Engaging theory, engaging citizens: An exploration of the relationships among civic participation, national service, and rhetoric

The state of American civic engagement garners considerable attention among academics and social observers. The most popular refrain is that Americans are more interested in pursuing private interests than contributing to the common good. Ways to entice people to civic arenas tend to focus on creating social structures that appeal to a wide variety of people. Moreover, most theorists fail to consider the power of discourse in revitalizing citizens' interests in public work. Through qualitative and qualitative analyses of the discourse of political leaders, government agencies, and national service participants (specifically AmeriCorps*VISTA members), this project seeks to correct this oversight.; Chapter One reviews general civil society literature. I argue that in framing civil society as space, most civil society theorists fail to capture civic life's rhetorical nature. Chapter Two presents a history of government-sponsored service initiatives and their relationships to civic participation, concluding that past attempts to build sustainable national service programs have been hampered by political leaders' failure to link national service to civic engagement. Chapter Three reviews literature concerning the relationship between civil society and rhetoric. I argue that civil society theorists tend to undertheorize or overtheorize communication, claiming participation is needed to create or to sustain civil society without adequately addressing the various ways active citizens' rhetorical constructions of participation guide their public actions.; Chapter Four presents analyses of the Corporation for National and Community Service's campaign literature and AmeriCorps*VISTA members' articulations of their motives for civic participation through national service. Using data gathered from Q-sorts and interviews, I juxtapose national service participants' discursive constructions of motives for civic engagement with the Corporation's official rhetoric. While the Corporation's rhetoric has increasingly framed national service participants as Compassionate Servants, participants frame themselves as Altruists, Social Workers, Good Neighbors, Testers, Adventurers, and Advocates. In Chapter Five, I continue my analysis of AmeriCorps*VISTA members' discourse, focusing on the civic languages they use. I address what these languages reveal concerning varying ways to construct benefits and challenges of public life and to argue for increased civic engagement. The final chapter presents implications of this study and offers suggestions for further research.