Editorialist: News media rarely cover local politics thoroughly, and local political business is usually conducted secretively. These factors each tend to isolate local politicians from their electorates. This has the effect of reducing the chance that any particular act of resident participation will elicit a positive official response, which in turn discourages resident participation in local politics.
Summary
News media rarely thoroughly cover local politics, and local political business is usually conducted secretively. Each of these factors each tend to cause local politicians to be isolated from their electorates. Isolation from their electorates causes a decreased chance of resident participation receiving a positive official response, and this decrease in chance causes residents to be discouraged from participation in local politics.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
If news media more frequently covered local politics, or local political business were conducted less secretively, then at least one cause of discouragement from resident participation in local politics would decrease.
A
Particular acts of resident participation would be likely to elicit a positive response from local politicians if those politicians were less isolated from their electorate.
We don’t know whether an act would be likely to evoke a positive response if politicians were less isolated. We only know that the chance of evoking a positive response would increase, not that a positive response is likely.
B
Local political business should be conducted less secretively because this would avoid discouraging resident participation in local politics.
We don’t know how the Editorialist believes local political business should be conducted. The Editorialist is only listing consequences of conducting local political business secretively.
C
The most important factor influencing a resident’s decision as to whether to participate in local politics is the chance that the participation will elicit a positive official response.
We don’t know whether a positive official response is the most important factor influencing a resident’s decision to participate in local politics. We only know that the less of a chance there is of a positive response, the more discouraged residents are from participating.
D
More-frequent thorough coverage of local politics would reduce at least one source of discouragement from resident participation in local politics.
Since infrequent coverage of local politics is one cause of discouragement of resident participation, the absence of this cause would lead to at least a decrease of the effect.
E
If resident participation in local politics were not discouraged, this would cause local politicians to be less isolated from their electorate.
We don’t know if encouragement of resident participation in local politics would cause politicians to be less isolated from their electorate. We only know that politicians being isolated is a cause of residents being discouraged from participating in local politics.