Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine
Engineer: Amy Browne
Distrust in Government: A Necessary Evil or a Weapon of Destruction?
Key Discussion Points:
a) the waxing and waning of Americans’ trust in government
b) why a little skepticism may be a good thing
c) how partisanship plays into the equation
d) how too much distrust may be a self-fulfilling prophecy
Guests:
Amy Fried, Professor & Department Chair, Political Science, University of Maine https://umaine.edu/polisci/faculty-and-staff/amy-fried/
Thomas E. Mann, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and Resident Scholar, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley https://www.brookings.edu/experts/thomas-e-mann/
To learn more about this topic:
– Public Trust in Government: 1958-2017, Pew Research Center, December, 2017.
– The Strategic Promotion of Distrust in Government in the Tea Party Age, Amy Fried, 2015.
– Finding the Common Good in an Era of Dysfunctional Governance Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Daedelus, Spring 2013.
– A More Perfect Union, New York Times book review of Garry Willis’s book, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, 1999.
The all-volunteer team at the League of Women Voters – Downeast who plan and coordinate this series includes:
Starr Gilmartin
Maggie Harling
Linda Hoskins
Sheila Kirby
Ann Luther
Maryann Ogonowski
Pam Person
Leah Taylor
Linda Washburn
FMI re League of Women Voters of Maine: www.lwvme.org