Downsizing Democracy

"In Downsizing Democracy, Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg describe how the powerful idea of a collective citizenry has given way to a concept of personal, autonomous democracy, in which political change is effected through litigation, lobbying, and term limits, rather than active participation in the political process. Mandatory taxes have replaced bonds as a means to fund military operations, career civil servants have replaced volunteers in the allocation of public services, and an elite, professional soldier has replaced the citizen-soldier. With citizens pushed to the periphery of political life, narrow special interest groups from across the political spectrum - largely composed of faceless members drawn from extended mailing lists - have come to dominate state and federal decision-making. In the closing decade of the last century, this trend only intensified as the federal government, taking a cue from business management practices, rethought its relationship to its citizens as one of a provider of goods and services to individual "customers.""--BOOK JACKET.