Raising a ruckus

The Ruckus Society, formed in October 1995, identifies its mission as providing "training in the skills of non-violent civil disobedience to help environmental and human rights organizations achieve their goals." Go to the Society's web page at http://www.ruckus.org/. (Browsing the Action Gallery will allow you to see photos of some of the group's members at training sessions.) Follow the link to the group's collection of online training manuals, and skim through these two: "Media Manual" and "Scouting Manual." There is a variety of materials at Ruckus's site that describe forms of unconventional participation. How do the training manuals also illustrate that the Society recognizes the importance of conventional institutions and tactics for helping it to further its mission?




Social capital and voter turnout

C-SPAN is a public service station created by the nation's cable companies to provide coverage of the proceedings of the U.S. government and other forums where matters of public policy and politics are considered. One of the network's regular programs, Booknotes, profiles contemporary authors and their recent books. The program maintains a web site located at http://www.booknotes.org/. In December of 2000, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam appeared on the program to discuss his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Go to the Booknotes site and use the Online Archive feature to locate the transcript of this particular program. Read Professor Putnam's answer to moderator Brian Lamb's opening question about the theory of the book. Then locate the segment of their discussion (about three fourths of the way through the program) where they discuss Chapter 24 and Putnam lays out his agenda for reviving the nation's stock of social capital. How might the nation's declining stock of social capital be a cause of declining voter turnout in the United States?