NEW REPORT: How Deliberative Forums Could Improve Constituent Engagement in Congress
Constituents use a variety of communication methods—like phone calls, email, letters, town halls, and social media—to communicate with their Member of Congress. Although well used, these communications tools leave a lot to be desired.
Most engagement between constituents and Members is uni-directional, leaving little opportunity for back-and-forth dialogue. As a result, constituents often feel disconnected from the Member and their decision-making.
At the same time, Members predominantly hear from lobbyists and the most vocal constituents within their community. There are few opportunities for Members and staff to reach out to a representative sample of their constituency and discuss topics of community concern. Members of Congress need better avenues for meaningful dialogue with constituents.
“Members of Congress need better avenues for meaningful dialogue with constituents”
I, along with many other academics and congressional advocates, believe there should be more deliberative avenues for engagement between Members of Congress and their constituents. So in February of 2020, as part of my dissertation experiment in collaboration with POPVOX, I decided to try something a little different. We worked with one Member of Congress and their staff to conduct a week-long, online, asynchronous, policy forum between the Member and a representative sample of their constituency. The goal of this forum was to pilot a new way for Members of Congress to interact with constituents using qualities found in deliberative democracies around the globe.
Our new report highlights important findings from this experiment.
The online forum increased constituent’s feelings of impact on the Member of Congress and their policy decisions by 42% compared to their previous modes of interaction with the Member.
The majority of participants (88%) believed that online forums should continue to be used by Members. 93% of participants prefer to have the discussions take place over the week, with almost a quarter of those participants wishing they would last longer. 86% agreed that POPVOX was a viable space to have these discussions with elected officials.
Comments left by staff on the Member’s behalf followed typical patterns of Member engagement, making many constituents feel that the Member’s engagement was “on-script”. As a result, constituents’ feelings of approval of the Member did not increase. There was little change to constituents’ feelings of political efficacy.
We hope this report offers a fresh viewpoint on what constituent engagement can be, and what can be done to expand this idea into the future. An in-depth look into this project will be available as part of my public dissertation later this year