Is the Body Politic Dying? A Review Essay

Abstract

A little over a century ago, historian Charles Francis Adams observed that recent elections had been conducted on a level distinctly below the intelligence of the constituency; the participants in the debate have not been equal to the occasion offered them. Evidence of this is found in the absence of response.' The lack of response Adams had in mind was the failure of any campaign speech in 1900 to, as he put it, impress itself on the public memory. Today, the public's lack of response goes deeper, much deeper. The books under review explore three strata of the contemporary nonresponse among American citizens.2 Martin Wattenberg's slim volume provides a useful overview of the public's lack of response in terms of voting. Making good use of comparative data, the author begins by showing that declining voter turnout is a worldwide trend among the established democracies, notably since the end of the 1970s. This appears to be the result of a generalized decline in political parties' ability to mobilize voters. However, the turnout depressing dealignment of both old and new parties does not let Americans off the hook, since the United States (together with Switzerland) consistently ranks at the bottom of international turnout rankings. To jump ahead to the book's conclusion, one finds the Swiss pro-