Democracy, Demography, and Social Movements in the Northwestern United States

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

Social scientists have struggled with understanding how societies navigate transitions from a single-dominant ethnic group to a multiracial democracy. The United States provides an opportunity for improving our understanding this larger phenomenon, as current racial minorities are projected to become a majority of the population by 2042. Sustainable democracies depend on civic participation and community engagement. This research explores what variables contribute to the perceived vitality and effectiveness of civic participation. The project contributes to undergraduate and graduate student training in science and the research findings are being made accessible to a larger audience through non-academic channels, thereby improving the public’s understanding of science and the scientific method. Through interviews and participant observation, this project investigates a forty-year history of community-based social movements in the northwestern United States to analyze and generalize what resources and networks are marshaled by advocates of multi-racial democracy to promote civic engagement and support. Methods include interviews, participant observation among democracy advocates, and the textual analysis of archival data across rural and urban sites in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. Through a multi-sited investigation of urban, rural, and small-town contexts, along with integrating data from different time scales, it asks what contributes to variability in demographic change and the sustainability of democracy. The research improves social scientific understanding of the drivers of civic participation, and the contributions that it makes to ensuring sustainable democracy. This project also explores what role religion plays in these movements. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.