Philip Klinkner, the James S. Sherman Associate Professor of Government, was interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor about using the internet to coordinate "house parties" that invite grass-roots discussions on national policies. Klinkner said, "It's like a back-to-the-future kind of thing - it uses the cutting edge technology of the Internet, but the real power is to allow people to engage in this traditional, lost form of political organizing." Such parties understandably tend to attract people who are already politically active, Klinkner said, as well as people who think alike. Indeed, one of their purposes may well be a form of therapy. "It's a lot of telling personal stories. It remains to be seen to what extent [the parties] just amount to telling stories and what extent they motivate people to act," he said.
