In a new article at Huffington Post, Peter Levine calls for President Obama to shift course to more deeply engage the public in the governance process. Levine argues that the Administration has strayed from the authentic civic engagement that helped to elected the president:

“All the diagnoses of what’s going wrong focus on top-down strategy: the Democrats are too arrogant or too cautious, they took too long or tried to rush too fast, or they focused on health care when they should have attended to unemployment. Now the advice from all quarters is to change legislative objectives and to craft a new “message.” This whole discourse ignores what could be the unique advantage of having a community organizer in the White House.”

Levine argues that “active civic engagement” challenges the public to partner with government to actively be part of the solution:

“Service and transparency are not nearly “edgy” enough; there is no fight in them. People are angry – from the Tea Partiers to MoveOn. When citizens try to solve serious social problems, they identify enemies. They do not just hold hands and serve together; they strike back at those whom they perceive as threats. “Active citizenship” reduced to non-controversial “service” or downloading government data completely loses touch with the legitimate anger of the American people.”

“The White House chose to make health care its major focus and included no aspects of civic engagement in the deliberations about the bill, in its advocacy for the legislation, or in the design of the statute. There could have been real public discussions, instead of sham “Town Meetings” that were really speeches by politicians with time for Q&A. Progressive volunteers could have been encouraged to conduct face-to-face dialogues in their communities and to form relationships with one another (instead of merely finding themselves on the receiving end of an email list). The legislation could have included health co-ops as an experiment in engaging citizens in policy.”

“It is probably too late to try a civic approach on health care. Climate change is so obviously stuck in the Senate that it is the issue I would use. The inside game can’t work. Since negotiation cannot yield an acceptable bill, the administration should try a grassroots strategy that includes a genuine element of open discussion, not just “messaging.” And the legislation should include strong support for citizens’ work (not just volunteer service) to reduce our carbon emissions.”