Dean Caivano discusses complexities of American democracy

Dean Caivano, an assistant professor of political science at Lehigh, asks his students the same question at the beginning of each semester: Here in the United States, do you live in a democracy, or is it hypocrisy? 

Caivano has been teaching at the university level for over 10 years and said from more than 6000 students he’s taught, there’s been an overwhelmingly uniform response. 

“95% of university students studying political science (and) other social sciences think the society that they live in is not a democracy, but it’s a very twisted form of democracy,” he said. 

He said he poses this question to allow students to incorporate their perspectives, views, lived experiences, knowledge of history and political values into a conversation about the complexities of democracy. 

Caivano hosted a discussion titled “American Democracy or Hypocrisy? Developing New Strategies to Enact Real Change” on Nov. 5 in the Business Innovation Building to provoke conversation and inform students and other individuals in the United States about what they can do to address contradictions to American democracy. 

Lehigh political science professor Nandini Deo, who gave a talk on Youth Engagement after the event, said she attended Caivano’s discussion because she was curious about the presentation. She was surprised by the statistic he opened his presentation with and said her initial thoughts were that we live in a democracy. 

Deo said she now agrees with Caivano that hypocrisy is ingrained in American politics.

Caivano said the statistic reveals the shared desire for living in a truly democratic society, and it points to the idea that the system in which we live is unfinished. 

“Because of its incompleteness, it requires restoration (and) maybe rehabilitation,” Caivano said. “Most importantly, it requires engagement. It requires we, the people, to actively participate and to shape and reshape, animate, twist toward the type of society and the type of communities that we want to be a part of.”

Now, instead of thinking of this idea as a binary between what we are, — democracy or hypocrisy — he said he encourages people to look at these two terms as being interrelated. When we recognize the hypocrisy within the framework of democracy, we can work to create a new type of community.

Though he said the nearly unanimous response he’s received from students — is that they feel their voice doesn’t matter or they don’t have the ability to shape, craft or nurture the type of community they want — might be viewed as worrisome, he said it can also be seen in a positive light.

For one thing, he said, we can think about the radical change in curriculum throughout grade school and in post-secondary education over the past few decades. 

“Fields such as ethnic studies, critical race theory, feminist studies, women gender studies, perhaps (are) providing opportunities for students to have a more critical, more nuanced historical analysis of the origins and the foundations of America,” Caivano said. “So to me, what’s happening in universities is productive.”

Deo said she appreciates that people are questioning democracy. 

“I thought that was (a) really provocative idea that what has happened in universities and in schools over the past 40 years is part of why people are questioning our democracy and our politics,” Deo said. “I like to think that’s true.”

As a scholar of democratic theory, Caivano said it’s impactful to draw comparisons between ancient democracy — specifically in the fifth century BCE in Athens — and modern democracy. 

He said ancient Athenians supported direct participation, meaning citizens directly shaped the laws and decisions that defined the community, and there was an emphasis on direct participation in decision-making. They also focused on “isotomy” — which means equal in law — and with this principle, the law applied equally to anyone counted as a citizen. 

He said this exhibits a contradiction between “rule by the people,” and “rule by all,” because some are excluded from the circle of decision-making power. 

“Exclusions are built into the foundation of democracy,” Caivano said. “It does not mean that all participate. It means all that carry the legal status of citizenship participate.”

In ancient Athens, not everyone was granted the title of “citizen.” He said 10% of the population were seen and treated as citizens and had a direct voice in the political process. Women, enslaved populations, immigrants and others were excluded from the realm of political participation. 

Caivano said life was fundamentally different for those who carried the mark of citizenship. 

And in the U.S., not all citizens are granted the same rights to participate in modern democracy. 

Exclusions of groups such as incarcerated individuals, stateless persons, those under 18 years old and residents of DC and Puerto Rico highlight this hypocrisy in modern democracy, he said, while other groups without citizenship further the idea that not everyone is given a voice in the democratic process. 

“These exclusions are also reinforced and supported by systemic discrimination, by (the) history of white supremacy, by an idea of settler colonialism,” Caivano said. “They manifest in various ways through different voter suppressions, ID regulations (and) having one voting station in close proximity. These are various forms that lower the bar and make it more difficult for individuals who are actually seen as citizens to participate in the process.” 

Jordan Knox, ‘28, is a member of Lehigh’s Student Senate. She said she chose to help out with and attend the event because she thinks the topic is important and agrees with the 95% of students who said Americans live in a hypocrisy. 

“I aligned with that idea even more than I originally thought as (Caivano) was explaining the parts of like, the exclusionary aspects of democracy,” Knox said.

Caivano said today political roles in the U.S. have shifted to professional positions, and with such, individual responsibility or power to voice opinions are instead put in the hands of elected officials. 

“That shifts from direct participation…to offloading that right, that responsibility, that power, that authority, to someone else — someone to speak on your behalf (and) to do the task of governance,” Caivano said. 

In Greek hypokrisis means acting on stage, and in a modern context, Caivano said hypocrisy can be understood as the act of pretending to have beliefs virtues or moral standards that one doesn’t possess or follow.

“If we take these two definitions of hypocrisy…what we see is that the history of American democracy is a history of hypocrisy,” he said. “It’s a history rife with contradictions.”

He referenced an 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass titled What to the slave is the Fourth of July. As Douglass said “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice. I must mourn,” Caivano said this was done in direct reference to the nearly four million individuals held in bondage at the time of his speech, which serves as a “powerful reminder of those inherent contradictions.”

Caivano then referenced a speech delivered by Malcolm X in 1964 titled The Ballot or the Bullet, in which the idea of democracy versus hypocrisy is discussed. 

“We’re confronted, very importantly, with the choice, the dichotomy, the tensions of living in a system that celebrates democratic participation, that claims to have equal opportunity and access, but is in fact wrought with limitations,” Caivano said. 

He said this is likely why so many students don’t feel that they live in a democracy, and civic engagement and democratic participation requires individuals to confront these contradictions instead of avoiding them. 

However, Caivano said these speeches highlight the idea that there’s an “incompleteness” in the U.S., with which comes potential. 

“We see the symbiotic nature of hypocrisy and democracy because in its very form, democracy does not obliterate exclusions,” he said. “It legalizes them. It methologizes them. It celebrates them. It’s from this space and it’s always from this space when real transformative change takes place.” 

He said one way to implement real change is through maintenance of the status quo, and he suggests that people exhaust the channels and mechanisms of political engagement and participation that are currently available.

He said this can be done by taking on classes that draw attention to systemic inequities, invite students to rethink the power of democracy and challenge the way individuals have configured their lives. He also said individuals in the U.S. should challenge those in office. 

“Our job is not over today because we have put a sticker on,” Caivano said. “Democracy is an incomplete process that requires us to be vigilant, to be active, even if we are not the ones directly making the decision.”

He also said thinking beyond what is currently provided can enact further change and one of his strategies for doing so is to create. 

He said students shouldn’t wait for others to address issues or things they want changed. They should find others who are passionate about the same issues and work with them to create a group to address the problem. 

“Once you’ve developed this new association, this new student club, this new political party, start thinking about scales,” Caivano said. “Start thinking about the areas in which your issue intersects, start to focus on how your resources and your attention can be best applied.”

He emphasized horizontal decision-making — encouraging members to share in the process and have an active voice — and said communicating directly with people is important to success. 

“I want to invite you (to see) democracy and hypocrisy together (and) think about what is possible,” Caivano said. “Redefine what is possible when you’re engaging with other individual strategies. Don’t be confined to what those that are already in power tell you is feasible.”

Knox is on the Student Senate outreach committee and said she wants to get involved with more political groups on campus and talk to more people about issues in her local community. 

“I do think it’s so important, like Professor Caivano was saying, to engage in things outside of just voting, and to learn more about what we can do as citizens,” she said. 

She said Caivano did a good job outlining the importance of active participation and giving attendees ideas of what they can do. I thought his topic was a really great basis, so that. I thought he did a great job outlining the importance and then giving us ideas of what we could do.

Just as he opened the discussion with a question, Caivano left attendees with something to ponder: What will you do to make changes? What are some strategies or techniques or ideas? What are some alliances that you can form? What are some groups that you can link up with? What are some ways that you can reimagine what civic engagement looks like beyond casting a vote?