In the Western tradition citizenship is part of the good life, but can never be enforced on people. Some modern views see liberty as only a consumer or private ‘good’ detached from civic obligations. However, an education that creates a disposition to active citizenship is a necessary condition of free societies. Education is training and learning towards freedom, and freedom is closely linked to an understanding of the concept of the political as a matter of peaceful compromises of values and (...) interests. Understanding of general concepts fortified by practical activity is essential. It is suggested that any democratic political education (as in the present UK Government proposals) presupposes five ‘procedural values’: freedom, toleration, fairness, respect for truth, respect for reasoning. (shrink)

Citizenship as a compulsory subject was added to the National Curriculum in England in 2002 following the 1998 report, 'Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools'. It was little noticed at the time that the report stressed active citizenship much more strongly than democracy. The underlying presupposition was what historians call 'civic republicanism' the tradition from the Greeks and the Romans of good government as political government, that is, citizens reaching acceptable compromises of group interests and values (...) by public debate. This is contrasted to modern liberalism. To stress 'democracy' unduly in citizenship education can lead to definitional dogmatics about multiple meanings of the term, even to disillusionment. Democracy is a necessary element in good government but not a sufficient one, unless subjective opinion is enshrined over knowledge through education. The practices of free politics are both historically and logically prior to democracy. (shrink)

First published in 1962, this account of the meaning and benefits of politics is updated for the 21st century. Bernard Crick asserts that politics with its compromises and power struggles remains the only tested alternative to government by coercion, making both freedom and order possible in heterogeneous societies. For Crick, politics is messy and complex, and his book defends it against those who would identify it with (and reduce it to) ideology, democracy, nationalism or technology.

Thirty years ago political philosophy in Britain was feared to be dead or dying; dying of meaninglessness and neglect.’ Political philosophy now enjoys a golden age, certainly in the English‐speaking world; but never has the level of political debate been lower. The memories are still painful of how, in the American presidential campaign of 1996 and the British general election of 1997, even sustained rhetoric, let alone attempts at reasoned, persuasive discourse, finally collapsed into sound‐bytes, and contingent sound‐bytes at that, (...) mainly reacting to relatively trivial, mainly opportunistic accusations and counter‐accusations, a plethora of sound‐bytes rarely exhibiting either Bagehot's ‘stream of tendency’ or a coherent ‘moral discourse’. All three main parties talked about restoring a sense of morality to politics, but found some difficulty in spelling out what they meant, or even spelling it at all. Never more political knowledge, either, with the growth of political science; but never less use made of it in public life, unless psephology is the name of the game. (shrink)