Answers to Questions about Agre, p. 201, pp. 211-214

Agre, p. 201, pp. 211-214p. 211

1. What is the central problem for citizens in democracies?
The centaral problem that the citizens faces is how to participate meaningfully in a society of hundreds of millions, that is how the citizens can communicate and tell their messages to the millions of people.

2. What skills do citizens need?
They need skills for building social capital and participating in the collective production and circulation of political arguements.

3. What term does the author use to describe the process citizens use to promote their concerns about an issue?
"An Issue Lattice" (p.212 l.18)

4. What steps are the four steps in this process?p. 212-214 Write two of your own questions on the ideas and issues raised in this section. Lead a class discussion next session.

The process that citizens use to promote their concerns about an issue has four dimensions (steps).

The vertical dimension: Individuals who stake out a given issue on the national level will generally network with those who stake out the same issue on either the global or the regional level.

The geographic dimension: Individuals who stake out issue in a given geographic jurisdiction will generally network with their counterparts in other jurisdictions.

The Institutional dimension: Individuals who stake out a given issue within one institutional context will generally network with those who stake out the same issue in other institutions

TheIdeological dimension: Individuals who stake out ideologically related positions on different issues in similar institutional locations will generally network with on another

This four-dimensional lattice structure is the essence of civil society.

Write two of your own questions on the ideas and issues raised in this section. Lead a class discussion next session.

5. He states that "Above all, the issue lattice is sufficiently complex in its detailed workings that it will never emerge without high levels of political skills diffused throughout the society"(212).

What are high levels of political skills? At first, what are political skills? In addition, how are high levels of political skills spreaded? Is it really that the society spreads them?

6. Can be the ideas of Issue Entrepreneurship spreaded by his methods? How can people know about Issue Entrepreneurship and the methods of it for spreading? By Education? or By Self-effort? or By his introduced ideas (methods)? or All of them?


7. Based on the ideas and issues raised on these pages, what additions, deletions, or modifications suggest themselves to you in planning and implementing your Issue Entrepreneurship? Tell about your ideas.

Before reading this assignment, I did not know and concern about the effect of Issue Entrepreneurship to the democracy well. However, After reading this, I noticed the effectiveness of it and the method and key factors for spreading own messages. I will and also want to try to practice this method!