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Harry C. Boyte

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Senior Fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; Director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, Augsburg College; National Coordinator of the American Commonwealth Partnership

97 Langford Park, W #5
St. Paul, Minnesota 55108
(612) 330-1453

Expertise & Civic Involvements

Boyte’s research and practical work focus on civic agency, democracy and populist politics: What politics is required for ordinary people, especially those steeped in experiences of subordination, to develop the skills and confidence to direct their lives, to shape the world around them, and to democratize power in contemporary societies? Boyte is an architect of the "public work" framework of citizenship, which represents an alternative to state centered liberal citizenship and varieties of communitarian citizenship such as deliberation and associational membership. Boyte was a co-founder, with Elinor Ostrom, Jane Mansbridge, Peter Levine, Rogers Smith, Steve Elkin and Karol Soltan in a day long meeting on September 28, 2007, of "Civic Studies," a framework of citizenship and politics that seeks to go beyond the liberal-communitarian dispute in political and social theory. Boyte has served as National Coordinator of the American Commonwealth Partnership, a broad alliance of higher education, civic, business and philanthropic groups which worked in collaboration with the White House Office of Public Engagement and the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen higher education as a public good, during 2012 , the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act. During the Clinton Administration, he was National Coordinator of New Citizenship, an alliance of civic, higher education, and philanthropic groups which worked in collaboration with the White House Domestic Policy Council to analyze the gap between citizens and government and to propose solutions. He also founded Public Achievement, an international youth civic education initiative, now active in 23 countries and societies, based on the conceptual framework of public work.

SSN Briefs

Key Publications

Boyte's writings and research deal with democracy in modern societies, populist politics, citizenship, and educational reform
  • "Constructive Politics as Public Work: Organizing the Literature" Political Theory 39, no. 5 (2011): 630-660.
    Explains the framework of citizenship as public work. Develops civic agency, and its concepts of the citizen as co-creator and politics as productive, not simply distributive.
  • "Civil Society and Public Work" in The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society, edited by Michael Edwards (Oxford University Press, 2011), 324-336.
    Argues that conventional associative and deliberative frameworks of citizenship make a large mistake in slighting "work" and workplaces, or even posing work as the realm of necessity, not politics. Calls for bringing work back into the center of civic action, for the sake of building popular power (civic agency) and reversing global trends toward privatization, or dismantling of the commonwealth.
  • "Reframing Democracy: Governance, Civic Agency, and Politics" Public Administration Review 65, no. 5 (2005): 536-546.
    Describes the implications of a public work framework for reconceptualizing democracy, politics, and public affairs professional practice.
  • Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life (PennPress, 2004).
    Develops an account of the politics of public work as a global alternative to communitarian civic engagement (such as service and voluntarism), on the one hand, and distributive politics (such as advocacy, protest, and mobilizing), on the other. This account shifts from a scarcity framework to a more expansive sense of “abundance” grounded in real-world labors.
  • Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change in America (with Sara M. Evans) (University of Chicago Press, 1992).
    Develops a theory of free spaces – sustained political environments in the life of communities and their institutional fabric – in which relatively powerless groups have room for self-definition and democratic learning experiences. Argues that these can be found at the heart of all genuinely democratic movements.
  • CommonWealth: A Return to Citizen Politics (Free Press, 1989).
    Analyzes the “commonwealth political tradition” in America as the tap root of citizen-centered politics different from the politics of the market, on the one hand, and from state-centered socialism and social democracy, on the other.

Media Contributions

Boyte writes a regular blog for Huffington Post on educational change, politics, and related topics
  • Harry C. Boyte's research on Violence in America cited in "Sunday Dialogue," New York Times, December 23, 2012.
    Lead letter and concluding response to the New York Times weekly Dialogue, this week on the topic of Violence in America. I argue that conventional responses slight the foundations and practices needed for civic agency, or our collective civic capacities to act on problems such as guns and violence.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • "New Generation of Citizen Workers Needed in Every Field," Citizenship Matters, Education Commission of the States, November 30, 2012.
    In Citizenship Matters, the fall, 2012, bimonthly newsletter of the Education Commission of the States, I argue that central to democratizing educating and citizenship education will be an "integration of the three C's, preparation for college, career, and citizenship." This requires overcoming the long standing divide, in both educational practice and political theory, between work and workforce preparation, on the one hand, and purportedly "higher order" activities like citizenship and liberal education, on the other. We need a movement across all of education to accomplish this task.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-boyte/citizenship-for-the-21st-_b_1851065.html.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • Harry Boyte Blog to Huffington Post.
  • "Citizen Politics - A New Minnesota Miracle" (with Hunter Gordon), Huffington Post, August 9, 2012.
  • Harry C. Boyte's research on contemporary politics and science cited in "editorial," Press-Citizen, June 13, 2012.
    The Iowa Presss-Citizen, commenting on the Huffington Post piece republished in its pages, describes the failed efforts of the Obama administration to "restore science to its rightful place," announced in his inaugural address, details the dysfunctional knowledge war between "cult of the expert" technocrats and "science-deniers," and supports the project of "civic science" as a path beyond the impasse.
  • ""Building Democracy Colleges -- A Different Kind of Politics"" (with Blase Scarnati), College, Huffington Post, May 3, 2012.
    We argue that for long term democratic revitalization "democracy's colleges" are essential. Democracy's colleges, the aim of the new American Commonwealth Partnership, are civic sites, deeply connected to community life, where students (and others) develop public skills and capacities to work across differences on problems and long term community building projects. We illustrate with the large scale curricular reform efforts at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and we suggest that such efforts and sites show the possibilities for developing a broad democratic politics of change -- aiming at 80%, not simply bare majorities.
  • ""Civic Science -- Beyond the Knowledge Wars"" (with John Spencer), College, Huffington Post, reprinted in the Iowa Press-Citizen, May 31, 2012.
    Illustrating with the case of climate change, we argue that contributing to the polarized, dysfunctional poliitcs of today is a "knowledge war," fought between "the cult of the expert," detached scholars and scientists and a "know-nothing" anti-science tendency. Civic science, understood as a philosophy of science emphasizing civic agency, not simply public participation, offers a way beyond this war. We illustrate with a new coalition in Iowa, Get Ready Iowa," which brings diverse parties -- scientists, educators, families, day care providers, nonprofits, the science museum, policy makers, schools -- to the table to create rich learning environments for pre-school children, in which children have support to become "agents and architects" of their own learning.
  • "Democracy Colleges as Schools for Citizenship," blog, DemocracyU, January 16, 2012.
  • "Making Good Policy for Our Families," Letter to the Editor (in response to Russ Douhat), New York Times, January 1, 2012.
  • "On Dr. King’s Legacy," Letter to the Editor (in response to Cornel West), New York Times, September 2, 2011.
  • "We are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting for" (with Nancy Cantor), Huffington Post, August 24, 2011.
  • "Teacher’s Lessons," Letter to the Editor (in response to Nicholas Kristof), New York Times, March 20, 2011.
  • "The Faces of American Populism," Letter to the Editor (in response to David Brooks), New York Times, January 28, 2010.
  • "Obama Administration’s Civic Agenda," CSPAN, July 24, 2009.
  • "The Work Ahead Is Our Work – Not Just His," Star Tribune, May 3, 2009.
  • "Obama’s Neighborhood," debate on Obama’s candidacy with Stanley Kurtz, CSPAN, October 1, 2008.
  • "Trashing Democracy," Huffington Post, September 4, 2008.
  • "Obama Picks Up Message Robert Kennedy Popularized" (with Steven Hahn), Star Tribune, June 8, 2008.
  • "Our Passive Society Needs Some New Nehemiahs," Star Tribune, November 16, 2007.
  • "Nader’s Trial Lawyer Populism," PPI-ONLINE, September 8, 2000.
  • "Taking the Public Out of Public Art" (with Nan Kari), Wall Street Journal, August 6, 1997.
  • "Commonwealth of Freedom" (with Nan Kari), Policy Review, January 1, 1996.
  • "Neighborhood Power – A New Constituency Entering National Political Life," Week in Review, New York Times, August 19, 1979.

Talks and Briefings

Boyte speaks regularly on democratic change in higher education, democracy, and a different kind of politics.
  • "The New Populism in "Civil Society and the Future of Conservatism"," (with Yuval Levin, Bob Woodson, Jimmy Kemp), Bradley Forum-Hudson Institute, Washington, November 27, 2012.
    In this Bradley Forum on Civil Society and the Future of Conservatism, I presented populism, growing from the New Deal movements, the Black Freedom Struggle, community organizing, and current democratizing change in higher education and professional systems, as the alternative to technocratic progressive politics and Burkean conservatism.
  • "Shaping Our Future," (with Undersecretary Martha Kanter, Nancy Canter, Muriel Howard), Press Conference National Press Club, Washington, September 4, 2012.
    I gave the introductory talk at a national press conference on the public purposes of higher education, launching the national dialogues organized by the American Commonwealth Partnership and the National Issues Forums. Other participants included Undersecretary of Education Martha Kanter, Muriel Howard, Presidents of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Syracuse University, Kaylesh Ramu, President of the Student Government Association at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and several others.
  • "The American Commonwealth Partnership," White House Convening on Civic Education with the Office of Public Engagement and Department of Education, January 10, 2012.
  • "Sobering Up – The New Politics and the Transformation of American Democracy," University of Iowa, November 12, 2010.