Citizens' Contacts with Bureaucratic and Legislative Officials

This paper draws on both the bureaucratic and congressional literature to develop and test a model linking bureaucratic dissatisfaction with citizen- initiated contact with members of Congress. It has been argued by Fiorina and others that bureaucratic malfunctioning creates opportunities for congressional intervention which aids constituents and reaps electoral benefits for elected representatives. While this view has been widely accepted by scholars, empirical research has scarcely addressed the question, and evidence to support this conjecture has been scant. Using data gathered in a particular congressional district (both data on actual member-constituent contact and survey data), results confirm Fiorina's contention that those who are unhappy with bureaucracy are more likely to contact members of Congress.