Unrepresentative Representatives: Surrogate Advocacy and Policymaking for the Unenfranchised Open Access
Widner, Kirsten (Summer 2020)
Abstract
Advocacy organizations provide important policy representation for the nearly one-third of the population of the U.S. that lacks the legal right to vote. The unique characteristics of the groups that are currently legally unable to vote -- children, non-citizens, and people disenfranchised due to felony convictions or mental incapacity -- render them unlikely to mobilize themselves. The existing literature on the mobilization and political participation of interest groups would not lead us to expect advocacy organizations representing these groups to exist and cannot adequately explain how these organizations overcome the unique challenges entailed in representing these groups in the public policymaking process. It argues that because of political disadvantages unenfranchised groups face, the advocacy organizations that represent them are more reliant on restrictive tax status and funding options than are organizations representing other types of groups. Further, these disadvantages and constraints shape the advocacy tactics organizations representing them use. Original survey and interview data are used to confirm expectations about how organizations representing the unenfranchised differ from those representing other groups and how organizations representing different unenfranchised groups differ from each other.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction:
Policymaking and the Unenfranchised . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Plan for the Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.1 Data and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.2 Chapter Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Political Disadvantage and the Unenfranchised: Theory
and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1 Voting Limitations and Their Political Consequences . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Advocacy Organizations as Representative Institutions . . . . . . . . 21
2.3 How the Interest Group Mobilization Literature Fails to Explain the
Existence of Advocacy Organizations Representing the Unenfranchised 23
2.3.1 The Role of Policy Entrepreneurs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4 Advocacy Groups as Representatives of the Unenfranchised and the
Unique Challenges of that Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5 How Funding Sources, Legal Context, and the Social Construction of
Disenfranchised Groups Structure Advocacy Tactics . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.5.1 The Funding and Legal Structure of Advocacy Organizations. 43
2.5.2 Prioritization of Other Advocacy Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.5.3 Social Construction's Impact on Prioritization of Advocacy Tac-
tics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.6 Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3 Data Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.1 Criteria for Inclusion in the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2 NCCS Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.3 Original Survey of Advocacy Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.3.1 Measures of Who Organizations Represent . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.4 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4 Origins and Employees
of Advocacy Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.1 Origin Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1.1 Groups Organizing to Address their Own Interests . . . . . . . 82
4.1.2 Service-Oriented Individuals Organizing to Address Unmet Needs
of Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.1.3 Government Initiated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1.4 Diusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.1.5 Counter-mobilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.2 Organizational Leadership and Sta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2.1 The Appeal of the Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2.2 Employee Connections to Represented Populations. . . . . . . 108
4.2.3 Demographic Dierences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5 Legal Structure and Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1 IRS Tax Status Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.1.1 The IRS Tax Status of Dierent Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.2 How Advocacy Organizations Are Funded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.3 Perceptions of Constraints Imposed by Tax Status and Funding Sources 144
5.4 Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
6 Frequency and Prioritization of Advocacy Tactics . . . 158
6.1 Staff Responsible for Public Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.2 Frequency of Use of Dierent Advocacy Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.2.1 Total Activities Engaged In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.2.2 Frequency by Type of Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
6.2.3 Dierences on Restricted Activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6.2.4 Dierences on Other Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.2.5 Other Interesting Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
6.3 Prioritization of Advocacy Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.4 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
7 Differences Among the Unenfranchised . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7.1 The Prevalence, Tax Structure, and Funding of Advocacy Organizations
Representing Different Unenfranchised Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
7.1.1 Differences in Tax Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
7.2 Differences in Advocacy Tactics by Type of Group. . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.2.1 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
7.3 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
8 The Political Representation of the Unenfranchised Re-
visited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
8.1 Major Findings and Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
8.2 Directions for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
8.3 Implications and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
A Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
A.1 Full List of NTEE Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
A.2 List of NTEE Codes Most Likely to Be
Advocacy Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
A.3 Survey Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
A.4 Interview Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
A.5 NTEE Codes by Organization Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
A.6 Chapter 5 OLS Models with Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
A.7 Chapter 6 OLS Models with Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
A.8 NTEE Codes by Unenfranchised Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
A.9 Social Construction Analysis Using Survey Respondent Ratings . . . 256
A.10 Krietzer and Smith Social Construction
Ratings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
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