Page 166 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Environmental Advocacy 18:0
and returning this information to the groups. In 2001, it worked with
the League of Conservation Voters to sift through voting records state by
state to identify lists of which citizens voted. It then matched these lists
with its own records of coalition “members” to identify which members
were actually most politically engaged. This information-intensive exer-
cise helped the coalition fine-tune its records about which “members”
96
are the most promising targets of requests for action. Especially where
membership is concerned, the coalition serves to undermine the dis-
tinction between groups while also claiming to strengthen each group
individually. In its internal mission statement, the coalition claims that
“[b]y uniting their members and contributors on coordinated actions,
the participating groups are creating a sum of citizen participation and
advocacy greater than they could generate acting apart. The project is
also serving to strengthen each group by providing information that
can deepen its understanding and relationship with its own base of
support.” 97
The organization of these groups is made even more Byzantine by
the existence of another shadow group behind the coalition called “The
Green Group.” This network consists of another informal coalition of
about thirty environmental groups. Membership in the Save Our Envi-
ronment Coalition also confers membership in the Green Group, which
engages in efforts to set priorities and goals for the environmental move-
ment as a whole.
What all this means for a group like ED is that it is embedded in
a dense and flexible network of organizations that attempt to coordi-
nate and cooperate with one another in pursuit of public policy. The
boundaries between these organizations and their memberships are of-
ten blurred, and the political resources ED and its allies can draw upon
in policy making are a function of the particular issue and event at
hand. To be sure, ED and other organizations still maintain formalized
memberships and organizational structures, and they engage in tradi-
tional planning, priority setting, and resource allocation; however, on
the ground, as ED actually engages in politics, these traditional bu-
reaucratic structures mean less than ever for the ways that it oper-
ates. Within just two years of its decision to reorient itself to exploit
new information technology, ED’s Internet-based political action was

96
Julie Waterman, Campaign Director, Save Our Environment Coalition, telephone
interview by Joe Gardner, May 2, 2001.
97
Save Our Environment Coalition, “Mission Statement of the Save Our Environment
Coalition,” n.d. (provided by Julie Waterman, Campaign Director, May 2, 2001).
149