In 1837, President Andrew Jackson invited the public into the White House foyer to discuss issues of the day with staff while enjoying hunks of a 1,400-pound block of cheese that had been delivered as a gift from New York State dairy farmers and aged there for two years.
Inspired by this gesture — as recounted and adopted for a fictional president by writers of the TV show “The West Wing” — President Barrack Obama’s administration held two Big Block of Cheese Day events, answering questions from the public on social media.
Of course, citizens do not necessarily need to literally or symbolically consume coagulated, compressed, curds of milk to gain access to their elected officials. Americans have long sent letters to their representatives and executive branch officials. More recently, they send emails and place phone calls to register their complaints, ask for help, and signal their support for pending legislation.
But what makes for a successful citizen-government communication? And — particularly in our current and rapidly evolving technological environment — how can advocacy groups effectively tailor their campaigns to achieve desired responses from policymakers?
At the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, these are the types of questions we are exploring through our new Democratic Innovations program, designed to identify and test new ideas for improving the quality of democratic representation and governance.
Last year, Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, an assistant professor of political science at Purdue University, visited Yale as a resident ISPS Democratic Innovations fellow. One of her projects, conducted with Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, assistant professor in Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, measured the impact of transportation advocacy campaigns on state legislators in six states.
In collaboration with the League of American Bicyclists, the researchers found that messages in which constituents shared personal stories relating to proposed legislation were the most memorable for representatives and that messages employing relevant facts increased officials’ support for the targeted bill.
In addition, messages with factual information generated the greatest increase in state legislators’ support for a proposal to create incentives for people to purchase e-bikes, while the “personal impact stories” were most effective in increasing support for local municipalities to set safer speed limits.
Schiff speculated that the emotional nature of how speeding can result in serious injury or death increased the effectiveness of the personal stories seeking to affect speed limits while policies to promote the use of e-bikes seek to address perhaps less emotional outcomes of reducing traffic and addressing climate change. They are also a newer, less-well-known product, and legislators could have been more open to learning facts about how they could help people reach their jobs and address equity issues, she said.
“One of the questions that really motivates me as a political scientist who studies public policies is: When are the issues that people care about translated into government actions?” Schiff said. “Advocacy campaigns are a huge area for amplifying peoples’ voices in our political system. It’s an important channel for democratic input in the policymaking process.”
