Styles of Active Citizenship
While Chapters 4 and 5 demonstrate a correspondence between Interfaith's and the Patriots’ styles of active citizenship and their respective democratic imaginaries, Chapter 6 specifies a key mechanism through which each group’s way of imagining what it means to be an active citizen influenced how they actually practiced active citizenship. Close attention is paid to moments of disagreement and conflict within each group: over whether to be civil or confrontational in interactions with public officials; whether to pursue self-interest or the common good; whether to speak with a collective voice or as individuals; and whether to attempt to replace or persuadeelected officials who did not represent the groups’ interests. In each case, the choices both groups’ made were shaped by conscious considerations of what kinds of actions were most appropriate for “groups like them,” in light of their ideal visions of how citizens in a diverse democracy should interact with one another and with government, under God’s watchful gaze. As the groups embraced practices that felt appropriate and rejected others that seemed inappropriate, they were channeled toward different group styles of active citizenship.