Government of the People

THE NUMBERS TELL A TROUBLING STORY. Despite unprecedented access to information and digital tools for political engagement, fewer Americans are showing up at the polls. About 154 million Americans voted in the 2024 presidential election, representing 63 percent of eligible voters — down from a turnout of a little over 65 percent four years earlier.

Among voters ages 18-29, only 47 percent cast ballots, falling from 50 percent in 2020.

As the United States prepares to celebrate its semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 2026, this decline raises questions about the health of American democracy. What does meaningful civic participation look like in an age of social media, viral videos and artificial intelligence? And how can a democratic system survive when its citizens increasingly retreat from the public square?

The stakes couldn’t be higher. “Democracy requires voting, elections and participation … and requires that the person with the most votes wins the elections and takes power,” said Keith Gåddie, the Hoffman Chair of the American Ideal and a professor of political science, who describes that sequence as the “minimum conditions for democracy.”

But minimum conditions aren’t enough for a democracy to thrive.

“We need to be able to constructively disagree with each other, which is something few are modeling at the moment, but maybe that can change.”
Keith Gåddie

The Great Disconnection

The roots of America’s civic disengagement run deep. Political scientists point to Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking research in 2000’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon & Schuster), which shows how changing American behaviors since the 1960s, such as sharp declines in group activities like bowling leagues, mirror a growing detachment from the democratic process.

“When Americans had more relationship with our community members, it was good for participatory democracy because there was more trust involved,” said Joanne Connor Green, who retired as a political science professor this year. “The system functioned better when people were more engaged.”

This erosion of social connections has created a paradox: Americans have more ways than ever to express political opinions, yet they feel increasingly powerless to create change. Social media amplifies voices but often confines users to spaces where they hear only similar viewpoints. Online activism can feel satisfying in the moment but may not translate to the sustained engagement that democracy requires.

“You also have to have healthy conversations to have a healthy democracy,” added Gåddie, who has spent decades consulting for political candidates on both the left and the right. “We need to be able to constructively disagree with each other, which is something few are modeling at the moment, but maybe that can change.”

A Laboratory for Democracy

Some educators are working to bridge this gap by treating their classrooms as workshops for democratic engagement. Rachael Houston, an assistant professor of political science, spurs her students to think about their civic obligations. In her Constitutional Law: Rights & Liberties class, undergraduates read more than 55 Supreme Court rulings while scrutinizing and discussing ways in which the decisions by the nine justices expand or limit Americans’ civil liberties.

“We talk a lot about free speech, which is absolutely foundational to participatory democracy,” Houston said. “We also focus on voting rights and the barriers to voting. A lot of my students said they didn’t know there was a polling station [on campus in the Brown-Lupton University Union] until I’d told them about it.”

Houston encourages dissenting views in her classroom, something she said enhances the group’s collective learning. Students disagree on all manner of contentious topics — which spurs precisely the kind of civil discourse that democracy demands.

“Newer generations seem to have more trouble talking about tough issues than older generations have had, and this is one place where I think social media can actually be helpful,” Houston said. “Students can find and also form communities based on their interests and beliefs.”

Political science professors, from left, Keith Gåddie, Rachael Houston, Sam Arnold and Michael Strausz focus on citizens’ rights and obligations in a democracy, from voting, to participating in civil discourse, to fulfilling jury duty. Photo by Rodger Mallison

Houston admits that social media can silo students in certain beliefs, thereby serving as an echo chamber. But sites such as Instagram and TikTok can also help introduce students to causes and ideas. As a practical matter, Houston observed students in fall 2024 hosting live sessions on social media to help their fellow Horned Frogs register to vote.

The challenge, Houston said, is helping students navigate both the opportunities and the pitfalls of digital engagement. “If you took that away, these students would feel more isolated about the democratic process,” she said, “but I also feel the need to teach students how to navigate the negativity that inevitably comes with almost anything online.”

Beyond the Ballot Box

Real democratic participation extends far beyond election cycles. Emilio Duran ’24 discovered this during his work as a policy analyst for Sergio Muñoz Jr., a Democrat who represents South Texas’ District 36 in the Texas House of Representatives. During the state legislative session last spring, Duran focused his research on issues such as taxes, gambling and sports. His findings, which included information gathered from speaking with constituents and stakeholders, helped his boss form positions on those issues.

“I never put much thought into the fact that we’d have so many late nights with debating and amending going on down on the floor until 2 or 3 in the morning,” said Duran, who recently enrolled at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio.

The experience gave him an appreciation for public passions on contentious issues like school vouchers, which dominated the Legislature’s 2025 regular session. In the late spring, lawmakers voted to allocate $1 billion in taxpayer funds to help parents pay for private school tuition and homeschooling expenses for children from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“I heard from a lot of people voicing their frustration over vouchers,” he said. “I like to think democracy is alive and well and there are a lot of elected representatives out there truly doing what’s best for the country.”

Retail Politics in the Digital Age

State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst ’88 embodies what she calls “retail politics,” the constant interaction with the 1 million Central Texans she represents in Senate District 18. A video of her pointed questioning of a spokesman for the American Heart Association over the group’s opposition to a bill (SB 379) that stopped food stamps from covering soda and candy went viral in March 2025.

“In my office, we do retail politics, which means I’m constantly out there interacting with and getting input from the people I represent,” said Kolkhorst, a Republican who first began serving in the Texas House of Representatives in 2001.

Social media increasingly plays a role in her communication with constituents, but she’s learned to navigate its complexities. “I do read the comments on Facebook and X and respond to as many as I can, to make sure that I’m hearing from people, but sometimes the silent majority isn’t calling or posting because they agree with a bill,” she said. “One of the hardest things I do is to be able to decipher the noise and figure out what the majority of people really want and to then determine if that aligns with the values of my constituents.”

“I like to think democracy is alive and well and there are a lot of elected representatives out there truly doing what’s best for the country.”
Emilio Duran

Kolkhorst said she most appreciates constituents who make the trip to the state Capitol to speak in person. “What I love most about the Texas Legislature is the accessibility: You sign up in an electronic kiosk at the Capitol and get 2 or 3 minutes to speak, or longer if someone asks you a question.

“That is participatory democracy in action,” she said. “I have changed my vote or introduced amendments based on testimony I’ve heard. And my best bills have come from my constituents.”

The Quality Question

Not everyone believes that maximizing the number of voters should be democracy’s primary goal. Sam Arnold, an associate professor of political science who specializes in philosophy, argues that the quality of civic engagement matters more than quantity.

“It’s hard to make good decisions as a group unless people participate,” Arnold said. But he ponders whether all participation is equally valuable.

“The older you are, the more you know, so maybe it’s good that younger voters don’t traditionally show up as much,” he said. “If the point is to make the world a better and more just place, there are lots of ways to do that that have nothing to do with politics, like volunteering.

“You could even argue,” Arnold said, “that a really good car mechanic does more good for the world than 10,000 voters.”

His perspective challenges the conventional wisdom that democracy benefits from maximum participation. Jason Brennan, Arnold’s co-author of the book Questioning Beneficence: Four Philosophers on Effective Altruism and Doing Good (Routledge) and a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, takes this argument even further, questioning whether voters who are misinformed or lack information should head to the polls at all.

Brennan offers a classroom metaphor to illustrate the problem: If a professor told students they wouldn’t receive individual grades, but instead would all get the same grade based on the class average, “you’d probably expect that people would fail not because they’re stupid but because they have really bad incentives to study.” Those who do study hard “will bear all the cost of studying but barely move the meter in terms of a grade.”

Similarly, Brennan argues, citizens who carefully research issues and candidates see their votes count exactly the same as those who vote based purely on party lines or name recognition. This creates what economists call a “rational ignorance” problem: Individuals have little incentive to become well-informed because their single vote is unlikely to change the outcome.

“I have a friend at Rutgers University who actually advocates eliminating voting and having lotteries where you randomly select a certain number of people, and they get the power to vote,” Brennan said. “By having it be a smaller number of people, you give them an incentive to think very carefully because now their vote really matters.”

Lessons From Abroad

International comparisons offer insights into different approaches to democratic engagement. Michael Strausz, chair and professor of political science and an expert on Japanese politics, notes that political engagement there remains higher than in America, something he attributes partly to Japan’s compressed election cycles.

Unlike the U.S., with its perpetual campaign season, Japanese politicians in parliamentary elections have only three weeks to campaign. Also, “In Japan, traditional media is still more powerful and respected for expertise,” Strausz said. “Here in the U.S., there is less respect for the mainstream media and for academic knowledge.”

This media skepticism has contributed to what Gåddie, who coauthored Democracy’s Meanings: How the Public Understands Democracy and Why It Matters (University of Michigan Press), identifies as a broader crisis of institutional trust. “People are increasingly going to alternative media and the digital environment for their political content,” Gåddie said, “but it’s harder and harder to fact-check because there is so much information out there.”

The solution, he argues, isn’t to retreat from information entirely but to develop better filters.

“We do need, from time to time, gatekeepers who actually think deeper and look with great care at things and then curate. In a way, we all need a sommelier at times, someone we have confidence in to give us recommendations.”

Titus Fagan, vice president of TCU’s Student Government Association, and Reagan Stephens, president, ran positive campaigns that made effective use of social media to reach student voters. “In the midst of a lot of things that could divide us, I want students to feel seen and heard,” Fagan said. Photo by Rodger Mallison

The Next-Generation Experiment

Despite the challenges democracy faces, some TCU students remain committed to working toward bettering our country. Reagan Stephens, a senior political science major and president of TCU’s Student Government Association, refuses to accept that politics must be divisive.

“Politics used to be a topic you avoided at the dinner table, but now it is a tool people can use to build off each other and learn different values,” Stephens said. “I don’t think it’s unusual for my generation to want to participate in the political process, considering we have easy access to information at our fingertips.”

She and student government vice president Titus Fagan both ran positive campaigns focused on ideas rather than attacks, suggesting that civil discourse remains possible even in polarized times.

“My slogan was ‘Your Voice, Our Vision,’ ” said Fagan, a junior accounting major. “In the midst of a lot of things that could divide us, I want students to feel seen and heard and to connect with them on a really foundational level.”

Stephens built a “REAL Results” campaign for the presidency, promising to address student concerns she heard in informal listening sessions. Solutions for those concerns include a service commitment that would offset parking fines and requiring tuition transparency from university administrators. She said she will apply these consensus-building skills after graduation, when she plans to attend law school with the goal of returning to her home state of Nevada to become an attorney specializing in water rights.

Both students effectively used social media to reach their peers without falling into the negativity that often characterizes online political discourse. “While I was able to reach a wide range of students through tabling and walking around campus,” Stephens said, “my Instagram had over 300,000 impressions during my two weeks of campaigning.”

Their success suggests that the problem isn’t technology itself but how Americans use it.

“There’s a lot wrong,” said Jim Riddlesperger, a political science professor who retired at the end of the spring semester after 42 years at TCU, “but you cannot be around 18-year-olds and not feel optimistic because each new generation gives us hope for a healthier political system.

“Discourse is the fodder of democracy,” Riddlesperger added, and perhaps that discourse is evolving rather than disappearing.

Path to Action

After feeling discouraged by the revelations of disconnection in Bowling Alone, Green collaborated with Daniel Shea of Colby College in Maine and Christopher E. Smith of Michigan State University.

First published in 2006, Living Democracy (Pearson College Division) offers concrete ways for college students to engage in politics and civic life.

“The whole idea was to show students that democracy isn’t this abstract thing,” Green said. “As a professor, you do touch a large number of young people ages 18-21, which is a pivotal time in their life to get them to think about what it means to be a good citizen.”

Green encourages her students to identify an area of passion — say, the environment, childhood hunger or affordable housing — then immerse themselves in understanding the issue beyond headlines or snippets on social media. The next step centers on action through advocacy, such as calling or meeting with local legislators or joining or even creating community organizations that will educate voters.

“Internet participation or couch activism can serve as a mechanism to get people interested in politics and then to mobilize them enough to perhaps vote,” Green said, “but it can also give people a false sense of being engaged. You have to do the work.”

That might look like volunteering to become a poll worker or canvassing a neighborhood for a like-minded political candidate. Eco-minded teens and adults can organize a public park cleanup event or a recycling drive.

For her part, Kolkhorst encourages young people to get involved in campaigns or other aspects of government, something that may start with testifying about a bill or emailing anyone from a U.S. senator to a city council member about an issue.

“In America, we have constitutional rights that allow us to express our opinions and be involved in our government,” she said. “It’s not perfect, but I think it’s the best system in the world.”