Page 118 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Postbureaucratic Political Organization
Paul Johnson provides empirical support for this curve, showing that in
a sample of fifty groups, the extent of direct mail activity was a function of
size, and that among small groups, such activity dropped off altogether.
About 56 percent of groups with fewer than 5,000 members undertake
no collective action at all, compared with only 14 percent of those groups
with 100,000 members or more. 23
The evolution toward information abundance should affect this curve
by reducing the threshold effect and, in some cases, reducing the overall
resources required for a particular level of collective effort. One estimate
provided to the author by a political consultant is that an organizing
effort targeted at 100,000 citizens and costing $25,000 to $75,000 using
direct mail could be undertaken for $4,000 to $5,000 using electronic
mail instead. So, as information grows more abundant and communi-
cation costs fall, collective action can more readily be initiated by actors
with more modest access to material resources. In principle, collective
efforts might even be self-organizing under conditions of information
abundance. This implies increased opportunities for collective action by
organization-poor or even organization-less groups.
In the area of political campaigning, information abundance suggests
that candidates with fewer traditional resources might better be able to
undertakesomeofthecostly,information-intensiveaspectsof campaign-
oriented collective action, such as identifying volunteers and donors.
On the other hand, broadcast campaign advertising should be affected
littlebyinformationabundance,sinceadvertisingisaninformation-poor
activity. In general, the more dominant television is in a campaign, the
less significant should be the effects of information abundance. Since the
significance of broadcast media in campaigns is roughly proportional to
the level of office involved, information abundance should be expected
to affect some campaigns more than others. Television costs consume
more of a presidential campaign’s funds than a Senate campaign’s, and
television is more important in Senate races than House races. In the

23 It is also interesting to note that the most resource-poor group in Schlozman
and Tierney’s sample of 175 organizations was the National Low Income Housing
Coalition, which managed in 1981 on a budget of $61,000 and the volunteer time
of two exceptionally skilled individuals to coordinate a coalition of 1,500 supporting
groups using poorly mimeographed flyers. See Schlozman and Tierney, Organized
Interests and American Democracy. Also see Paul E. Johnson, “Interest Group Recruit-
ing: Finding Members and Keeping Them,” in Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis,
eds., Interest Group Politics, 5th ed. (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1998), pp. 35–62;
and Ken Kollman, Outside Lobbying: Public Opinion and Interest Group Strategies
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

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