Reviving civic associations that are not trivial, obsessed

DIMINISHED DEMOCRACY: FROM MEMBERSHIP TO MANAGEMENT IN AMERICAN CIVIC LIFE

By Theda Skocpol

University of Oklahoma Press, $29.95, 366 pages

REVIEWED BY PHILIP GOLD

Many years ago, I fell into the habit of joining imaginary organizations. From time to time, depending on the pomposity level of the cocktail party I was attending, I have been:

President, STABB, Society for the Total Annihilation of Beanie Babies.

Executive Director, AAAAPM, “QuadrupleA/PM,” the American Association for the Advancement of Applied PeripheroMetrics (Our motto: “If It’s Far Enough Out, We’ll Measure It”).

Senior Logothete, Anarchic Chaotic Licentious Utopians, (ACLU).

And most recently, Associate Visiting Carnivore, Protesters Enjoying Talking Angry (PETA).

But now comes a new endeavor. APPROACH. Articulate Perceptive Persons Resolutely Opposed to American Civic Hypochondria.

Thanks, Theda. I couldn’t have done it without you.

The Theda just acknowledged is the prolific and engaging Theda Skocpol, Harvard political scientist/sociologist and well-known commentator on American society, social policy, and all matters there unto pertaining. “Diminished Democracy” is not her best effort, if only because it started out in life as a University of Oklahoma lecture series, and lectures don’t always transition well into books. Still, there is absolutely nothing wrong with “Diminished Democracy.” It’s clear, straightforward, solid, logical.

The problem is the (expletive deleted) genre.

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