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Quantitative StudiesOne of the earliest tested and most widely recognized areas of research into political participation is the relationships that exist between individuals' social and demographic characteristics (age, gender, income, social class, religious affiliation, etc.) and their political attitudes and level of political activity. Some relationships, such as the correlation between income and political activity, are remarkably strong. Others, such as gender and religious affiliation, usually are less so. Understanding what the public's interests are is important for several reasons. First, because a democracy is supposed to respond to the interests and desires of the public, officials and, more often, candidates need somehow to find out what the public's wishes are; obviously, statistically accurate survey research is an excellent way to do this. Second, both as political scientists and as members of the public who wish to participate in the political system, we want to know the public's desires so we can determine how representative our officials are. Third, survey research has shown us there are sometimes dramatic differences in the interests and desires of different segments of the public. Young people are less interested in politics and vote less often than those in middle age. Wealthy people, whose participation is at a high level, have starkly different issue orientations than poor people, who are more likely to ignore politics. This kind of knowledge leads to major normative questions about a political community. The most obvious question is, Should government respond to those segments of the public that are most active, or should it concern itself with the often very different needs of those who do not participate as much? The exercises the class will be doing meet two goals: first, knowing the differences in political participation and issue orientation among different segments of the public and, second, grappling with the normative problem of representation in a community where different levels of affluence and education usually mean different levels of participation and conflicting interests and needs. We could do this by reading what pollsters and scholars have written. But we are just as capable as they are of using survey research data to determine these relationships. And, because we are using data collected in the most recent presidential campaign, we will produce findings that are usually too recent to be included in academic journals. Some of our findings will be nearly identical to the relationships that were found in 1992 and earlier; this will reflect some long-term correlations that have existed since scholars began research in this area 50 years ago. In some cases, our findings will differ from 1992 data, and it will be interesting to speculate about those changes. You will be doing your research with data from the National Election Studies survey taken at the time of the 1996 presidential campaign, and the related text, Voting Behavior: The 1996 Election, is at times focused on the presidential race. I have selected this data set because it is by far the most widely respected material in the area of political participation. Using data collected in a single state at the time of a state election might at first blush seem more appropriate for this course; however, we are far more interested in gaining a picture of political participation in the U.S. public as a whole than in only one state or region. So we will use the national data set and ignore the variables that relate to the presidential election. In doing the exercises, students will first make certain they can use the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSSX) to gather some basic data regarding political participation and interests among the U.S. public in 1996. Second, you will write a couple of papers describing your findings. Third, each student will produce a 10-page research paper which can be on some topic related to political participation, testing one or more hypotheses that you derive your literature review. If you decide to do a paper based on the NES data, remember that you do not want to deal with data or issues that directly involve national elections or governance, since they are outside the subject area of this course. It is, of course, very wise of you to discuss your paper topic with me before going too far with it; in fact, regular consultations are highly advisable. Below are the variables that relate directly to the 1996 presidential election that are applicable for this course. The complete questions and the responses are in the codebook in the text. Be warned that you want to read the complete questions before using or analyzing the data. Generally, you will want to use Crosstabs in SPSSX to determine the relationships between people's social and demographic characteristics and the variables relating to participation or issue orientation.
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updated Sept. 11, 2001 11:35 AMQuestions and comments: Hampden Smith
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