Linking models of constituent activity to the management process: Potential for increased value of user surveys

Abstract

Fisheries and wildlife managers have become progressively more aware of the need to include user opinions in management decisions, and have also improved their efforts and ability to evaluate these human factors. However, their ability to use survey data to lessen conflict lags behind. We reviewed conceptual models of constituent activity and used them to develop a procedure that may allow managers to identify users who strongly support or oppose an issue from survey data. This procedure aims to focus survey questions to quantify three user attributes: (1) the user opinion of a given issue, (2) the relevance of that issue to the user, and (3) the perceived ability of the user to affect policy decisions. We suggest that these three attributes can be combined into an index of constituent activity (ICA) that may determine the likelihood that the user will contact the agency regarding management actions or proposals. By identifying users and user groups who are likely to oppose an issue, survey data can then be used to modify management proposals so that agency actions are more palatable to their constituents. Because the procedure described here is as of yet untested, we encourage efforts to test these methods to identify active users from survey data.

Keywords:

• Constituent activity
• vocal minority
• survey data
• user groups
• resource management

Notes

Present Address: Department of Fisheries and Aqautic Sciences, the University of Florida, 7922 NW 71st Street, Gainesville, Florida, 32653.