Whither civic education

Abstract

The questions go back to pre-Platonic times: how do states turn ordinary people, especially new generations of young people, into supportive, contributing citizens? Are the tasks required to do this in modern democracies such as the United States different from those in states which rely on authoritarianism or state-sponsored terror? There are numerous variations on these questions: How does a conquering nation gain the allegiance of the vanquished? If a government is overthrown in a coup, how do the new rulers convince the citizens that they are the rightful and legitimate power holders? All of these devolve into questions of civic education.