ABSTRACT
As mentioned in the Preface, the first edition of Government Is Us was published at the beginning of what we might call the third wave of citizen engagement in the United States. The founding fathers never intended a participatory citizenry beyond voting. They believed that the extended geographic scope and complexity of the new American state made direct participation by citizens unworkable. Furthermore, they were acutely aware of the potentially negative effects of citizen power, restricting citizen involvement to the selection of representatives who would, as James Madison said in The Federalist Papers, “refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interests of their country” (Madison in Cooke 1961, 62-63).
