Bob Graham And The President Of Florida

The book Soul of a Citizen by Paul Loeb makes a compelling case for civic engagement. The book emphasizes the need for people to get involved in civic life and it gives examples of people who made a huge impact just by deciding to do. These people saw something that was not right and they went out of their way to help. However, it was not size but they made up their mind that this was what they were going to do and went about doing it. They did not know that by doing that they were going to make a huge impact but they ended up making a huge impact and creating change. Just as these people did, I believe that everyone can engage in civic change and make a different. In this paper, I am going to discuss ways an average citizen can engage in civic life, ways that social worker can encourage others to get involved in civic life and why is it important for social workers to serve in this role.

The focal point of current educational trend in the United States is on preparing the leaders of tomorrow (National Task Force, 2012). Student success has been expanded to include civic responsibility which is a dimension of the college experience largely ignored until recently (Upcraft, Gardner, & Barefoot, 2005). The Department of Education has taken this charge and developed the National Task Force for Democratic and Civic Engagement. This initiative places developing civic responsibility as a national priority based on the tendency of young people who are often too caught up in ‘narrow collegiate worlds’ of their own existence to understand the larger role of being a contributing member of society (Upcraft, Barefoot & Gardner, 2005). Thus, engagement as a participating citizen living in community is frequently beyond the scope of young student leaders in college. Due to this, the government has renewed its interest in creating civic-minded young people prepared to advocate for change. This has led the charge for a civic engagement initiative nationwide.

The planning process began with our DILA facilitators, by brainstorming a variety of topics and issues that grind our gear. In classroom discussions, students used their political inquiry and presented topics with informed opinions regarding civic issues that we would like to address and make a difference in. Next, we were to select our top three civic issues, via participating in the decision-making process, making an educated vote, and expanding upon why we individually side with one of the

This is when the public has the chance to get involved in the policy making process.

Citizens Participation- becoming informed, debating issues, and voting in elections. Document

Verba and his co-authors examine the import of participation, both voting and non-voting, in our American society. According to their argument, the typical citizen activist “tend[s] to be drawn disproportionately from more advantaged groups–to be well-educated and well-heeled and to be White and male” (Verba et al., 1995: 231). Indeed, Verba et al. explore participation along both gender and racial lines and concludes that both women and minorities are comparatively less active than men, especially white men, who stand peerless both in terms of affiliation with a political organization, contributing to a campaign, contacting their Representatives, and more direct forms of participation like voting.

Paul Loeb is the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times. In 2008 Loeb founded the Campus Election Engagement Project, a national nonpartisan student engagement effort that helped 500 colleges and universities engage their students in the election. Paul Rogat Loeb has spent thirty-five years researching and writing about citizen responsibility and empowerment. This book, more so a handbook, enables anyone who desires to make a change in the environment around them, leading them to get involved in larger communities. The book acknowledges that “it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and to become

Whether executively, legislatively, or judicially, the American government was created to help individuals express their ideals not in an illegal, distorting way but in a legal, strong resolution. From a town council to the presidency, running for office voices a person’s opinion in a strong, legal way. A person can work as a journalist or for a group that speaks out for liberating solutions. The vital part to the solution is that the person acts, not just talks.

There are many more ways people can participate in politics other than by voting. In the United States, the second highest form of activity is by participating in community work in local communities. The

In the 1990’s, Graham started his political career as a Republican first in the House of Representatives and several years later as a senator for South Carolina (McNamee). Additionally, Graham sits on the appropriations, armed services, and budget and judiciary committees (Graham). Today, Graham who is a 20 year veteran politician is one of the many presidential candidates for the 2016 presidential election coming up in November of

States of America. The country anxiously awaited to see if Ronald Reagan could keep the

Throughout times, democracy has emerged as the best political way to rule a country. Within democratic systems, citizens have to vote for people who will represent them in the decision-making system. The question that John Kingdon wanted to understand in his writing of How Do Issues Get on Public Agendas? is how the legislative process and the public policies are made. John Kingdon well illustrates the processes by which an issue becomes policy issue, named the Cohen-March-Olsen, and the coming together of three processes. In the Cohen-March-Olsen, Kingdon proposed three stream: problem-recognition, policy stream of proposals and political stream.

My difficult questions surround the doing and the reading of the policy process. There are three areas that I would like further explore: the role of citizen participation in the policy process, importance of critical and postmodern perspectives in understanding public policy, and the role of government.

As we have seen before, there is a delicate balance between the three sectors of our society: government, business, and civil society. All these three sectors need each other for our community to operate and be healthy. The leaders emerging from these sectors are in an environment of shared power. They need to learn how to work with each other for they do not have enough power to resolve issues alone. These leaders might be individuals, groups, or organizations that are passionate and feel responsible for community issues. However, we are a melting pot of cultures, ideals, and philosophy; which makes decision making difficult for there are different needs for different people. Therefore, these leaders need to consider the diversity, extensive collaboration, and long term solutions for the problems facing communities.

To further elucidate, the study seeks to understand changes in political participation, explore the spaces of interaction and policy formation, and investigate possible consequences associated with the same. Since the nature of the research could be perceived as controversial and containing a political agenda, a phenomenological approach was considered advantageous due to the distanced, objective positioning and externalization of the research problem achieved through “bracketing the researcher’s own experiences” (Creswell, 2013; Chan et al., 2013, p. 1). Furthermore, because the research purpose and focus of the central question concern the meaning of democratic participation in today’s society, data will be collected through conducting several in-depth interviews.