Countering capture in local politics: Evidence from eight field experiments

In the first field experiments to encourage participation in local civic bodies, I examine if outreach can reduce inequalities in who participates in city council meetings. Renter participation in local politics lags that of homeowners, who often participate to oppose housing growth. 19,951 renter households received randomly assigned emails encouraging them to comment at their city council meetings and support housing growth. Opening a message highlighting potential costs of abstention from local politics increased public comments by 1.4 percentage points versus placebo. These effects are substantively large: treatment-induced comments represented 8% of total comments and 46% of pro-housing comments across all targeted meetings. The results suggest that even low-cost outreach strategies can meaningfully increase participation in lesser known settings like city councils and make these bodies more reflective of the general public. Further, increasing the perception that abstention is costly appears to be an effective motivator of collective action.本研究开展了首个旨在鼓励公众参与地方公共事务机构的实地实验，旨在探究外展宣传（outreach）能否缩小市议会会议参与者群体间的参与不平等问题。租房群体参与地方政治的积极性落后于房主群体，而房主通常会通过参与会议来反对住房增量开发。共有19951户租房家庭收到了随机分配的电子邮件，邮件鼓励他们前往所在市议会会议发言，并支持住房增量开发。与安慰剂组（placebo）相比，发送突出提及放弃参与地方政治可能产生的潜在代价的邮件的干预组，使公众发言率提升了1.4个百分点。该效应具有显著的实质影响：在所有目标会议中，由干预组触发的发言占总发言量的8%，占支持住房开发发言总量的46%。研究结果表明，即便成本低廉的外展宣传策略，也能切实提升公众在市议会这类受关注度较低的公共场景中的参与度，使这类公共机构更能反映全体民众的诉求。此外，强化公众对“放弃参与将付出代价”的认知，似乎是推动集体行动的有效激励手段。