Richard F. Fenno, Jr. 1926-2020

 
This is a book about the politics of representative democracy, written from the perspective of the politicians who make it work. Typically, political scientists study campaigns from the perspective of the voter and for the purpose of explaining election outcomes. But campaigns also need to be studied from the perspective of the candidate, for the purpose of understanding representation.

Richard F. Fenno, Jr., traveled with ten U.S. senators as they campaigned in their home states-using what he calls the "drop in/drop out, tag along/hang around" method of research-to present a developmental picture of their activities. His focus here is on three such activities—pursuing a career, campaigning for office, and building constituency connections. Taken together, the three constitute the political underpinnings of representative democracy.

Fenno describes the achievement, the testing, and the maintenance of representational relationships. He examines challengers and incumbents, winners and losers, and motivations, strategies, and behaviors; and he reports on differences, similarities, and patterns among them. In studying the candidates' varied careers, campaigns, and connections in stages and sequences and in depth—and in allowing us to hear them reflect on these experiences—Fenno has been able to offer rare insights into campaigns and elections, insights very different from conventional ones that concentrate on the behavior of voters.

In its focus on the process of representative democracy, Senators on the Campaign Trail offers a rich, rounded, developmental view of some high-level individuals who work at the business of representation. For scholars, the book suggests some qualitative confirmation and added stimulation in forging generalizations about politicians. For citizens, the book argues for replacing the conventional blanket condemnation of our politicians, so prevalent today, with more discriminating judgments about what they do, and why and to what purpose they do it.

Senators on the Campaign Trail: The Politics of Representation. by Richard F. Fenno, Jr.
Thomas A. Kazee
The American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 3. (Sep., 1997), pp. 738-739.

The methodology is vintage Fenno: "Soak and poke" has become "drop in/drop out, tag along/ hang around" (p. 4). His participant-observer approach has its limitations, to be sure, but part of the magic of a Fenno book is converting the skeptic. Though the uninitiated reader may wonder about replicability and generalizability in this collection of seemingly idiosyncratic stories, somewhere along the way the pieces begin to fit together, and a clearer picture of politics emerges. The key to all this is Fenno's ability to distill meaning, to see patterns and connections, and to weave them together into a coherent whole. It is perhaps as much art as science, but it works, and our understanding of Congress and the democratic process is much enriched by his efforts.

The book is full of sophisticated insights and plain good sense, from Fenno's observation that negative campaigning erodes the representational connection to his musings about the role media play in linking legislators and constituents. In sum, in this book students of politics can learn much about Senate elections and, more important, representative democracy.