Page 21 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Information and Political Change
could be a significant electoral issue. In the end, this was the story of how
an industrial-era government institution created during the New Deal
responded to collective action during the information era.
That this story does not appear to square with standard theories of
policy advocacy and collective action is intriguing for several reasons,
not the least of which is that many other political organizations and
groups are attempting to repeat the Libertarians’ success with issues of
their own. Across the spectrum of interest groups, new information in-
frastructure appears to be affecting strategies of recruitment, advocacy,
and mobilization. Electoral campaign organizations have also embraced
new technology-based modes of internal organization and communi-
cation, as well as external communication with voters. The first major
legislative effort of George W. Bush in 2001 revealed how new means of
communication had become a routine part of the political scene. While
trying to sell his tax cut in the states of swing Democratic senators, Bush
told an audience in Atlanta, “If you find a member that you have some
influence with, or know an e-mail address, or can figureoutwhereto
writealetter ... just drop them a line.” 3
Researchers observing such developments have already amassed a siz-
able catalogue of contemporary uses of information technology by po-
litical actors, including new forms of mobilization, descriptions of how
campaigns make use of new technology, and portrayals of how infor-
mation technology is employed by government institutions themselves. 4
Much of this research, which we consider throughout this book, has
supported one or more of three main findings. The first is a largely null
finding of participation effects. This finding emerges from attempts to
discover a stimulus effect from new technology on political engagement
3 The speech was March 4, 2001, reported in Frank Bruni and Alison Mitchell, “Bush
Pushes Hard to Woo Democrats Over to Tax Plan,” New York Times, March 5, 2001,
p. A1.
4 E.g., see: Lori A. Brainard and Patricia D. Siplon, “Activism for the Future: Using
the Internet to Reshape Grassroots Victims Organizations” (paper presented at the
annualmeetingoftheAmericanPoliticalScienceAssociation,Boston,Sept.4–7,1998);
Laura Gurak, Persuasion and Privacy in Cyberspace (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1997); Karen James and Jeffrey D. Sadow, “Utilization of the World Wide Web as a
Communicator of Campaign Information” (paper presented at the annual meeting
of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., Aug. 27–31, 1997);
Anthony Corrado and Charles M. Firestone, eds., Elections in Cyberspace: Toward a
New Era in American Politics (Washington, D.C.: Aspen Institute, 1996); Christopher
Weare, Juliet A. Musso, and Matthew L. Hale, “The Political Economy of Electronic
Democratic Forums: The Design of California Municipal Web Sites” (paper presented
at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, Ga.,
Sept. 2–5, 1999).

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