Democratic Prudence: The Philosophical and Empirical Grounding of Citizen Competence

While the political competence of ordinary citizens is usually assessed through one-time measurements of their epistemic or moral judgment, this study contributes a new way of thinking about political competence as context- and experience-based. We theorize citizen competence from a grounded perspective, based on an 18-month ethnographic study of ordinary citizens who held two-year positions on school community councils. We find that when given ongoing decision-making power in a public institution, ordinary citizens often exhibit a form of political competence, including abilities to perceive complex political dynamics, adapt to the interests of others, and coordinate with fellow citizens. Given these findings, our purpose is twofold: First, to theoretically reconstruct this competence as a form of political prudence democratically inflected by the lived experience of ordinary citizens. Second, to demonstrate empirically how citizens enact democratic prudence in the everyday practice of a local governing institution.