Thanks for everyone’s great feedback on yesterday’s screed. I’m sensing there’s more to say about this issue. I did get a bit of contextualization from my friend, Xavier Harmony, who’s nearing the completion of his Ph.D. in Planning, Governance, and Globalization with a dissertation suite called “Essays in Transportation and Electoral Politics.” If there’s anyone to figure this out it’s Xav.
Anyway, here’s what he sent me.
Party politics in transportation plays out very differently depending on the level of government and the salience of transportation issues.
This doesn’t feel obvious. And maybe that’s part of the problem: ordinary citizens don’t know where to go to have that conversation about a pothole. Do they write to their Congressperson? Do they talk to the mayor? What even is a county commissioner?
At the congressional level, the conversation might split along “to spend at all” versus at the local level—when money’s already flowing in from who-knows-where—the conversation will almost certainly break differently. So if Xav’s right about this—just one example—how does it relate to our idea of conflict vs. mistake vs. control?
Easy: Any Congressional (Federal) legislation proposed by Republicans is good and any proposed by Democrats is bad. Any state spending on road infrastructure proposed by Republicans is good; any other conversation is bad. I’ll say that at the very local level, even the block level, the conversation is similar, but at least you have to see the person you’re arguing with.
Politicians use funding in a very blunt way; some recent research I’ve done shows candidates who are perhaps less informed or interested in transportation are more likely to frame a problem with no solution or just offer “more funding” as a solution.
This tracks with what we know about problem identification and just thrashing cash at any number of observations (not measured solutions to carefully articulated problems). Conflict theorists do this and don’t tell you and take credit for unintended outcomes; Mistake theorists do this and don’t tell you and lament that the conflict theorists are ruining it for everyone.
From the same research, looking like you’re doing something can be just as important to a politicians as actually doing something, at least when it comes to policy statements in elections.
Optics and comms are both conflict and mistake theorists’ most used tools. Conflict theories harness optics and comms to dismantle and dismiss unfavorable narratives with different unfavorable narratives; mistake theorists love to try to control public opinion via endless polls all while continuously missing the point wide right.
I’d love to learn more about what “looking like you’re doing something” means, though. Just spending money? We know it doesn’t work.
Some research suggests politicians make transportation choices in direct response to voting behaviors.
This is relatively obvious. It’s not leadership. Conflict theorists harness money as power—whoever has and spends more is better and better equipped to control public spaces; mistake theorists love to try and guess what large and small blocs of voters might want and love to tinker with policy to no avail while public space rots.
However, civic engagement gaps break the voting-political action connection and compound inequalities over time (book chapter about this coming out next year).
I’ve long thought about this as a broken game of Telephone. Sustained civic engagement—one-on-one outreach, park tabling, door-to-door canvassing, school or church information sessions, direct mail, digital/social comms—around transportation issues is probably the best way to build community power and knowledge that can directly combat the elected or appointed power vacuum. It has to happen a lot, all the time, though, because informed citizens are neither conflict nor mistake theorists—an individual doesn’t have enough power. But if citizens can organize smart problem identification and vote that way, there’s a way to patch the broken system from the inside out through context-sensitive design.
Very, very curious to read Xav’s book chapter when it comes out.
Overall, I think more equitable voting could help, more informed politicians (more so than the public as politicians are decision-makers) could help, and the approach needs to be different for each level of government. No magic bullet but these are some thoughts based on my more recent readings/work.
I’d love to learn a little more about the neo-enfranchisement here. Do we mean to set most spending to a public voting process i.e. a referendum, as the equalizer? Do we mean a better way to get information surrounding an already ballot-driven process? Remember, to conflict theorists and/or Republicans expanded voting is bad unless, of course, more of the “right” people vote for the “right” candidates. Then it’s good. Mistake theorists love all voting and lose often (it seems to be the exception when a well-meaning politician wins any election). Even when mistake theorist does win, they seem to be allergic to the power high office brings. Take from that what you will.
I’m further drawn to this idea of right-sizing information campaigns and civic engagement at each level of government. I think this is right and I think I need to learn more about this to get smarter. I’ll take you on this journey with me.