Congressional Responsiveness to Constituents
Burgin has shown that this interest is the driving force in many members decisions to participate. This was done through a series of interviews with members and their staff about why and when a member would choose to become involved with a matter of foreign policy. Several independent variables, including the factors listed above, were given as reasons for a member’s participation in foreign policy; each factor was then assigned a number depending on how important it was in making the decision. These numbers ranged from +2, (a primary incentive) to -2, (a primary disincentive.) (Burgin, p. 77).
When this data is put into a complicated equation, Burgin found that, by and far, the interest of supportive constituents was the most important factor in deciding whether or not to participate. (The higher the t-score for a variable, the more important it was to the decision by the member to get involved; the interest of supportive constituents had a t-score of 20.87; the next highest t-score belonged to personal policy interests, with 7.92.) (Burgin, p. 78).
Clearly, then, the interest shown by supportive constituents plays a very large part in the decision to become involved with matters of foreign policy. Burgin, however, states that the responsiveness of members to their constituents’ interests is “not complete, it is not always or necessarily meaningful, and it is not exactly uniform.” (Burgin, p. 85).
Why would this be the case, if the constituents’ interests are so much more important in deciding to get involved than any other factor? First, it is not complete because the member is only reacting to the supportive constituents, or the people most likely to vote for him or her in the next election. This leaves a considerable number of constituents with interests that do not affect the member’s participation. Second, it is not always meaningful because the participation of a member can take many forms, and Burgin’s study found that while constituent interests greatly affect when a member participates, they do not greatly affect how much that member participates. Third, the responsiveness of a member is not uniform, because often the member will react to constituents’ in different ways for different issues. One such issue cited by Burgin is the use of troops in foreign policy; a highly emotional issue such as this, given the support of the constituents, will often affect the member more than a less emotional issue.
Given these three problems with a member’s responsiveness to supportive constituent interests, should members be more responsive? Should they be more willing to get involved with foreign policy issues if their constituents so desire? More willing to not participate at all if that is the pressure from their voters? Should they strive to be more complete, meaningful, and uniform in their level of responsiveness? To properly answer these questions, we must examine why the members would be more responsive, how they would go about doing so, (to determine if it is a feasible request), and what the consequences of more complete, meaningful, and uniform responsiveness would be.
First, why would a member be more responsive to their constituents interests? Why be responsive at all, for that matter? To address this question, we must decide what exactly the duties of a member of Congress entail. If the mandate of the elected official is to do exactly as their constituents desire, then that in itself is enough reason to be responsive. However, if the mandate of the elected official is to do what is best for the country, that would severely limit how responsive a member could be to his or her constituents.
Given these two types of mandates, (and a myriad of those that blend the two to certain degrees), what would make a congress member in either case decide to be more responsive to their constituents? For the congressperson who’s duty it is to do as their constituents say, increased pressure from their constituents at home would be enough to warrant increased responsiveness. This increased pressure could take many forms, including more constituents speaking out, and more contact being made between already vocal constituents and their representatives.
For a member of congress who views his or her duty as that of serving the greater public good, however, increased responsiveness to constituents’ desires would have to be achieved in a different manner. The individual member would have to believe that the constituents’ interests and the greater public good coincide with one another, and thus that by being more responsive to the constituents, they were better serving the public. So, for this member, a desire to serve the public better would be the driving force behind increased responsiveness to constituents.
Now we must determine how members would go about being more responsive to their constituents’ desires in foreign policy. While the way each individual member would increase their responsiveness would be unique, there are a few basic things any member could do. The most obvious way is for the member to listen to their constituents, and simply do as the majority seems to request in terms of getting involved with an issue or not. This, however, could lead to trouble in that what the member perceives as the majority may in fact just be a very vocal minority. While responding to the minority would be responding to constituents, it would not particularly adhere to the first mandate listed; that is, doing as the majority of their constituents desire them to. It may agree with the mandate of serving the greater public good, but there is no promise of that. So, responding to whatever is perceived as the interests of the majority of constituents is not the most effective way to increase responsiveness.
A better way to increase responsiveness would be to listen to the constituents and use their interest as a gauge of whether or not to even consider getting involved with an issue. If there was a great amount of constituent support, the member could then decide to examine the issue closer, and use his or her own personal judgement on whether or not it was a good idea to become involved in it. This would work for a member operating under either of the previously discussed mandates; for the member seeking to serve the constituents’ interests, it would allow him to do so as he learned what those interests were; for the member seeking to serve the public good, it would all her to see if the constituents’ interests and the public good coincided on this particular issue.
So, asking a member to become more responsive to constituents’ desires in terms of foreign policy involvement would certainly be feasible; it would only require a slight change for a member working under either mandate. Now, to further determine if members should do this, we must examine what the consequences of this increased responsiveness in terms of completeness, meaningfulness, and uniformity would be, and whether it would be better for the country, the member, and the constituent.
A major consequence of more complete responsiveness is a congress that is in touch with a greater number of constituents, and thus aware of more constituents’ desires. This would require members to not listen only to those who will support him or her, but also to everyone they represent, within their district. This would give them a greater idea of how the general public felt about issues of foreign policy, but would also subject them to conflicting pressures from the constituents. Every possible view would be represented within the member’s constituency. If a member listened to everyone, they would be pushed in many different directions; as it is impossible to please everyone, the member’s actions would alienate at least a portion of their constituents. Not only could this hurt them while seeking reelection, but it would also lead to the member ultimately needing to make up his or her own mind about getting involved with a particular policy, and thus in fact decrease overall responsiveness.
A consequence of more meaningful responses to constituent desires is a possible drop in the quality of their work. If members strove to be more meaningful in their responses, becoming very involved in every issue their constituents expressed an interest in, they would be spread very thin, and have less time and resources to use on any one issue. This could lead to incomplete, uneducated, and poor decisions being made on the member’s part involving foreign policy; clearly not a good thing.
A consequence of more uniform responsiveness to the constituency is greater inconstancy within congress. If members listened to their constituents more often, they would be more subject to the quick-changing minds of the American public. Attempting to remain responsive to changing pressures could result in a lack of coherent policy on certain issues, a very divided congress, and greater strife between individual members from different districts.
Given these consequences, congress members would be better off retaining their current level of responsiveness rather than increasing it. While an increase would result in greater communication between congress and constituents, it could also result in lower-quality policy through incomplete decisions, and incoherent policy through inconsistency in constituent, and thus congressional, support.
Burgin, Eileen. “The Influence of Constituents: Congressional Decision Making on Issues of Foreign and Defense Policy.” In Congress Resurgent: Foreign and Defense Policy on Capitol Hill. Edited by Randall. B. Ripley and James M. Lindsay. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993.
