Canvassing Harms Political Activism, Scholar Says

Liberal activist groups rely too heavily on paid canvassers and that practice is limiting their ability to produce political change, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In a new book called Activism, Inc., Dana R. Fisher, an assistant professor of sociology at Columbia University, says that many nonprofit groups have neglected traditional community-service work in favor of hiring college students and other workers to knock on doors and ask for donations.

Ms. Fisher contrasts this “outsourcing” of activism to conservative political groups’ reliance on traditional neighborhood- and church-based groups, which she says do a better job of making lasting connections.

Defenders of canvassing methods said that Ms. Fisher did not gather enough evidence to support her results, and that some of her criticisms simply reflect a preference for volunteer work over paid employment.

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