The recent Sidney Verba lecture was delivered by Jamila Michener, an associate professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University, and titled Power from the Margins and the Promise of Democracy.
The lecture, held April 18 at CGIS South, took a deep dive into Michener’s current thoughts and research around grassroots political organizing. Opening with an explanation of why many people feel US democracy is in disrepair and how it has permeated the population – noting trust is in decline and 71% of the US population believe they have little to no influence over political systems, compared to a worldwide average of 65%.
Referencing our lecture series namesake Sidney Verba and his 2012 book The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy, she says that we should still be worried about a lot of the title’s issues but there is hope – with “promising possibilities for democracy emerging from the margins”.
Over the last several years Michener has been studying racial and economic disparity, honing in on race and marginalization through the lens of housing and healthcare. Conducting more than 350 interviews with renters and tenants, policy beneficiaries (Medicaid, WIC, etc.), and community/advocacy organizations – the findings of which she is still working through – she found an interesting trend of grassroots political organizing.
Talking us through her interviews, Michener explained that “people are expending a lot of energy fighting systems and bad actors. But then they get organized, which starts to increase their power. [They] build organizations to challenge entrenched power and capital, focusing on base building, door knocking, and lobbying of local councils.
“[The interviews] showed that mobilization is great but it’s part of a wider puzzle, these examples have a strategic approach and a long-term plan to better their situation and grow their power within communities.
“It is therefore worth us acknowledging, engaging, and confronting what this means and what the margins can discern.”
The lecture was followed by a range of thought-provoking questions from attendees, which zeroed in on context, why these tenant unions were formed, the comparisons we can draw with historical organizations, and what qualifies as success. Both the presentation and Q&A offered an insightful, interesting look at democracy in the contemporary United States and the change these marginalized grassroots organizations can enact.
For more discourse by Jamila Michener on this topic, read her Perspectives on Politics article – co-written with Mallory SoRelle and Chloe Thurston and was referenced in the lecture – From the Margins to the Center: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship here.
Our Sidney Verba lecture series will continue in Fall 2024.