There's a Madness in the Method

Redefining Citizen Contacting of Government Officials

Bibliographic Data

ID19331908
AuthorsPhilip B Coulter (University of New Orleans, corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume28
Issue2
Pages297-316
Publication date1992-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Affairs Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0042-0816
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/004208169202800206
OpenAlexW2149237215
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited11

Recent meta-analysis of research on citizen-initiated contacting of government officials revealed that the findings are basically an artifact of the method used. Macroanalytic studies using aggregate data find a negative or curvilinear relationship between contacting and socioeconomic status (SES), and microanalytic studies using survey data find a positive or null relationship between contacting and SES. This author argues that almost all survey researchers have used an invalid operational measure of contacting. Analysis of results from a Birmingham, Alabama, survey, which defined contacting in the conventional way and with specific, bounded-and aided-recall questions, strongly suggests that much of what researchers know or think they know about contacting is suspect

Artifact (error) · Cognitive psychology · Criminology · Data mining · Econometrics · Measure (data warehouse) · Null hypothesis · Recall · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Suspect · Computer Science · Demography · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Mathematics · Psychology · Public Policy and Administration Research · Social Media and Politics