When Tocqueville Meets Technology: The Impact of Globalization on American Civic Engagement

Abstract

In recent years, community and civic engagement have been slowly eroded in importance in the United States in favor of standardized and globalized processes. This has increased the erosion of citizens’ belief that their voices and votes actually matter in American society. Alexis de Tocqueville persuasively argued that the isolation of individual citizens from a shared sense of community and from empowerment to effect change severely weakens democracies like the United States. To reverse this erosion, American citizens must ground themselves in a new type of solidarity, one based on mutual trust, shared values, meaningful dialogue, and renewed interest in the community.