Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 1 - Exploring the Roots of Public Participation in the Controversy over Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Cloning Kirby Goidel, Ph. D. Director of Public Policy Research Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs Manship School of Mass Communication Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803 E-mail: kgoidel@lsu.edu Phone: 225-578-7588 Matthew Nisbet, Ph. D. Assistant Professor School of Communication Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210 E-mail: nisbet.4@osu.edu Phone: 614-292-4040 **Address all correspondence to the first author. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented to the 2005 meetings of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA, and the 2004 meetings of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago, IL. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 2 - Exploring the Roots of Public Participation in the Controversy over Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Cloning (Abstract) In this study, analyzing national RDD survey data collected in the fall of 2003, we explore the roots of issue-specific political participation, using the contemporary controversy over embryonic stem cell research and cloning as a test case. We find that standard demographic variables are weak and inconsistent predictors of issue-specific forms of citizen participation as indicated by self-reported letter writing, contributing money, persuading others, and contacting public officials. Opinion intensity and news attentiveness are likewise inconsistent predictors of participation, while religious mobilization is the one variable that emerges as a consistent and statistically significant predictor. We also build on past research to develop an innovative dependent measure tapping citizen willingness to participate in a local deliberative forum on stem cell research and cloning. In terms of this measure, church mobilization was similarly predictive, as were opinion intensity and attentiveness to news coverage, with the latter likely serving an important “articulation function” for citizens. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 3 - Exploring the Roots of Public Participation in the Controversy over Stem Cell Research and Cloning Most studies examining citizen participation have focused primarily on voter turnout. Where research has extended beyond the relatively simple act of voting, it has generally considered acts of participation either within an electoral context or without specifically accounting for the policy context in which such participation occurs. As a result, we have a relatively good understanding of the general predictors of traditional forms of citizen participation such as letter writing, contacting public officials, and contributing to political candidates and interest groups (e.g., Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, 1995), but a much more limited understanding of how these forms of citizen participation might vary across specific policy contexts. What predicts, for example, whether a citizen will become active on emerging and complex issues such as the debate over embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning? Are the citizens who participate in these types of science policy controversies significantly different from the citizens who mobilize around social security, free trade, or other issues? Are there alternative forms of participation that should be considered across policy contexts, and are different types of citizens more or less likely to engage in these alternative political activities? Although public participation when it comes to specific policy issues is often quite limited, it is not a trivial concern. The pluralist nature of American politics means that participation by a mobilized and vocal minority can often be more important than majority opinion (Dahl, 1956, 1989). The fact that - over time - fewer Americans may be Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 4 - participating through avenues other than voting (Putnam, 2000), may likewise mean that the voices of an ever smaller, but active minority weigh more than a relatively apathetic and silent majority when it comes to actual policy decisions.1 While some of these participants may simply be better informed and more engaged in politics, many of these participants are activated or mobilized through direct calls to political action (Verba et al., 1995; Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993). As such, understanding the process by which various "issue publics" can be mobilized is an important component in understanding how public preferences are translated into political outcomes (Converse, 1964).2 In this paper, we consider the determinants of political participation in the recent controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells and therapeutic cloning techniques in scientific research. The context of biomedical controversies provides an important setting for understanding how the policy context structures who participates in policy debates. First, though biomedical debates are often linked to older issues (e.g. abortion, in vitro fertilization, and fetal tissue research), the debate over embryonic stem research and therapeutic cloning is relatively new to the public agenda, having only attained significant media and public attention since 2001(Nisbet, Brossard, and Kroepsch, 2003; Nisbet, 2003; Nisbet, 2004). Second, most citizens - even the relatively well sophisticated - know very little about the specifics of the science or the policy related to stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (Nisbet, 2004). As a result, participation is likely to result less from traditional social economic differences, and more likely to be the 1 Verba et al. (1995) present evidence that levels of participation have been changing for different types of participation. For example, voting and membership in political clubs have decreased, while contributing to candidates and letter writing have increased. 2 A number of important studies have concerned difference in public attitudes among issue publics and the mass public. These studies often measure issue publics in terms of knowledge, education, and self-reported interest in the policy area (Krosnick and Telhami, 1995). Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 5 - consequence of direct mobilization efforts by elites (Scheufele, Nisbet, Brossard, and Nisbet, 2004; Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993) or via citizen attention to the mobilizing information featured in news coverage (Eveland and Scheufele, 2000). Finally, the nature of the social contract between science and other institutions in society makes the issue of the public’s participation in science policy decisions somewhat unique, and presents alternative forms of issue-specific participation that should be considered. The driving logic of science is based in its “exceptionalism”: when it comes to research, the scientific community believes it should be mostly free from direct regulation and political control. Yet despite this strong preference for autonomy, scientists remain heavily dependent on the government for funding, and scientific institutions depend on government agencies to serve as third party arbitrators in matters of patents, property rights, and misconduct (Bimber and Guston, 1995). The scientific community has therefore had a longstanding interest in the careful management of the public’s participation in science policy decisions. Citizen involvement, for the most part, has been studied and promoted not in terms of individual participatory actions such as contacting elected officials, contributing money to organizations, or writing letters to editors, but rather with a focus on administratively managed contexts where small numbers of affected and informed citizens can provide “input” to policymakers and scientists (House of Lords, 2000; Irwin, 2001). These contexts include deliberative polls, consensus conferences, citizen juries (Einsiedel, Jolsoe, and Breck, 2001), focus groups, and town meetings (McComas, 2001). Very few, if any studies have focused on the direct channels, outside the control of these managed Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 6 - contexts, that citizens use to shape science policy. We will return to these alternative forms of public participation later on in this paper. Who Participates in Policy Debates? As previously mentioned, the bulk of research on political participation generally has focused on "the relatively simple act of voting." Theoretically, much of this work has been grounded in the language of economic rationality and the calculus of individual voting decisions (Downs, 1957). That is, citizens opt into the political process when the benefits of participating outweigh the costs. Empirically, the work has tended to focus on three sets of factors related to the individual decision to vote: institutional factors (such as registration laws), political mobilization efforts (such as campaign spending, electoral competitiveness, and direct campaign contact), and individual characteristics or resources (such as age and social economic status).3 The focus on voting is not surprising: In democratic systems of government, voting carries a normative importance unmatched by other forms of civic engagement. Yet citizen participation through other means may be even more important in terms of policy outcomes, and the political influence of groups within society (Verba et al., 1995). The framework for understanding participation may also be different after accounting for other forms of political activity - such as contacting public officials, writing letters to the editor, or contributing money to political groups. As an example, Verba and Nie (1972) note that participation through direct contact of public officials may be more “rational” than voting because the individual is selecting both the issue and point of contact. 3 For a review of this literature, see Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993; Texieria, 1992; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, 1995; Patterson, 2003. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 7 - As we move beyond considerations of just voting, we also move beyond a presumed political equality (one person, one vote) toward an inherent inequality in participation based on the intensity of a citizen’s involvement (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba, 2001). While individual characteristics and resources remain important as explanations of these other forms of political activity, so too is recruitment. Policy context likely plays a role as well since previous research indicates that "issue publics" change depending on the issue under consideration at the moment (Converse, 1964; Hutchings, 2003), their level of interest in the issue, and the perception of change to the policy status quo (Campbell, 2003). Religious recruitment and mobilization. When considering social influences on the decision to participate in politics, Verba et al. (1995) and Burns et al. (2001) have emphasized “networks of recruitment,” social settings such as the church, the workplace, or the volunteer group where requests (or demands) are made to individuals to become involved in politics. Of particular relevance, recent research has focused increasingly on the influence of religion and the church-context in motivating individual political activity, and on the mechanisms through which the American church context translates into political activity (see Scheufele, Nisbet, and Brossard, 2003 for an overview). As we will outline, religious contexts are especially important when it comes to public involvement related to the stem cell and cloning controversy. In terms of the general influences of religious mobilization on participation, Djupe and Grant (2001), find that the key to political involvement by church-goers is their active recruitment by religious leaders, not simply the development of civic skills or religious identity. In a similar study of the influence of religion on policy activism among Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 8 - African-Americans, Brown and Brown (2003) find that simply attending a church is not sufficient for mobilizing political activity. Instead, political activity increases in churches where members are exposed to political discussions, and are encouraged to be activists. Greenberg (2000) suggests that churches serve as important sources of political information and opinion leadership. Previously observed types of church-related political communication include politically-oriented sermons; use of churches by political groups as meeting places; the distribution of candidate score cards, or literature specific to issues like abortion; and candidate speeches. These church-based political communications are usually framed in moral terms, playing on the religious motivations of parishioners to mobilize on behalf of the morally correct candidate, cause, or issue (Wald, 1992). Other studies have similarly found that exposure to “church cues” including literature handed out at church gatherings and/or exhortations to action by church leaders--is directly linked to increased levels of political participation, even after controlling for demographics, church attendance, forms of media use, and political knowledge (Kohut, Green, Keeter and Toth, 2000; Scheufele et al., 2003). In all, active recruitment by church leaders appears to be critical if religion is to translate into political activity.4 These findings have particular relevance in the context of the controversy over embryonic stem cell research and cloning where the institutional logic of several Christian traditions stand in opposition to that of the scientific community. Many Christian leaders consider embryos to be human beings, “a human life worthy of full moral protection from the moment of conception,” (NBAC, 1999, p. 99). When scientists use, clone, or create embryos only to destroy them for the purpose of extracting stem 4 On a related note, Guth et al. (2003) find that more conservative clergy are more likely to engage in mobilization efforts. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 9 - cells, these religious leaders view scientists as taking on the role of God, violating divine will. Therefore, according to religious advocates, use of government tax dollars to fund research would make “all citizens complicit in this research,” (NBAC, 1999, p. 99) de- legitimating the Christian worldview, and ultimately threatening the authority of religious institutions. With the institutional interests of Christian religion at stake, several media reports have detailed attempts by church leaders to actively mobilize their congregations around the issue of stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.5 The emphasis on religious mobilization as a predictor of issue-specific political participation leads to the first hypothesis: H1: Exposure to church-based mobilization and recruitment efforts specific to the issue of stem cell research and cloning will be significantly and positively related to issue-specific political participation on the part of citizens. Opinion Intensity. Aside from church-based mobilization, individuals who feel very strongly about an issue should also be more likely to participate through venues other than voting. In part, this reflects the costs of collecting information: Most citizens lack the time to be well-informed across a range of issues (Downs, 1957), and are subsequently likely to be informed only on issues they deem to be personally important. Krosnick (1990) outlined several reasons why an issue would become personally important to an individual citizen, including: (1) material self-interest; (2) social identification with reference groups; or (3) relevance to individual values. At first glance, with the exception of a small group of scientists, the material self-interests at stake in biotechnology research including scientific funding and medical treatments might seem 5 See for example Sink, M. (2004, May 17). At mass, politics squeezes into the pews. New York Times, p. A1; Schmickle, S. (2002, June 17). Soul-searching over cloning debate; People of faith want to make sure that moral questions are part of the scientific discussion. Minneapolis Star Tribune, p. 1A.; Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 10 - generally indirect and broadly distributed. As such, issue importance is likely to be driven by social identification with reference groups (particularly religious affiliation), and the relevance of the issue to an individual’s personal values. As a way to rally public concern, strategic actors on both sides of the issue have attempted to expand the scope and intensity of the debate by injecting into an otherwise technical policy decision a sense of moral imperative, connecting the issue of stem cell research and cloning to personal values. These strategic actors have employed moral frames that evoke emotionally-charged condensational symbols (Bennett, 2001; Edelman, 1964; Nelkin, 1992). These frames are the type of “symbolically urgent” tactics that help drive conflict expansion and wider public concern (Cobb and Elder, 1972). For example, opponents of stem cell research and therapeutic cloning have used a “rhetoric of fear” that resurrects symbols used in previous debates over embryo-related research (Mulkay, 1997). These framing devices evoke a vision of moral decline and of socially disruptive changes brought about by a scientific community out of control, and include iconic references to “playing God,” Dr. Frankenstein, a “brave new world,” Faustian bargains, and the Nazi holocaust. Proponents of research have countered with a “rhetoric of hope” that characterizes stem cell research as fitting into a general pattern of beneficial scientific development that improves the quality of life, and brings economic development. Talking points and ready-made sound bites herald “groundbreaking discoveries,” “miracle cures,” and “scientific advances” (Nisbet et al., 2003). The moral imperative argued by both sides in the stem cell and cloning debate connects to past research on the role of perceived changes to the policy status quo, (termed “policy threat,”) as a motivation for political participation around specific issues. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 11 - Perceptions of policy threat are thought to motivate citizen action by making the benefits of political action more salient, highlighting the potential for loss, and implying a change for the worse might be a stake (Campbell, 2003). Mobilized citizens on both sides in the stem cell and cloning debate are likely to perceive a major threat to the status quo in society, but in slightly different ways. As previously described, religious opponents view embryo research as violating centuries-old religious doctrine, making all Americans complicit in the destruction of human life for instrumental purposes. Research proponents view the current ban on federal funding for new stem cell lines and the potential legislative ban on therapeutic cloning as breaking with the principles of scientific free inquiry and government sponsorship that have fueled American social progress in the post-World War II era. The linkage between participation, moral imperative, and perceived policy threat, leads to our second hypothesis: H2: Issue importance - as measured by opinion intensity related to moral evaluations of the policy debate- will be significantly and positively related to issue-specific political participation. Attention to News Coverage. Political participation is also likely to be influenced by the degree to which an individual is aware of the issue and aware of the available opportunities to participate. Previous research has documented the links between media use and political participation, with most of the research indicating a stronger effect for newspaper use than for television (Eveland and Scheufele, 2000; Mcleod, Scheufele, and Moy, 1999; Scheufele et al., 2003).6 Much of the impact of newspaper use on 6 Major differences in the amount of attention to the stem cell and cloning debate between newspapers and television news is also likely to account for a much stronger role for newspaper use in the current study. For the year 2002, the most recent for which data is available, ABC World News Tonight and CBS Evening Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 12 - participation is thought to be indirect, as mediated by its influence on political knowledge and efficacy (McLeod et al., 1999; Scheufele and Nisbet, 2002; Nisbet and Scheufele, forthcoming). However, others have suggested that some of the positive effects of attention to newspaper coverage is direct, promoted by the type of “mobilizing information” (Lemert, 1992) that can be gleaned from the news. Mobilizing information extends beyond merely information about political institutions or political figures, and instead includes details that integrate political issues into the community context, containing specific details on whom to contact, how to donate money, or where to voice one’s opinion (Eveland and Scheufele, 2000). In addition, attention to newspaper coverage also likely plays an important “articulation function” relative to participation, providing a citizen with a repertoire of arguments that can be used to persuade another individual to adopt their viewpoint, or that can be used in drafting letters to the editor, or writing elected officials. Borrowing arguments from news coverage might also boost a citizen’s confidence and willingness to participate in alternative and managed forms of public participation such as town meetings, community forums, focus groups, or deliberative polls (McLeod et al., 1999; Scheufele, 2002). The discussion of the influence of attention to news coverage, leads to our third hypothesis: H3: Attention to newspaper coverage of the debate over stem cell research and therapeutic cloning will be significantly and positively related to issue-specific political participation. News devoted just eleven news stories to the issue, versus more than 120 news articles that ran at the New York Times and Washington Post (Nisbet, 2003). Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 13 - Traditional participation versus deliberative forum participation. As previously mentioned, much of the emphasis in the study of public participation relative to science and technology controversies has been focused on citizen participation in institutionally managed deliberative contexts such as town meetings, deliberative polls, focus groups, or citizen juries. From a technocratic standpoint, the emphasis on these specialized settings reflects the scientific community’s preference to remain somewhat immune to public interference, and to manage public “input” by exerting control over both the forum and the mechanism of expression (Brossard, 2002; Brossard and Shanahan, 2003). In other cases, the attitude is more “self reflexive,” motivated by an understanding that scientific experts and government administrators are often bounded by their specializations. In these cases, scientists and policymakers may realize that lay citizens might have a better grasp than technical experts on the social dimensions of a science and technology dispute, may have a normative right to be involved in decision-making (Brossard, 2002; Brossard and Shanahan, 2003), or may have a need to feel a part of the decision-making process (McComas, 2001). From a more general democratic theory perspective, research on citizen willingness to take part in deliberative forums as an alternative form of participation has emphasized that these managed contexts allow for the exchange of information among other equally interested citizens, and for two-way interaction with decision-makers, rather than the one-way interaction of letters or phone calls to elected officials. This facet of deliberative forums appeals to a number of democratic ideals put forth by theorists including the requirement that citizens should deliberate issues in knowledgeable face-to- face interactions with a diversity of neighbors, friends, and colleagues (Dewey, 1954; Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 14 - Habermas, 1989) Deliberative forums also differ from traditional participatory activities in that they involve the public expression of a viewpoint, often in the presence of other citizens who may raise opposing arguments. Unlike traditional forms of participation, where citizens are likely to be recruited within homogenous contexts such as a church, deliberative forums involve interaction with a more heterogeneous group of citizens who often hold opposing views (McLeod, Scheufele, Moy, Horowitz et al., 1999; McLeod et al., 1999). Yet despite these normative differences, research indicates that citizens most likely to participate in such forums are already the most active in terms of traditional forms of participation. They include individuals who are already politically motivated, resource advantaged, have greater luxury of opportunity (Price, Dutwin, and Na 2000), or who have stronger local ties or engage more frequently in traditional political activities (McLeod et al., 1999). Given an interest in predicting citizen activity in deliberative forums versus more traditional forms of political participation, the following research question is posed: RQ1: In comparison to traditional participatory activities, are there variations in the influence of church-based mobilization, issue importance, and news attention on citizen willingness to participate in a deliberative forum? METHOD Data for this study are based on a nationwide telephone survey of 407 randomly selected voting age U.S. residents. The XXXXXX located on the campus of XXXXX conducted the telephone interviews from November 7 through November 25, 2003. Interviews were conducted by trained staff at the XXXXXXX and lasted an average of 15.4 minutes. Numbers where callers received no answers were called back ten times Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 15 - before being removed from the pool of eligible numbers. Three attempts were made at refusal conversation no sooner than 72 hours after the initial refusal. The response rate for the survey was 33% and the cooperation rate was 47%7. We detail the descriptives and scaling for these measures in the rest of this section.. Political Participation. We measure political participation using indicators of a) individual forms of past activism specific to the stem cell and cloning issue such as contacting an elected official or contributing money and b) the citizen’s willingness to participate in a managed deliberative context, in this case a local community meeting on the topic of stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. To measure individual forms of participation, we asked respondents whether in the last two years they had: (1) Written a letter to the editor about the issue of stem cell research or therapeutic cloning (6% of the sample); (2) Contacted a public official about the issue of stem cell research or therapeutic cloning (5%); (3) Contributed money to a group supporting or opposing stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (7%); or (4) Tried to persuade someone they knew to support or oppose stem cell and cloning research (7%). These items were modeled after standard indicators of participation included in the National Election Studies and other studies of participation, and then adapted to be issue specific. Each of the variables is coded 1 if the respondent engaged in the activity and zero otherwise. We also use as an additional dependent variable an index of participation created by summing each of these dichotomous variables. The index of participation runs from “0” for respondents who did 7 Response rates have been declining over the last several years. Our response rate - while not ideal - falls within current academic survey center norms (Kosicki, Marton, and Lee, 2003). While non-response bias is the great unknown of survey research, recent research indicates that it may be less problematic than is commonly believed (Keeter, Miller, Kohut, Groves, and Presser, 2002; Curtin, Presser, and Singer, 2000). Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 16 - not engage in any of these forms of participation to “4” for those respondents who indicated participating in all of the listed activities. (M = .25, SD = .61, KR-20= .50).8 To account for willingness to participate in a deliberative forum, we asked respondents if they were invited to attend a local community meeting about stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, how likely would they be to attend (M=4.1, SD = 3.0), how likely would they be to speak up at the meeting (M=4.2, SD = 3.2), and how likely would they be to express an opinion on stem cell research and cloning that was different from those of others at the meeting (M = 4.7, SD = 3.4). Respondents rated each item on a ten-point scale where 1 indicates “not at all likely,” and 10 indicates “very likely.” Participation in deliberative forums should ideally be measured retrospectively, in other words as actual self-reported behavior. In the current study, we instead rely on a hypothetical measure for several reasons. Although localized deliberative forums on science and technology issues were utilized in the U.S. in the late 1970s specific to controversies over recombinant DNA research (Krimsky, 1991), most decision making on biotechnology in the intervening years has occurred at the Federal level and within administrative contexts such as the Food and Drug Administration or National Institutes of Health. This scenario differs from alternative examples in Canada and across the European Union where either national or regional deliberative forums on biotechnology have frequently been held. Given the absence of such forums in the U.S., our measure in this case taps “what could be” in terms of alternative forms of citizen participation 8 Although, like the NES indices of participation, the reliability of this measure is less than ideal, the low reliability is explainable by the dichotomous nature of the individual items, and by the fact that each of these items involves time and effort, making these particular forms of participation alternative conditions. In other words, most citizens will choose either to contact an elected official, write a letter to the editor, try to persuade someone to support or oppose an issue, or donate money, but very few will choose to do all four. Thus we are unlikely to find high correlations among these items. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 17 - specific to the stem cell and cloning controversy. Moreover, as McLeod et al. (1999) suggest in using a similar “willingness to participate in a forum” measure, there is often a high correlation between an individual’s intention to perform a behavior and their actual behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Demographic Variables. We model participation as a function of demographic differences, (age, education, sex, and race), general political orientations (social ideology and partisan affiliation), denominational identification, church attendance, intensity of attitudes on the embryonic stem cell issue, and religious mobilization. Demographic variables are included based on their importance in predicting other forms of participation. For example, we know that older respondents participate at higher rates than younger respondents, though this bias in participation may be less apparent on issues involving emerging scientific developments and new technologies. For the purposes of this analysis, we measure age in years at the respondents last birthday (M = 46, SD = 16). Past research stemming from the Civic Volunteerism Model (Verba et al., 1995) has consistently found that more educated respondents are more likely to participate in general. Education is measured on a five-point scale with 1 indicating less than high school, 2 high school, 3 some college, 4 a college degree, and 5 a graduate degree (M = 3.2, SD = 1.2). Sex-based differences in participation have become less important over the last several years, though women are generally less interested and informed about politics (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996), and are also less interested and informed about science in general, even after controlling for a number of potentially confounding variables (Nisbet, Scheufele, Shanahan, Moy, et al., 2002). Sex is coded “1” if the Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 18 - respondent is male, “0” otherwise. Race may also play an important role in participation in science controversies. Race is coded 1 for white respondents and zero otherwise. General Orientations: In addition to demographic considerations, we also include more general orientations toward politics as controls. While the stem cell and cloning controversy cuts across partisan lines, it has been Republicans who have generally supported greater government restrictions, while Democrats have been more supportive of funding embryo research and allowing therapeutic cloning. We code partisanship -1 for Republicans, 0 for Independents and nonpartisans, and 1 for Democrats. Ideology may also be important, particularly on social issues. We measured respondent's ideology on social issues on a seven-point scale from very liberal to very conservative (M = 3.9, SD = 1.6). Religious Affiliation, Attendance, and Mobilization: As noted earlier, recent research has focused on the importance of religion as a stimulant of participation, and in particular has identified the importance of church-based recruitment as a precursor to political activity. We asked respondents if in the past two years they had a) Received materials through Church about the issue of stem cell research or cloning (9% of sample) and b) Were encouraged by a church leader, pastor, or minister to support or oppose research (7% of sample). These separate indicators were combined into a single measure of church mobilization (M=.16, SD=.14, r=.37). We also include controls for whether the respondent identifies as a Catholic or a Protestant, and their frequency of church attendance. Religious identification is coded 1 if the respondent identified as Catholic or Protestant respectively, and 0 otherwise. Church attendance is measured on a five-point Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 19 - scale with 1 indicating the respondent never attends church, 2 indicated a few times a year, 3 once or twice a month, 4 every week, and 5 more than once a week. Opinion Intensity and Attention to News about Stem Cell Research. We also expect that participation will be related to respondent opinion intensity on embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. To measure opinion intensity, we folded a ten- point scale asking respondents to evaluate the moral acceptability of embryonic stem cell research. The result is a five-point scale with 5 indicating respondents who believe either that embryonic stem cell research is strongly morally unacceptable or strongly morally acceptable, and 0 indicating those respondents who were most ambivalent about the issue or did not have an opinion. Finally, as a measure of attentiveness to newspaper coverage of the issue, we asked respondents on a ten point scale to rate their level of attention to newspaper coverage of the debate over stem cell research and cloning. While some researchers might view news attentiveness itself as a form of participation, as previously described, in this paper we consider it as a mechanism that mediates sociodemographic characteristics, providing citizens with the information necessary to participate in the broader policy debate, and therefore an influence on participation outcomes. RESULTS We begin by considering individual acts of participation - writing letters, contacting public officials, contributing money, and persuading someone to support or oppose embryonic stem cell research or therapeutic cloning. Since each of these acts of participation is measured as a dichotomous variable, we use logistic regression to estimate the results. The results are presented in Table 1. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 20 - [Insert Table 1 About Here] As can be seen in Table 1, our ability to predict individual acts of traditional forms of participation is fairly limited. None of the standard demographic variables are very important. Sex (male) is only marginally significant as a predictor of contributing money to groups supporting or opposing embryonic stem cell and therapeutic cloning research. General orientations including partisan affiliation and social ideology are likewise unimportant as explanations of political participation, as is religious identification.9 Church attendance is statistically significant, but only in one of four models (contribute money), and even here the effect is negative indicating that greater attendance is associated with a decreased likelihood that the respondent would contribute money. Church mobilization, on the other hand, is consistently important (supporting H1). In fact, church-based mobilization is the only consistent predictor of individual acts of traditional participation - exerting a statistically significant impact in three of the four models. Neither news attentiveness nor opinion intensity was consistently related to these individual acts of participation (thus failing to support H2 and H3). Opinion intensity is a significant predictor in only one of the four models (contact public officials), and attentiveness to news is marginally significant in one of the four models (write letter). In Table 2, using OLS regression we predict an index of the participation activities. The interpretation that emerges is very similar to the results presented in Table 1: public participation is driven almost entirely by church mobilization efforts (supporting H1), though news attentiveness is now significant at the .10 level (supporting H3) and opinion intensity is a significant at the .05 level (supporting H2). 9 There may be important differences among evangelical Protestants and mainline denominations, which we are unable to leverage in the current data. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 21 - [Table 2 About Here] Finally, we consider a citizen’s willingness to participate in a local community meeting on the issue of stem cell research and cloning. The results of the OLS regressions are presented in Table 3. The findings for this deliberative context are more reflective of traditional understandings of participation, specifically a hierarchical model where the mostly likely to participate are the already resource advantaged and politically motivated. That is, willingness to participate in a local community meeting reflects demographic differences, general orientations, religious variables, issue intensity and attentiveness. First, with respect to demographics, we find that education and age are consistently related to likely participation.10 Interestingly, white respondents were more likely to report they would attend the meeting, but were not more likely to report that they would speak up or express a different view. In terms of general orientations, we find that social conservatives are less likely to report they would participate by attending meetings, speaking up, or expressing a different view; while Democrats are less likely to report that they would participate by speaking up or expressing a different view. When it comes to religion we find some evidence that church attendance matters: Respondents who more regularly attend church are also more likely to say they would attend a local meeting and speak up at the meeting. And confirming our earlier analyses, we find consistent evidence for the importance of church mobilization (supporting H1) as respondents who report receiving church materials or being encouraged to participate by 10 We also tested models using age squared to look at nonlinear effects. Of the models including in the paper only two had significant findings for the likelihood of speaking up at a public meeting and for expressing a different view. For speaking up at a meeting, age was significant and positive, while age squared was significant and negative (p < .01). For expressing a different view, age was not significant and age squared was only significant at p < .10. A full set of these results can be obtained from the authors. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 22 - church leaders are more likely to attend meetings (p <.10), speak up (p < .05), and express a different view (p < .10). Attentiveness to news is consistently important across each of the models (supporting H2), indicating the importance of mobilizing information to an individual’s willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. Finally, opinion intensity is also significant in each of the three models (supporting H3). [Table 3 About Here] CONCLUSION Perhaps no question has loomed larger in the study of political behavior than the question of who participates in the political process. To date, however, with only a few exceptions, we have a very limited understanding of how policy context shapes the decision to participate in the political process. In this article, we have attempted to fill this gap by examining public participation in the context of the controversy over embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. The findings highlight the importance of network recruitment and mobilization, particularly in the case of religious institutions. We know from prior research that religious institutions can play an important role in political mobilization (Brown and Brown, 2003; Scheufele et al., 2003; Djupe and Grant 2001; Verba et al., 1995). The current research adds to this work by incorporating the policy context of emerging biomedical controversies into our understanding of religious mobilization. Specifically, we find consistent evidence that in the case of the stem cell controversy, church-based mobilization promotes issue-specific participation, while standard demographic predictors are inconsistent, weak, and generally unimportant. It is unclear whether religious organizations might play a similar role in generating Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 23 - participation in other policy arenas. Moreover, it is unclear whether other groups such as a research advocacy organization might play an equivalent mobilizing role. This last dimension raises one of the limitations of this exploratory study. Future research focused on mobilization around the stem cell controversy should tap respondents’ links to diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s’, and Parkinson’s. Not only might familial or personal connection to these diseases motivate participation, but these personal ties might also offer important linkages to alternative mobilization influences. Nisbet et al. (2003) have identified the efforts of research advocates such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research as constituting an important new social movement in the U.S., with focused efforts on recruiting and organizing citizen members in support of research funding. Future survey measures should tap citizen exposure to participation requests from these groups via postal mail, e- mail, door-to-door canvassing, phone contacts, and other means. Despite these measurement limitations, what is clear from the analysis is that church contexts are influencing citizen participation in important ways relative to the stem cell and cloning controversy. The likely mechanism is a combined synergy between direct requests to participate and a calculated framing of the issue by religious leaders. Many citizens might view the stem cell and cloning controversy as more of a scientific than a political issue. Religious leaders, however, in combination with their exhortations to participate, also actively translate through various framing strategies an otherwise technical dispute into one of moral and religious imperative. As a result, our data indicate that the “public” voice that speaks loudest on medical biotechnology is a minority voice that has been spurred into action by religious institutions. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 24 - The perception of the stem cell and cloning debate as a scientific issue rather than a political controversy also relates to the limited findings for both education and attention to news coverage. When it comes to scientific authority, education may actually work against participation in science-related controversies. Brossard and Shanahan (2003) note that the American educational system likely socializes citizens towards an “exceptionalist” worldview: students are often taught a subtle civic lesson that decisions about science should be left to scientists. In fact, in their survey analysis, Brossard and Shanahan find that education promoted a deference to scientific authority, with better educated citizens less likely to agree that “scientists should pay attention to the wishes of the public, even if they think citizens are mistaken or do not understand their work,” and that “it is important to have public participation in making scientific decisions, regardless of people’s knowledge of the issues involved.” In this study, we predicted that attention to newspaper coverage of the stem cell and cloning debate would be positively linked to traditional forms of participation and to willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. On the latter, perhaps via the “articulation function” of newspaper reading, we find a significant relationship with the items tapping willingness to deliberate. However, on the traditional participation items, there were no significant influences. These null effects may reflect the lack of mobilizing information to be found in coverage of the stem and cloning debate. Unlike traditional electoral coverage that often provides information about where to show up to vote, or whom to contact about an issue, Nisbet et al. (2003) find that in the case of the stem cell debate, when the issue emerged into widespread media prominence in 2001, drawing public attention to the issue for the first time, the debate was framed predominantly as a Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 25 - political game among elites. Emphasis on scientific background and policy specifics was very much secondary. Moreover, journalists shied away from covering the important moral imperative questions directly, preferring instead to project an image of objectivity, sequestering discussion of ethics to the opinion and editorial pages. Media outlets also covered the issue primarily as a national policy debate, even though legislation specific to stem cell research was introduced or passed in more than two-dozen states. Overall, coverage tended to relegate the general public to the sideline, spectators to an elite struggle, with limited coverage of public involvement, either in terms of the results of public opinion surveys, or features on lay person perspectives about the dispute. By minimizing the public’s relevance, the mass media may have served to constrain active public involvement in the policy debate, fostering what Patterson (1980) calls “spectator orientations” among the public. Future research should explore more fully this possibility. We were also surprised that opinion intensity alone did not translate into specific forms of political activity. Opinion intensity, as measured in terms of moral evaluations of stem cell and cloning research, was not strongly linked to traditional forms of participation, though it was positively linked to contacting a public official and willingness to speak up and express a different viewpoint at a local public meeting. A final limitation of our study relates to the timing of the survey. As previously outlined, our survey took place during the fall of 2003, at a downturn in the news attention cycle to the issue. Moreover, our survey tapped participation and opinion intensity in the months before the death of President Ronald Reagan. The former president’s passing after a well documented struggle with Alzheimer’s might have provided an important symbolic Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 26 - reframing of the issue. The timing of our survey also does not take into account the related emphasis on the issue by the John Kerry campaign during the summer of 2004. 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Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 34 - Table 1: Predicting Forms of Traditional Participation Specific to the Stem Cell and Therapeutic Cloning Issue Write Letter Contact Official Contribute Money Persuade Someone Demographics Education -.17 (.21) .36 (.23) .29 (.20) .31 (.21) Sex .18 (.48) -.14 (.50) .82 (.46)^ .37 (.45) Race 1.29 (.78) .92 (.80) .04 (.57) .27 (.59) Age -.01 (.02) -.01 (.02) -.03 (.02) -.02 (.02) General Orientations Partisan Affiliation .35 (.33) -.15 (.34) .21 (.31) .34 (.31) Social Ideology -.11 (.16) -.14 (.16) .21 (.15) .19 (.16) Religious Variables Catholic -.61 (.69) -.14 (.72) -.49 (.69) -.13 (.64) Protestant -.09 (.54) .33 (.56) .57 (.53) .43 (.53) Church Attendance .03 (.20) -.15 (.21) -.40 (.20)* -.04 (.19) Church Mobilization .53 (.44) .84 (.45)^ 1.60 (.38)** 1.49 (.36)** Awareness and Intensity News Attentiveness .14 (.07)^ .07 (.07) .06 (.07) .09 (.07) Opinion Intensity .06 (.16) .44 (.22)* .19 (.16) .25 (.16) Constant -3.46 (1.37)* -5.89 (1.67)** -4.19 (1.33)** -5.78 (1.44)** Nagelkerke R-Square .09 .16 .23 .22 Cell entries are unstandardized regression coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses. * p < .05; ** p < .01; ^ p < .10. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 35 - Table 2: Predicting Participation Specific to the Stem Cell and Cloning Issue Participation Index Demographics Education .04 (.03) Sex .08 (.06) Race .10 (.08) Age -.002 (.002) General Orientations Partisan Affiliation .03 (.04) Social Ideology .005 (.02) Religious Variables Catholic -.05 (.08) Protestant .07 (.07) Church Attendance -.03 (.03) Church Mobilization .40 (.07)*** Awareness and Attentiveness News Attentiveness .016 (.009)^ Opinion Intensity .038 (.02)* Constant -.08 (.17) R-Square .14 Cell entries are unstandardized regression coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses. * p < .05; ** p < .01; ^ p < .10. Exploring the Roots of Public Participation - 36 - Table 3: Predicting Willingness to Participate in Local Community Meeting Attend Meeting Speak Up Express Different View Demographics Education .32 (.13)* .33 (.13)* .26 (.15)^ Sex .02 (.29) .33 (.33) .56 (.35) Race .74 (.38)* -.29 (.41) .09 (.44) Age -.05 (.01)** -.02 (.01)* -.04 (.01)** General Orientations Partisan Affiliation -.05 (.20) -.49 (.22)* -.60 (.24)** Social Ideology -.18 (.10)^ -.26 (.11)* -.26 (.11)* Religious Variables Catholic -.64 (.39) -.08 (.43) .17 (.46) Protestant .30 (.35) .31 (.38) .49 (.41) Church Attendance .27 (.11)* .22 (.13)^ .001 (.14) Church Mobilization .72 (.33)* .72 (.36)* .75 (.38)* Attentiveness and Awareness News Attentiveness .20 (.04)** .18 (.05)** .18 (.05)** Opinion Intensity .17 (.09)^ .24 (.10)* .24 (.11)** Constant 3.09 (.78)** 2.86 (.86)** 4.44 (.87)** R-Square .20 .15 .15 Cell entries are unstandardized regression coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses. * p < .05; ** p < .01; ^ p < .10.