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From the early 1800s through the middle of the twentieth century, U.S. democracy was energized by the remarkable propensity of Americans to organize and join voluntary associations. Observers of many persuasions agree on this point – and also concur that the final decades of the twentieth century brought fundamental shifts in civic organization and citizen involvements with voluntary groups in the United States. The nature, tempo, and causes of these changes remain a topic for scholarly discussion, however. Investigators highlight different aspects of recent civic transformations and explore these changes using contrasting theoretical perspectives and types of empirical data.

The comparitive analysis of Putnam's social capital theory to civic reorganization theory reveals the phenomena of abrupt elite driven transformations to civic affiliations in relation to societal conduct & modes of government activity. Social capital & civic reorganization explanations of causation are compared in terms of mobilization of the masses. A case study of Massachusets legislators civic affiliations dissects descriptive trends, quantitative network techniques & individual-level data & contextual trends to explore civic decline, shifts in types of affiliations & trends in connectedness. Analysis indicates that social capital theory offers incomplete insights, & overemphasizes generationally driven declines in membership. The authors conclude that the contextual focus of civic reorganization theory identifies other impacting factors that raise new questions about the norms of government activities & organized civic life in the United States. Tables, Figures. J. Harwell

ABSTRACTGood education requires student experiences that deliver lessons about practice as well as theory and that encourage students to work for the public good—especially in the operation of democratic institutions (Dewey 1923; Dewy 1938). We report on an evaluation of the pedagogical value of a research project involving 23 colleges and universities across the country. Faculty trained and supervised students who observed polling places in the 2016 General Election. Our findings indicate that this was a valuable learning experience in both the short and long terms. Students found their experiences to be valuable and reported learning generally and specifically related to course material. Postelection, they also felt more knowledgeable about election science topics, voting behavior, and research methods. Students reported interest in participating in similar research in the future, would recommend other students to do so, and expressed interest in more learning and research about the topics central to their experience. Our results suggest that participants appreciated the importance of elections and their study. Collectively, the participating students are engaged and efficacious—essential qualities of citizens in a democracy.

This paper is the result of a nationwide study of polling place dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. Research teams, recruited from local colleges and universities and located in twenty-eight election jurisdictions across the United States, observed and timed voters as they entered the queue at their respective polling places and then voted. We report results about four specific polling place operations and practices: the length of the check-in line, the number of voters leaving the check-in line once they have joined it, the time for a voter to check in to vote (i.e., verify voter's identification and obtain a ballot), and the time to complete a ballot. Long lines, waiting times, and times to vote are closely related to time of day (mornings are busiest for polling places). We found the recent adoption of photographic voter identification (ID) requirements to have a disparate effect on the time to check in among white and nonwhite polling places. In majority-white polling places, scanning a voter's driver's license speeds up the check-in process. In majority nonwhite polling locations, the effect of strict voter ID requirements increases time to check in, albeit modestly.