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Sabato Central
by Jennifer Hunter
Founded this year by our own Larry Sabato, the University
of Virginia's Center for Govern-mental Studies is,
according to the CGS pamphlet, "dedicated to restoring the
health of our system of representative self-government." At
least seven projects are already in the works at the Center,
including the Campaign Accountability Project, designed to
uncover and publicize unethical campaign practices; the
Casual Voters Study, intended to study and combat voter
apathy; and National Youth Mock Elections, developed to
inspire and reduce the cynicism in today's youth. Numerous
other symposia and conferences have also been planned. I
recently spoke with Professor Sabato in order to learn a
little bit more about the Center, its background, and its
future.
JH: Where did you get the idea to create the Center for
Governmental Studies?
LS: I've been at the University of Virginia in one capacity
or another for 28 years, and I've been on the faculty for 20
years. During that time, the idea has been gradually forming
in my mind, and I am now 20 years from retirement. I'm
basically at mid-career. So, if I were ever to get this up
and running and in good shape before I move on to the great
beyond, now is the time. I had an academic leave coming,
this is my first one since 1982, so I decided instead of
doing what I've usually done with leaves, that is writing a
book, I would instead devote myself to getting the Center
off the ground.
Let me just capsule the reason for it. I've lived my
academic life in a little bit different way than many of my
colleagues have. That's not to criticize them, or suggest
that my way is better, it's just different. I have had one
foot in the practical world of government and politics and
one foot in academe. Over the years, what I have heard over
and over again from critics of universities in general, not
just ours in particular, is that the ivory tower does not
care about real people in real problems. That we speak
mainly to one another rather than to the broad citizenry
paying billions to support us. There is certainly an
element of truth to it, but I don't happen to believe that
that is even mainly true. But that is what people think,
and so I decided to combine the two pieces of my world and
to create a center that draws upon academic strengths and
research to produce practical results and that involves the
public in every one of its projects. How do we do that? We
do it through C-SPAN, CNN, PBS, public forums, and that's
what we're doing, and I think it's exciting. It's already
starting to develop and take off, and over the next 20
years we'll be able to make an enormous amount of progress.
JH: So there was no specific event that made you realize
the necessity of this center?
LS: This has really been a gradual process in my mind over
the years. It's something I've thought about a great deal,
and frankly, one state senator discussed it with me last
December. He indicated there might be a possibility of a
little bit of state funding to help us get off and get
started, and so I decided to pursue it given that opening
in the political universe.
JH: Is it modeled after any other center?
LS: No, it truly is unique, certainly here at the
university, and I think really around the country. There
are independent think tanks, not affiliated with
universities, that have similar ideas, though they're not
precisely the same. No university of which I'm aware has a
center precisely like this, and I really do believe it's
going to pay dividends for the university, for decades to
come.
JH: The center seems to have six main activities/ goals --
LS: Yes, so far, and we're already adding things. For
example, we just added a project to study the advantages
and disadvantages of the initiative process. We're calling
it the Initiative Project. You know, out in California, out
in the west, it is common to have initiatives about
controversial subjects. The populist aspect of the
initiative process appeals to lots of people, but they
don't think it through. And we're going to think it
through, because there are loads of drawbacks to this
process. So again, we're going to have a C-SPAN conference
on it, we are going to commission academic papers on it,
and we've been able to get some financial support for the
project. I'm committed to it, and I'm going to spend what
it takes to do a first class job on each and every project
that we undertake.
JH: Which of the activities do you think is the most
relevant and important today?
LS: I like them all, and I want to do them all, but if I
had to choose one ... in terms of long-term impact, the
voters study could have the greatest effect on our society
because we have developed a non-participatory political
system. We have fallen from nearly 62% of adult Americans
in 1960 participating in the presidential election to about
49% participating in 1996. Now, I don't believe the United
States will ever be where the European countries have been
and are --they're at 75 and 80% participation in many
elections. But I do believe that we can get back up to 60%
-- I really do believe it's possible if we work hard at it.
This study is designed through a series of public opinion
polls and focus groups to identify practical ways to turn
on the intermittent voters. These are the people who vote
every third or fourth or fifth election, so they obviously
care enough to have registered, they care enough to vote
occasionally. There must be ways to turn them on to
politics so that they vote if not every election, then
every other election. I want to turn up the participation
rate at least among those who have shown some interest. I'm
not foolish enough to believe that we're going to go into
pockets of America with no political interest at all and
have those people passing out "Politics is a Good Thing"
stickers. It's not going to happen, not in my lifetime.
JH: One of the Center's goals is to clean up American
politics by "identifying and publicizing illegal and
unethical campaign practices." Logistically, how will this
occur?
LS: Our project director for that, Charles Woodcock, is in
this field, understands it well, and was my chief research
assistant for my book Dirty Little Secrets, which came out
in 1996. The book focused on these subjects: on voter
fraud, push polling, dirty tricks, everything from internet
tampering to pulling down the signs of your opponents,
electronic eavesdropping to spies planted in campaigns.
Every campaign season, some of that is revealed, and we
want to be a part of that, we want to get the word out to
voters and to the press. We are working on it now -- we're
going to do a post-election study this year, and eventually
I want that to be operating during the campaign season
itself.
JH: How does the Center plan to ensure citizen involvement?
LS: In the media age, the most important way we can reach
people is through the media. How do you get media coverage?
Partly it's through familiarity -- if they know you, and you
do them favors and they owe you favors, it's just like
politics -- it helps. Secondly, you have to put together a
compelling event with interesting people about a topic that
matters. So, I am trying to select these topics with great
care in order to fill each of those requirements.
JH: Is the Center finished? Does it have a home yet?
LS: Yes, we have a home now. We have offices over at the
Dynamics building on Ivy Road right down from Foods of All
Nations. We already have our offices up and running.
JH: How do you see the Center affecting the general student
population here at U.Va.?
LS: We are right now starting to put together a student
advisory board because we want students who are interested
to be involved in each of these projects, we want them to
learn from them. This is, in my view, a supplementary
education, beyond the academic. But I am hoping that some
will gain enough information about a subject to write it in
a paper for one of their classes. We're offering this to a
wide variety of students right now -- people who are
involved in politics. I know many who have expressed
interest: people from Young Democrats and College
Republicans, as well as some independents who don't
identify with either party. We are going to get the
government honors students -- the ones who want to be
involved will be involved, and we're also talking to the
Jefferson scholars in November about making it possible for
those who are interested in their group to get involved. If
somebody has a strong interest in it, we're going to make
room for them.
If you want to get involved, contact Alex Theodoridis at
243-UGOV.
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