Citizen-Initiated Contacting of Local Government Officials: A Multivariate Explanation

Citizen-initiated contacting of local government officials represents a significant mode of political participation in an urban context. Efforts to explain the phenomena of "who contacts" have proven to be contradictory. In an attempt to clarify the issue, this research posits that different types of contacting behavior are subject to different explanatory models. By focusing on particularized and general referent contacting as two separate entities, several variations exist. In general, the analysis shows that particularized referent contacting is best explained by an interaction effect between an individual's perceived needs and political ties, while perceived efficacy is the most significant predictor of general referent contacting.