Public interest groups, environmental nonprofit organizations (ENPOs) among
them, play a large role in the formulation and implementation of public policy. Much of
their legitimacy comes from their claim that they represent their members' interests. This
thesis examines ENPO communication forms to ascertain whether and how ENPOs seek
their members' opinions, and if so, whether or not those opinions influence the ENPOs'
issue-focus selection process, which is the issues on which the ENPO's financial and
human resources will be expended.
The research addresses these questions at two related levels of representation:
internal to the organization (e. g., how do ENPOs seek their members' opinions) and inter -
organizational (e.g., what role do ENPOs play in the political arena). On the level of
internal democracy, elitist theory and Seymour Martin Lipset's "factors that encourage
organizational democracy" provide a base for interpreting the results. At the inter-organizational level both pluralist and elitist theories of democratic governance provide the
base for interpretation of the results. Finally, speculation is made about ENPO membership
as "symbolic" political participation
The results suggest that support for both pluralist and elitist interpretation of both
internal and inter-organizational democracy may be appropriate. All ENPOs use a variety of
communication forms to inform their members, and all ENPO survey respondents stated
that they are open to membership suggestions. The findings also suggest that another
appropriate interpretation of ENPO membership may be that membership is a symbolic
purchase of political participation.
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