Page 20 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Information and Political Change
become a part of the American political process, organizations must be
formed, advocates must be trained, and the material resources needed to
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gain the attention of national policy-makers must be gathered.” Some
scholars have likened this process to the requirements of formal business
enterprise, observing that internal features of groups as organizations are
typically the strongest predictors of their success at recruiting and mo-
bilizing citizens behind issues and succeeding with political demands. 2
Yet in the FDIC case, as in others that took place in 1999, little such
organizational infrastructure is found. No powerful interest group or
public lobby with hundreds of thousands of members had mobilized
citizens. No deep pockets had funded the effort. No political consultants
ormediaadvisorshadorchestratedpublicrelationsandthemediaangles.
No candidate or public official had drawn attention to the regulatory
proposal. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party organizations
hadworkedtheissue.Virtuallynoneoftheingredientsofcollectiveaction
that social science theory suggests should lie behind citizen-based policy
advocacy was present.
Instead,aperipheralgroupinAmericanpolitics,theLibertarianParty,
initiated the protest against the FDIC’s regulations – a group never be-
fore able to marshal national-level resources for an advocacy effort of this
size. Like most American “third parties,” the Libertarians are habitually
constrained by the interdependent limitations of a small membership,
few financial resources, and a system of electoral rules oriented toward
two-party competition. Instead of using traditional organizational in-
frastructure, which it sorely lacks, the party relied almost exclusively on
information infrastructure. Its leaders used the Internet to identify in-
terested citizens, distribute information, and solicit participation in the
protest. Starting with a small list of active party members, the initiators of
the effort began a process of information exchange and communication
about the pending policy change. That flow of information expanded
geometrically, spreading quickly far beyond the party’s membership and
sphere of influence. The aggressiveness and extent of the Internet-based
campaign – not the clout of the Libertarians themselves – successfully
signaled to agency officials as well as to legislators that banking privacy

1
Jack L. Walker, Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions, and Social
Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), p. 94.
2
Paul E. Johnson, “Interest Group Recruiting: Finding Members and Keeping Them,” in
Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, eds., Interest Group Politics, 5th ed. (Washington,
D.C.:CQPress,1998),pp.35–62;TerryM.Moe, TheOrganizationofInterests (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1980).

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