Abstract
Although scholarly reflection on the notions of civility – and thus incivility – are not new (see Elias, 2000), the topic has become more and more studied in recent times. The rise of populist parties, the increasing radicalization of political discourse, as well as the polarization of public debate have caused concern among observers and citizens alike (Schulze et al., 2020). In particular, incivility in the political sphere has become a major concern in the United States: a Pew Research Center's survey (2019) found out that more than eight in ten Americans consider that the nature of political debate has become more negative and half of the respondents believe that talking about politics with people they disagree with politically is ‘stressful and frustrating’.
A Crisis of Civility is a multidisciplinary and multi-perspective collection of essays, in which a wide selection of authors with a background in political science, communications, history, sociology, and philosophy, reflect upon and discuss what civility is, why it matters, what factors might contribute to it, and what its consequences are for democratic life.
Most of the content derives from presentations given at the Second NICD research convening of 2017. NICD, the National Institute for Civic Discourse, is a non-partisan organization created at the University of Arizona in 2011, after the Tucson shooting that killed six people. It has since become the leading voice in promoting healthy and civil political debate in the US.
The book consists of three parts, addressing three main questions. The first part tries to theoretically delimitate and empirically define the concept of civility. The second part then provides a wide range of examples of civility - and mainly incivility - in contemporary American political discourse, stressing out the role of technologies and societal changes. The final part is aimed at ‘Learning from the Past’ - drawing from past experiences to find solutions applicable in today's society.
In Chapter 1, Simon Anthony Laden proposes ‘Two Concepts of Civility’, arguing that civility can be understood as both politeness and responsiveness, advocating for the latter, while recognizing that it requires greater effort. Ashley Muddiman, in Chapter 2, reflects on how people perceive political incivility, distinguishing between personal incivility and public incivility, which entails a rejection of both the norms of deliberative discourse and fact-based arguments. Chapter 3, elaborated by Kate Kenski, Kevin Coe, and Stephen A. Rains, discusses different perceptions of incivility in public discourse, comparing academic definitions and citizens’ definitions. In Chapter 4, Emily Sydnor, author of ‘Disrespectful Democracy’ (2019), explains how violations of civility norms are perceived differently based on the characteristic of the speaker and his/her style.
The second part, dedicated to ‘Instances of Civility and Incivility in Contemporary American Political Discourse’, is undoubtedly the richest. In Chapter 5, Dannagal Goldthwaite Young and colleagues show how aggressive strategic game frames in campaign coverage fuel public perceptions of incivility. In Chapters 7 and 8 respectively, Deana A. Rohlinger and Cynthia Williams focus on Twitter discourse after school shootings, and J. Cherie Strachan and Michael R. Wolf use attitudes towards Muslim Americans as indicators of hyperpolarized partisan worldviews. In Chapter 8, Patricia Rossini moves out from the American context analyzing uncivil and intolerant discourse in Brazilian online political talk.
As previously mentioned, the third part digs into the American past to find concrete experiences, which can offer practical examples or ideas to inspire possible solutions to the current situation. John Gastil presents a practical approach to defend civility in times of political warfare, taking the Quakers’ pacifist response to WWII as an example; Steven C. Bullock goes back to the American Revolutionary War to study Benjamin Franklin, defined as ‘The Patron Saint of Civility’. Finally, in Chapter 11, Timothy J. Shaffer explores a very little known but successful programme, undertaken by the US Department of Agriculture during the New Deal to guide public deliberation.
In the concluding chapter, Deborah Mower, drawing on John Stuart Mill, depicts civility as an orienting attitude, emphasizing how it is both a prerequisite and an indispensable part of political liberty, concluding that committing to civility is a prerequisite for engaging in free speech.
This book is, per se, a necessary addition to the literature. Its multi-disciplinary approach is a game-changer for the study of political incivility for political scientists, as well as scholars of political psychology and communication and/or media studies. From a teaching perspective, A Crisis of Civility is highly recommended to anyone looking to add new and innovative research to course syllabi. In particular, due to its multidisciplinary approach and heterogeneous content, which covers both theoretical reflection and real-life examples, this text could be used in both undergraduate and graduate courses, as it potentially offers different levels of reading.
However, it should be noted that this collection of essays only offers one, stand-alone, excursion outside the cultures of the United States, therefore it seems specifically tailored for a US readership. This is an understandable choice, which leaves the door open for future projects to study the effects of incivility across various media and digital platforms in different contexts. Notwithstanding, taking into account the globalization of public debate brought about by ICTs and the phenomena related to the so-called Americanization of political communication (Swanson and Mancini, 1996), the first two parts, although almost uniquely focused on the US, still represent an enlightening reading for anyone interested in this topic. The chapters contained in the third part, conversely, appear suitable for an American readership only, since they either tackle specific initiatives that require a solid knowledge of American history and politics, and/or are grounded on precise values of American democracy, not necessarily applicable in other contexts. Besides these minor concerns, the book is highly recommended to anyone interested in civility and incivility.