Associate Professor of Government Sean Westwood brought 10 undergraduates to engage with leaders from across the political spectrum in Washington, D.C., last month. The goal for the students participating in Democracy Fellows: to better understand the day-to-day work of supporting democratic norms and strong institutions during a time of hyperpartisanship.
“I want to introduce students to the idea that supporting and working for democracy is something that’s happening on both sides of the aisle and something that is a career path,” says Westwood, who established the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth, which explores, through massive surveys and analysis of what our elected officials say, the effects of hyperpartisanship on democratic institutions in America today.
The D.C. trip in June was a pilot program for the lab’s Democracy Fellows. Westwood is hoping to secure support to make the program permanent.
“I tried to take the students to meet with very provocative groups,” Westwood says. “I wanted students to humanize those who have opposing views. They had conversations that showed that people with very different political opinions can be thoughtful and principled, motivated, and intelligent.”
Among the people the Democracy Fellows met with were John Keller, former acting chief of the Public Integrity Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. Keller spoke about his career path and his decision to resign earlier this year when ordered to drop federal corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
The group also met with Nan Swift, a research fellow at the free-market think tank R Street, who spoke about work on budget reform from inside and outside Congress, and about her past experience helping to organize the Tea Party movement.
Ronnie London, general counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, aka FIRE, told the visitors about his 25 years litigating on the First Amendment rights of people from all sides of the political spectrum.
From the media, the students met with Jake Tapper ’91, news anchor at CNN and a Dartmouth trustee, and Johanna Vogt, associate producer at Fox News @Night With Trace Gallagher.
Pari Sidana ’28 says she was drawn to the Democracy Fellows program through her belief in the importance of opening dialogue with a range of perspectives.
“Democracy Fellows showed us that there are adults in the political world who are having conversations with colleagues, friends that they disagree with, every single day because that’s part of their job,” Sidana says. “And part of their job is trying to figure out how they can keep our democracy intact by having these conversations and still pushing for their ideals, but finding a way to strike that balance.”
Coston Autry ’28 says there is a natural tendency for people to gravitate to ideas and arguments that fit preconceived notions, with social media algorithms compounding this problem. The opportunity to hear from people with different political outlooks made it clear that most people engaged in the public policy arena are motivated by a desire to improve their community and country, not tear it down.
“Breaking through that divide and actually seeing someone as an American and not necessarily as an ideologue, helps make the process of negotiation or discussion about issues much more productive,” he says. “Because you’re looking at where you have shared motivations when approaching issues. That serves as a more effective bridging point towards actually drafting solutions and enacting those solutions rather than simply engaging in divisive dialogue.”
And both Sidana and Autry say they felt the trip opened up discussions among the student fellows who came to the trip with a range of perspectives.
“I made several friends, and we discussed a lot of pertinent issues based on the experiences we had during the trip. It actually sparked dialogue and encouraged conversation on issues that we might not have talked about otherwise,” Autry says.
Westwood says he sees a lot of concern for the state of democracy among his students today. His hope is that projects like the Democracy Fellows will encourage students to commit themselves to the hard work of building and maintaining democratic institutions and processes.
“Our democracy is under extreme strain, but it will recover, and we need our students to understand that it is worthwhile to invest their time in protecting democratic institutions, and that they can make a difference in public service,” Westwood says.
“There is a future for American democracy that we should be working to preserve. It’s not gone.”