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Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is t

Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.

scott_s 11y ago
Any chance you have a single-spaced copy?
akouts 11y ago
Amazing paper. Thanks so much for contributing this work. I work in civic tech and am very focused on trying to improve the gov system we have through technology. Are there any representatives you have seen recently that are doing a particularly good job gauging the pulse of their constituents? AND/OR is there an ideal scenario you have imagined that is left out of the paper? As an aside, as someone who has started one company in the space of citizen engagement and been in product exec roles at two others, I wonder whether or not rep engagement with constituents is a problem that can be solved with technology or if it is cultural in nature and requires more individual leadership to right the ship. I have met with a large number of reps from city, state and federal levels in order to build an understanding of the strategic problems that are top of mind for them. I have found (generally) that much more effort is paid in "dealing" with inbound messages and heading off harsh judgement in the court of public opinion than procuring good data. TL;DR tech is important but far from a panacea and something reps don't really think about.
- dbroockman 11y ago
  There's two assumptions many in the civic tech space seem to share that I don't think are so obvious (not that I think they are wrong, just that I think they're not obvious): A1: The world would be better if politicians paid more attention to public opinion or knew more about it. I don't think this is so clear. Citizens support many policies not in their interest, don't know everything that experts do, etc. Most democracies reflect a tradeoff between popular control on the one hand and expert judgment / elite control on the other. I don't think either extreme is the best, and don't know where we are on that continuum relative to the ideal. But for what it's worth, my sense is that citizens actually understand this to some extent and ofter defer to legislators' judgments: http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legislator_experiments_2014.pdf http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legisla... A2: In order to increase citizen engagement, we should focus on lowering the cost of acquiring information about politics, the cost of participation, or the cost of providing information to representatives. I think this misses the real challenge: increasing people's motivation to participate and the benefits to participation. It's never been easier to participate in myriad ways -- the cost is epsilon. But if people see the benefits as zero, which many seem to, they still won't engage. I don't think the cost side of the equation is where the action is.
  - vinhboy 11y ago
    I would add to A2 - Decrease the benefit of being a politician. So even if the populace is apathetic, at least they can't be taken advantaged of.
roymurdock 11y ago
I think it would be fascinating to look at the dynamic of how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today. Personally I don't know too many people who believe in the system/even care enough to show up to public meetings, write their representatives, or even vote for that matter. Have these dynamics have changed over the years? Is your research group working on anything in this vein?
- hackuser 11y ago
  > how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today Interesting. Is government, by which I assume you mean elected officials, really aging?
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    There appears to be some reason to think so, although this article 100% up to date: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/01/average_age_of_members_of_u_s_congress_are_our_senators_and_representatives.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
- PebblesHD 11y ago
  As one of those new fangled 'young people' I'd like to chime in here and say the problem lies with the reverse. Politicians are not too enthusiastic about engaging with young people, be it due to our more progressive stance on social issues, generally better understanding of the technologies they find so frightening, or just because most politicians are lying, cheating, manipulative people who took advantage of a good system then ruined it for future generations. I can only speak of Australian politics but in my case I've had representatives refuse meetings, not write back or totally ignore the sentiments of the younger population in favour of maintaining their existing support base. Its rather annoying.
hackuser 11y ago
Thanks for the paper, and for answering questions. There are a couple of hypotheses I wonder about: 1) Politicians don't care about constituent's current opinions, but about their future response to actions the politican might undertake. For example, recent articles indicate widespread support in the U.S. for gun control, but a politician might anticipate: If I support a gun control measure then the NRA will run ads in my district; that will change many opinions [1], spread other negative stories about me, and galvanize my opponents both in public discussion and when getting voters to the polls. 2) The large differences between different subgroups explain the difference: All constituents, all voters, primary voters, and the few who vote in state legislative elections. (I challenge HN readers to name your state representatives without looking them up.) If these issues are covered in the paper, I apologize; I read what I could now and searched the paper for related terms, but won't have time to finish reading until much later. ---- [1] I don't know that ads have this effect. My impression is that most people's opinions are weakly held and that they follow the herd on most issues (whichever herd they feel they belong to).
- dbroockman 11y ago
  Here are some guesses. On (1), the mental model I have is more like an understanding of who the super-intense supporters are. 90% of people might say they support background checks for gun purchases, but it's the 10% who support it who are voting on the basis of that issue, in part due to organizations like the NRA. I think our findings are consistent with that, in the sense that politicians seem to believe they don't need to learn what public opinion is in order to get re-elected; they can focus on other forms of information-gathering. On (2), I suspect there is something there, but it's hard to make sense of Democrats from that angle, as Democratic primary voters, for example, are more liberal than the average person, yet Democratic politicians don't seem to see their districts as more liberal than they are. My guess is the key group is something more like "the people who choose to write in and go to meetings."
  - hackuser 11y ago
    I wonder if any state legislature has ever received the votes of more than a tiny minority. Thanks for your insights, and for taking the time to answer!

scott_s 11y ago

Any chance you have a single-spaced copy?

akouts 11y ago

Amazing paper. Thanks so much for contributing this work. I work in civic tech and am very focused on trying to improve the gov system we have through technology. Are there any representatives you have seen recently that are doing a particularly good job gauging the pulse of their constituents? AND/OR is there an ideal scenario you have imagined that is left out of the paper? As an aside, as someone who has started one company in the space of citizen engagement and been in product exec roles at two others, I wonder whether or not rep engagement with constituents is a problem that can be solved with technology or if it is cultural in nature and requires more individual leadership to right the ship. I have met with a large number of reps from city, state and federal levels in order to build an understanding of the strategic problems that are top of mind for them. I have found (generally) that much more effort is paid in "dealing" with inbound messages and heading off harsh judgement in the court of public opinion than procuring good data. TL;DR tech is important but far from a panacea and something reps don't really think about.

dbroockman 11y ago
There's two assumptions many in the civic tech space seem to share that I don't think are so obvious (not that I think they are wrong, just that I think they're not obvious): A1: The world would be better if politicians paid more attention to public opinion or knew more about it. I don't think this is so clear. Citizens support many policies not in their interest, don't know everything that experts do, etc. Most democracies reflect a tradeoff between popular control on the one hand and expert judgment / elite control on the other. I don't think either extreme is the best, and don't know where we are on that continuum relative to the ideal. But for what it's worth, my sense is that citizens actually understand this to some extent and ofter defer to legislators' judgments: http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legislator_experiments_2014.pdf http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legisla... A2: In order to increase citizen engagement, we should focus on lowering the cost of acquiring information about politics, the cost of participation, or the cost of providing information to representatives. I think this misses the real challenge: increasing people's motivation to participate and the benefits to participation. It's never been easier to participate in myriad ways -- the cost is epsilon. But if people see the benefits as zero, which many seem to, they still won't engage. I don't think the cost side of the equation is where the action is.
- vinhboy 11y ago
  I would add to A2 - Decrease the benefit of being a politician. So even if the populace is apathetic, at least they can't be taken advantaged of.

roymurdock 11y ago

I think it would be fascinating to look at the dynamic of how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today. Personally I don't know too many people who believe in the system/even care enough to show up to public meetings, write their representatives, or even vote for that matter. Have these dynamics have changed over the years? Is your research group working on anything in this vein?

hackuser 11y ago
> how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today Interesting. Is government, by which I assume you mean elected officials, really aging?
- mindcrime 11y ago
  There appears to be some reason to think so, although this article 100% up to date: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/01/average_age_of_members_of_u_s_congress_are_our_senators_and_representatives.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
PebblesHD 11y ago
As one of those new fangled 'young people' I'd like to chime in here and say the problem lies with the reverse. Politicians are not too enthusiastic about engaging with young people, be it due to our more progressive stance on social issues, generally better understanding of the technologies they find so frightening, or just because most politicians are lying, cheating, manipulative people who took advantage of a good system then ruined it for future generations. I can only speak of Australian politics but in my case I've had representatives refuse meetings, not write back or totally ignore the sentiments of the younger population in favour of maintaining their existing support base. Its rather annoying.

hackuser 11y ago

Thanks for the paper, and for answering questions. There are a couple of hypotheses I wonder about: 1) Politicians don't care about constituent's current opinions, but about their future response to actions the politican might undertake. For example, recent articles indicate widespread support in the U.S. for gun control, but a politician might anticipate: If I support a gun control measure then the NRA will run ads in my district; that will change many opinions [1], spread other negative stories about me, and galvanize my opponents both in public discussion and when getting voters to the polls. 2) The large differences between different subgroups explain the difference: All constituents, all voters, primary voters, and the few who vote in state legislative elections. (I challenge HN readers to name your state representatives without looking them up.) If these issues are covered in the paper, I apologize; I read what I could now and searched the paper for related terms, but won't have time to finish reading until much later. ---- [1] I don't know that ads have this effect. My impression is that most people's opinions are weakly held and that they follow the herd on most issues (whichever herd they feel they belong to).

dbroockman 11y ago
Here are some guesses. On (1), the mental model I have is more like an understanding of who the super-intense supporters are. 90% of people might say they support background checks for gun purchases, but it's the 10% who support it who are voting on the basis of that issue, in part due to organizations like the NRA. I think our findings are consistent with that, in the sense that politicians seem to believe they don't need to learn what public opinion is in order to get re-elected; they can focus on other forms of information-gathering. On (2), I suspect there is something there, but it's hard to make sense of Democrats from that angle, as Democratic primary voters, for example, are more liberal than the average person, yet Democratic politicians don't seem to see their districts as more liberal than they are. My guess is the key group is something more like "the people who choose to write in and go to meetings."
- hackuser 11y ago
  I wonder if any state legislature has ever received the votes of more than a tiny minority. Thanks for your insights, and for taking the time to answer!