field and Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy I 3 Executive Summary highlight the strengths and challenges of each respective approach. Our goal here is to make them more visible so that we can, with intention, address 21st-century deficiencies in how they are designed and distributed across the country. From the earliest days of American democracy, Americans have been gathering with each other across lines of difference in self-governing, Tocquevillian “schools of democracy” to solve public problems. Imagine neighbors coming together to provide mutual aid during the coronavirus pandemic or a community seeking solutions for a shortage of high-quality childcare. Tranvik describes these efforts as “everyday democracy.” People join these efforts not because they are concerned about democracy per se but instead to solve con- crete problems in their lives. In both cases, groups in the community will have distinct interests and goals, leading to important debates about the design and implementation of mutual aid or new childcare facilities. As they work together to hammer out solutions, people learn the hard and soft skills of democracy; they gain appreciation for the negotiations necessary to any effort to solve shared problems; they access a sense of agency often absent with interventionist approaches; and they build relationships and understandings of each other that become a resource for the future. Understanding the value and ubiquity of such efforts reframes the question of reforming democracy from “How do we get people to do a thing?” to “How do we equip people to become the kind of people who do what needs to be done?” 4 Unlike existing paradigms, this approach focuses on the importance of collective experience instead of individual incentives, and prioritizes reforms that build (evidence-based) capabilities for responding to contingency instead of those that yield immediate effects on democratic outcomes. Rigorous measurement still matters, but it redefines what we should measure, not whether we should measure. This report argues that shaping the social and collective contexts within which people naturally gather can, in certain instances, be more effective than creating interventions that act solely at the individual or institutional level. We contend that where we see such efforts succeed, it is neither random nor simply the result of a single charismatic leader or group. Tranvik’s essay and Campbell’s cases identify a set of common design features that such settings share, which increase the probability of cultivating the dynamic capabilities

outcomes. Rigorous measurement still matters, but it redefines what we should measure, not whether we should measure. This report argues that shaping the social and collective contexts within which people naturally gather can, in certain instances, be more effective than creating interventions that act solely at the individual or institutional level. We contend that where we see such efforts succeed, it is neither random nor simply the result of a single charismatic leader or group. Tranvik’s essay and Campbell’s cases identify a set of common design features that such settings share, which increase the probability of cultivating the dynamic capabilities needed to make democracy work: (1) shared governance structures designed to engage participation across a wide group of stakeholders and make transparent power-sharing agreements, (2) institutionalized mechanisms for accountability so that all those affected have a chance to co-create solutions, (3) public relationships that embrace difference, and (4) a celebration of open-endedness and experimentation. We are not arguing that these are a panacea or a replacement for institutional and behavioral efforts. Instead, we are simply arguing that they are too often overlooked because they do not fit our current approaches to designing reform. Yet, when we turn the light on, we observe that there are healthy collective settings hidden in plain sight across the country. But much still needs to be done. Such settings are far too few, too thin, too under-resourced, and too detached from the main engines of civil society at the local, regional, and national level—and even where such settings exist, many ignore the design features that enable such settings to work. These are the design and distribution deficiencies. Paying attention to the infrastructure that makes such settings possible is the task of the entire democracy ecosystem. Implications and Action Steps Business and military organizations have long recognized the need to invest in organizational design. Consider the resources devoted to designing remote or hybrid teams in corporate America or team design and leader- ship in the military. Yet, on a relative basis, the democracy ecosystem underinvests in organizational design as a vector for reform and engagement. Researchers, philanthropists, and leaders in civil society, business, and government can all play a role in changing this mentality to drive adoption of collective settings. Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy I 4 Executive Summary For Researchers We need much more (widely disseminated) research to help us better understand multiple themes: n Distribution gaps: Where do well-designed collective settings exist, or not? How are they distributed across off-line and online settings? n Design features: What are the design features that influence whether collective settings cultivate healthy democratic capabilities? n Return on investment: What measures can we use to examine the impacts of collective settings? What measurement and evaluation frameworks enable philanthropists and practitioners to maintain rigor even when designing for uncertainty? For Philanthropy Collective settings need both funding and philanthropic organizing: n Address distribution concerns: New funding opportunities can invest in creating well-designed collective settings in areas where such settings are rare or absent. n Shift incentives to emphasize designing for contingency: Funding opportunities can emphasize metrics that focus on the cultivation of dynamic democratic capabilities at both the individual and organizational levels. n Empower learning: Resourcing the connective tissue between research and practice, and cultivating fellowships and other human networks to share lessons learned can strengthen the field. n Nurture the philanthropic community: Funding communities organized vertically (bringing local, state, and national funders together) and horizontally (across ideological, geographic, demographic, and is- sue-based difference) can coordinate resources and mitigate against unnecessary politicization. For Civil Society, Business, and Government Civil society leaders can cultivate collective settings in their work and communities. Likewise, the state and markets each play a crucial role in creating settings (like the workplace) where people interact with each other. All three sectors impact the design and distribution of settings. n Invest in design: Thinking intentionally about the design features of self-governing communities (governance practices, accountability, learning systems) can make collective settings more likely. n Consider distribution: Local and regional groups across civil society, business, and government can consider working together to identify and fill gaps in access to well-designed collective settings. Conclusion This report seeks to re-articulate a long-standing paradigm for making democracy work that has, we believe, gotten lost in the attention economy that drives much of American politics. Investing in the design and distribution of civic infrastructure may not be the approach that garners the viral attention that often drives action, but it is necessary for preparing our people and our communities for the inevitable uncertainties that we will face in the future. By investing in collective settings, we hope to develop the muscles for democracy that people and communities will need to seek, identify, and implement shared solutions that do not accept the world as it is but instead create the world they need. Collective Settings: The Civic Infrastructure of Everyday Democracy I 5 Introduction American politics appear to be broken. What might those concerned about the future of the United States do? Many argue that “pluralism”—sometimes described “as a way of being and acting with others across difference” 5 —is key to politi- cal renewal. Americans, in short, need to (re-)learn how to live and work with those with whom they have seemingly little in common. As a result, scholars have conducted extensive research into the micro- and macro-level foundations of enmity and distrust. Those who focus on the micro-level hone in on the psychological roots of affective polarization, 6 theorized as a primary driver of divisiveness. Many propose healing fractured relationships via facilitated conversations, structured retreats, etc. 7 Scholars concentrating on the macro level examine structural or institutional causes of anti-pluralism more broadly, like election rules and procedures, changes to media, or economic inequality. 8 Conse- quently, most push for policy changes that they believe would help alleviate affective partisanship, including but not limited to reforming voting processes, campaign financing, districting procedures, and wealth redistribution. 9 In this report, we