Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, 1970-1998 (review)

Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, 1970--1998. By Richard F. Fenno, Jr. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2000) 170 pp. $34.95 cloth $16.95 paper

Concerned that political scientists who study Congress have focused more fully on representational patterns at the institutional level than at the constituency level, Fenno set out in the early 1970s to study the connections between representatives and their constituents. From 1970 to 1976, he interviewed eighteen representatives intensively, following them closely as they traveled through their home districts and observing them extensively as they campaigned. The result was the highly acclaimed Home Style (Boston, 1978).

Two decades after the publication of Home Style, Fenno revisited Georgia's Fourth Congressional District, represented by Democrat John J. Flynt, Jr. in the 1970s, but now redrawn into Georgia's Third Congressional District and represented by Republican Mac Collins, successor to Newt Gingrich. His goal was to explore micro-level political change in a region that has experienced dramatic transformation during this period. Fenno also resurrected his original methodological approach. Using his old notes on Flynt in the early-to-mid 1970s as a baseline, he returned to Georgia to travel with and observe Collins in 1996, and again in 1998. The result is Congress at the Grassroots.

At its core, this book is two case studies based on intensive participant observation. The first focuses on Flynt's "old style" person-intensive representational strategy. Fenno captures the essence of Flynt's strategy in the small towns and crossroads country stores of his district, and he insightfully describes Flynt's growing discomfort as the district changed in the mid-1970s to a more suburban, less Democratic area. An avowed segregationist who prided himself on knowing practically everybody in his constituency (and being able to recount detailed stories about them), Flynt began to feel out of place. Although he narrowly retained his seat with victories over Gingrich in 1974 and 1976, he decided to retire in 1978; he found it increasingly difficult to practice the kind of politics he enjoyed--the individual contact and the community participation associated with service to others. The politics of the New South--more suburban and Republican, and less segregationist--had left him behind.

The second case study focuses on Collins' "new style" policy-intensive strategy. Fenno notes that Collins' style bears traces of Flynt's personal touch but in a dramatically different context. For Collins, Flynt's country store was replaced by the suburban coffee shop, and he made little claim to know the people there. Collins was also more comfortable discussing his policy agenda with his constituents than Flynt ever was. Similarly, whereas Flynt had been increasingly at odds with the national Democratic Party during his last years in office, Collins, a former Democrat, found himself ideologically at home in the Republican Party.

These case studies are fascinating accounts of two politicians and their differing approaches to constituent relations and representation. Fenno tells those stories well. But the deeper value of this book is its deft examination of the recent history of southern political transformation, contextual change, and the related alteration of representational strategies in Congress. Though Fenno is careful to note the methodological limitations of his approach, and is circumspect in his generalizations, his insights are surely on target. This slim volume makes an elegant case for studying political change at the constituency level in order to understand change at the Congressional level.

Robert P. Steed
The Citadel

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