Benjamin Trumble

PhD Candidate in Geography · University of Washington
Political-cultural geographer studying local democracy, trust, and civic life

My dissertation, "After Much Discussion": Participation, Trust, and Boredom in the New England Town Meeting, examines the institution of New England Town Meeting — a form of direct, participatory, deliberative, actually existing local democracy. Observers often expect to find contestation and disagreement, but my research indicates that the opposite is more likely — issues are largely decided through deliberation, consensus, and even disengaged apathy. I examine town meeting through a self-created longitudinal dataset of over 8,000 warrant articles (1956–2025) from over 200 meetings. In addition, I draw on ethnographic observation of 20 town meetings (2025–26), which I was able to observe through funded fieldwork. My dissertation asks us to reconsider low rates of participation not as failures of democracy, but as successes stemming from trust and boredom. A functioning local democracy can build schools, plow roads, found libraries, and deliver public goods and services to its residents — this is important, but boring — and ultimately, it might be the best we can do when it comes to collective decision making.