Can Partisanship Save Citizenship?  Public intellectuals don't
agree on much. However, in recent years they seemed to nearly
unanimously believe that American public life was in terrible
shape. Political scientists debated whether voter turnout in
national elections was merely stagnant or was actively
declining. Sociologists suggested that television, overwork, and
a breakdown in communal ties were undermining participation in
both public and social life. There was chronic hand-wringing
about the state of political debate, with civic activists
proposing that America needed more deliberative dialogue among
people with different points of view.  These worries blossomed
in the 1990s and continued to grow in the Bush years but now
seem badly off target. Voter turnout in 2004 and 2008 was higher
than it has been since the 1960s. The Obama campaign mobilized
unprecedented numbers of volunteers. A thriving, if contentious
public sphere has emerged on the Internet. Young people who a
decade ago were volunteering in d