Citizen recognition of channels for advocating change in police service is explored in the light of factors that might lead to recognition of a citizen organization rather than to a direct contact with a public official. Hypotheses to be tested used both individual and contextual factors that may influence whether an advocacy channel is recognized and what channel is recognized. Sense of political efficacy is used as an intervening variable. The analysis shows that the poor, the less educated, minorities, and residents of large cities are all less likely to recognize a channel for advocating police service change. The data provide limited support for a interpretation of the role of citizen organizations in urban service advocacy. Elaine B. Sharp is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Research Associate in the Center for Public Affairs, University of Kansas. The data reported here were collected by the Police Service Study, a joint project of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina, with funding support from the National Science Foundation through Grant GI 43949. Analytical work was done under grant from the University of Kansas General Research Fund Allocation. The conclusions here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the funding agency. Public Opinion Quarterly ? 1980 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/80/0044-362/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 05:23:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CITIZENS AND URBAN SERVICE ADVOCACY 363 agent; and (3) identification of some other form of advocacy contact. The data upon which this analysis is based show that very few individuals would contact the media, a lawyer, or other nongovernmental units or persons other than citizen organizations.1 The two primary options recognized by citizens appear to be a citizen organization as a mediating agent in the contact process or direct contact with a government agency or official of some type. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test hypotheses to explain why some citizens recognize a channel for advocacy while others do not, and why some citizens recognize a citizen organization as their advocacy agent, whereas others perceive a direct contact with a public agency/official as their channel for advocacy. Why should we be concerned with the reasons for recognition of citizen organizations as alternative channels of access to public officials for advocating urban service changes? Eisinger's (1972) analysis of actual contacting behavior suggests the importance of this issue, for he found that direct contact with public officials is a form of political assertion that is differentially exercised by different types of citizens. Blacks, for example, were much less likely than whites to make individual contact with government officials. This led Eisinger (1976: 123) to speculate that blacks and whites may pursue different channels for access to urban service decision makers-in particular, that political assertion through groups rather than individual contacts is more characteristic of blacks than whites. Verba and Nie (1972: 160-61) make similar Qbservations about group ties as alternatives to citizen-initiated contacts with officials. Citizen organizations in this sense may serve an important compensating function in urban politics, insuring feedback from citizens who would not undertake contact on their own, or in situations which militate against individual contact with officials. But citizen organizations will have this compensatory potential only to the extent that citizens recognize them as their go-betweens in advocacy contact situations. In order to explore the notion of citizen organizations as alternative channels of access, we need hypotheses to explain the conditions under which citizens recognize some channel for advocacy and the factors associated with the recognition of citizen organizations as one such channel. Note that the research here focuses on citizens' recognition of a channel for advocacy contact. It does not investigate actual or self-reported contacting behavior. The hypotheses to be tested are based on the model presented in Figure 1. These hypotheses are elaborated more fully below. Here, it I Ninety-five percent of the contacts named by respondents involved either a public official/agency of some type or a citizen organization or its leader. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 05:23:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms