We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
How accurate are delegate reports that easily lend themselves to an exaggeration of the delegates’ roles? The best candidate for a reliability check is a straightforward behavioral question on constituent contacting, which we asked of congress delegates and a probability sample of the ordinary mass public in a subsample of voting districts in twenty-three surveyed townships. We asked township congress delegates the first of the four questions below and villagers the three that follow:
Since you were elected this term as a delegate to this congress, about how many constituents have contacted you to report local problems? This includes written contact, spoken contact, telephone calls, and any other methods of reporting local problems. Response categories: none, 1−2 people, 3–5 people, 6−10 people, 11−20 people, more than 20 people
Have you or anyone in your household ever contacted an official to point out a problem in the locality, voice an opinion, or offer a suggestion? [If yes, follow up with the next two questions.]
When was the most recent time such a contact was made to point out a local problem, voice an opinion, or offer a suggestion?
Which official or officials did you or someone in your household contact?
To construct a constituent contacting measure from delegate responses, I transformed response categories into values with 0 and 30 as extreme values and midpoints for the middle four categories. I then computed yearly averages, taking into account the lapse of time between the beginning of the delegate's term and the survey. On average, in the twenty-six surveyed townships, township delegates with no concurrent congress seat report 9.8 such contacts per year (or 13.6 per thousand constituents). In the twenty-three townships in which we also conducted surveys of villagers, the average is 9.6 contacts per year.
Three percent of villagers surveyed report contacting an official. Of these, 72 percent report contacting a township congress delegate, and 24 percent report contacting a county congress delegate. Of the 63 percent who recall when the contact was made, 85 percent report it was the year of the survey or the year or two before it.
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this book to your organisation's collection.