Timeline for Empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of writing to your representatives
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
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| S Nov 8, 2022 at 16:38 | history | suggested | whoisit | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 8, 2022 at 16:33 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Nov 8, 2022 at 16:38 | |||||
| Dec 6, 2021 at 16:23 | vote | accept | William Walker III | ||
| Oct 1, 2021 at 0:26 | history | edited | Rick Smith |
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| S Apr 30, 2021 at 16:05 | history | bounty ended | CommunityBot | ||
| S Apr 30, 2021 at 16:05 | history | notice removed | CommunityBot | ||
| Apr 24, 2021 at 16:54 | answer | added | Nate | timeline score: 19 | |
| S Apr 22, 2021 at 14:17 | history | bounty started | William Walker III | ||
| S Apr 22, 2021 at 14:17 | history | notice added | William Walker III | Authoritative reference needed | |
| Apr 17, 2021 at 2:21 | comment | added | William Walker III | @dandavis There's a variety of ways to get at this information without asking the legislators, though it's all got validity issues of course. Consider Butler & Nickerson (2011 - DOI 10.1561/100.00011019) where they did a partially controlled experiment on exposing legislators to polling data. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 20:04 | comment | added | dandavis | Direct communication is also most effective in bulk; one letter won't change anything, but when they get sacks and sacks of letters 90% saying the same thing, they often respond and sometimes flip. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 20:01 | comment | added | dandavis | how would this data even be collected? Reps don't like to cop to changing stated positions ("flip flopping") and anything else seems "ineffective" by your definition. Plus, bills get morphed along the way, so even if one changed their mind after getting a letter/email, it could be chalked up to being because the bill's evolution receded it's cost, or covered more areas, etc. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 18:03 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackPolitics/status/1383118774413504517 | ||
| Apr 15, 2021 at 1:42 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Apr 14, 2021 at 21:07 | answer | added | John Dallman | timeline score: 25 | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 20:37 | comment | added | William Walker III | @divibisan Worldwide is fine, but it will need to be a representative democracy. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 20:23 | comment | added | SJuan76 |
legislators confronted with constituents who hold different positions than their own tend to assume those constituents are ill-informed (to be polite). IOW, politicians are human. And not average humans, but they have some ego driving to their positions, and elected politicians have that feeling reinforced by having won an election (specially in single seat constituencies). And that is without taking into account political realities and games. A single constituent contacting a legislator has way less influence in changing a legislator POV than the POV of someone he just met at a bar.
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| Apr 14, 2021 at 19:54 | comment | added | divibisan | Also, is this US specific, or are you looking for examples worldwide? | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 18:08 | comment | added | William Walker III | You may end up being right, @TedWrigley. But I've been surprised at what studies have existed on other subjects, such as the measurable impact of voting in main elections on subsequent policy outcomes or how state legislatures' behaviors differ based on whether or not polling data is shared with them. The quality of these natural experiments may be debatable but in the absence of perfect information, I'm interested in seeing what the landscape of available information is - hence 'evidence' instead of 'proof.' Eventually I'll just explore the literature myself, but I need to find it first. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 17:53 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | I'm not certain you're going to find this kind of data, on methodological problems. To get at the question you're asking, you'd have to (a) ask political representatives themselves, or (b) study the administrative flow within political offices to see if and how such messages are read, compiled, summarized, and ultimately presented to the political rep. The former is problematic, since reps have a vested interest in appearing to be attentive, regardless of the facts; the latter could be operationalized well, but is unlikely to be agreed to by reps (for privacy reasons). | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 17:44 | history | edited | Rick Smith |
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| Apr 14, 2021 at 17:40 | history | asked | William Walker III | CC BY-SA 4.0 |