Campaigns, Careerism, and Constituencies

Abstract

In this article we examine the claim that certain characteristics of a community's political environment and specific attributes of a citizen's social context may stimulate participation in local economic development policy-making. Using data from a national survey of city council members, we find that several contextual and institutional factors affect the extent of citizen contacting regarding economic development policy. In particular, the diversity of campaign support received by council members and the amount of time that they devote to council duties tend to stimulate citizen contacts. Ward or district representation tends to increase contacting, ceteris paribus, but contacting of ward representatives tends to diminish as they serve more years on the city council.