Yesterday, I discussed the explosion of inbound email to Congress, and some of its possible impacts, particularly the way it alters a congressional office's representational relationship with citizens and potentially has a nationalizing effect on politics, because of the difficulty of filtering out constituents from non-constituents. I don't want to make too much of this, however, for a few reasons. First, it would be vastly overstating the case to say that email is nationalizing congressional politics. If it is having an effect --- which we don't really know, after all we're just theorizing here based on some aggregate statistics and anecdotal evidence --- the effect is a marginal one, and almost certainly pales in comparison to other nationalizing forces in congressional politics.
More on Member/Constituent Communication
More on Member/Constituent Communication
More on Member/Constituent Communication
Yesterday, I discussed the explosion of inbound email to Congress, and some of its possible impacts, particularly the way it alters a congressional office's representational relationship with citizens and potentially has a nationalizing effect on politics, because of the difficulty of filtering out constituents from non-constituents. I don't want to make too much of this, however, for a few reasons. First, it would be vastly overstating the case to say that email is nationalizing congressional politics. If it is having an effect --- which we don't really know, after all we're just theorizing here based on some aggregate statistics and anecdotal evidence --- the effect is a marginal one, and almost certainly pales in comparison to other nationalizing forces in congressional politics.