Models and Methods Commons^™

Political Culture-Based Models Of Society And Polity, Camelia Florela Voinea Dr.

Camelia Florela Voinea

No abstract provided.

Examining The Distinct Effects Of Emotive Triggers On Public Reactions To International Terrorism, Cigdem V. Sirin, Nehemia Geva

Cigdem V. Sirin

National Power As A Critical Terrorist Target Choice: A Dataset On The Activities Of The Jamaaahl Al-Sunnah Li-Da’Wawa Al-Jihad (Boko Haram) Sect In Nigeria (2009-2012), Henry U. Ufomba

henry u ufomba

Should we consider a terrorist group as a rational player in its interaction with the state? If yes, does this give room for a rational expectation in its target choice? Situated within these questions, this dataset present the activities of the terrorist group JamaaAhl al-Sunnah li-da’wawa al-Jihad popularly known as the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria between 2009 to 2012. The key objective of the dataset is to match each of Boko Haram’s target type with the primary assumption of the Uyo School in other to aid future empirical study on the subject to determine its robustness.

‘Jeesis Is Alive! He Is The King Of Australia’: Segregated Religious Instruction, Child Identity And Exclusion, Cathy Byrne

Dr Cathy Byrne

Religious categorisation occurs at enrolment in Australian state-run (public) primary schools, with children segregated into religious instruction classes during their first week. Lesson content has no government oversight and, in some schools, options are limited to Christianity. The effect of this categorisation on children’s attitudes to religious diversity is not well researched but the role of religion in public schools is increasingly controversial. Social identity theory (SIT) considers cultural hegemony as a factor in individual identity construction. SIT posits that inter-group bias increases with in-group identification and suggests that categorisation itself is a source of prejudice. This paper explores the …

Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …

Examining Question Form And Function In The Disaster Press Conference, John Fisher

Dr. John R. Fisher

This study uses a structural functional perspective in examining the form and function of questions in a presidential disaster press conference on May 27, 2010 about the Deepwater BP Oil Spill. Clayman and Heritage (2002) proposed a framework to examine the questions and responses in a press conference while Fisher (1991) offered a method to study media function. These were both applied to the disaster press conference. Findings were used to develop recommendations for public officials and PIOs in working with the media. Despite the fact that this case suggests an adversarial relationship between public officials and the media, public …

Religion And Perceptions Of Candidates' Ideologies In U.S. House Elections, Matthew L. Jacobsmeier

Matthew L. Jacobsmeier

Using data from the American National Election Studies, Poole-Rosenthal DW-Nominate scores, and data on the religious affiliations of members of the United States House of Representatives, I show that religion has important independent effects on the evaluation of candidates' ideologies. The results suggest that candidates affiliated with evangelical Christianity will tend to be seen as more conservative than ideologically similar candidates from mainline Protestant denominations. Jewish candidates, in contrast, will tend to be seen as more liberal than ideologically similar mainline Protestants. Additionally, the use of religion-based stereotypes varies with frequency of church attendance. These findings attest to the external …

The Democracy Cluster Classification Index, Mihaiela R. Gugiu, Miguel Centellas

Miguel Centellas

Using hierarchical cluster analysis, a new measure of democracy, the DCC index, is proposed and constructed from five popular indices of democracy (Freedom House, Polity IV, Vanhanen's index of democratization, Cheibub et al.'s index of democracy and dictatorship, and the Cingranelli-Richards index of electoral self-determination). The DCC was used to classify the regime types for twenty-four countries in the Americas and thirty-nine countries in Europe over a thirty-year period. The results indicated that democracy is a latent class variable. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were conducted for the five existing democracy indices as well as the newly proposed Unified Democracy Scores …

The Coevolution Of Networks And Political Attitudes, David Lazer, Brian Rubineau, Carol Chetkovich, Nancy Katz, Michael Neblo

Brian Rubineau

How do attitudes and social affiliations co-evolve? A long stream of research has focused on the relationship between attitudes and social affiliations. However, in most of this research the causal relationship between views and affiliations is difficult to discern definitively: Do people influence each other’s views so that they converge over time or do they primarily affiliate (by choice or happenstance) with those of similar views? Here we use longitudinal attitudinal and whole network data collected at critical times (notably, at the inception of the system) to identify robustly the determinants of attitudes and affiliations. We find significant conformity tendencies: …

Book Review: Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, Sanford Schram (Eds.), Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis, Arthur Dyevre

Arthur Dyevre

No abstract provided.

Reseña Del Libro: ¿Cómo Hacer Ciencia Política? De Giovanni Sartori, J. R. Joel Flores-Mariscal

J. R. Joel Flores-Mariscal

No abstract provided.

Socially-Mediated Internet Surveys (Smis): Recruiting Participants For Online Experiments, Erin C. Cassese, Leonie Huddy, Todd K. Hartman, Lilliana Mason, Christopher R. Weber

Todd K. Hartman

Socially-Mediated Internet Surveys (SMIS) is a new method to obtain web-based, adult samples for experimental political science research. SMIS targets central figures in online social networks to help recruit participants, who visit their websites. We present data from six samples collected using the SMIS method and compare them to those gathered by other sampling approaches such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. While not representative of the general adult population, our SMIS samples are significantly more diverse than undergraduate convenience samples, not just demographically but also politically. Moreover, we also discuss how the SMIS approach can be used to target special subpopulations …

Barking Up The Wrong Tree: Why Bo Didn't Fetch Many Votes For Barack Obama In 2012, Matthew L. Jacobsmeier, Daniel C. Lewis

Matthew L. Jacobsmeier

In “The Dog that Didn't Bark: The Role of Canines in the 2008 Campaign,” Diana Mutz (2010) argues that dog ownership made voters significantly less likely to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. We examine this claim further. While President Obama has owned a dog since shortly after his 2008 election, we argue that Bo’s presence will not do much to improve his owner’s chances of being reelected in 2012. Rather, the apparent significance of dog ownership is due largely to key variables being omitted from the analysis. Using the same data, we show that Obama didn’t …

An Evaluation Of Cross-National Measures Of Judicial Independence, Julio Ríos-Figueroa, Jeffrey K. Staton

Julio Ríos-Figueroa

We provide a conceptual map of judicial independence and evaluate the con- tent, construct, and convergent validity of 13 cross-national measures. There is evidence suggesting the validity of extant de facto measures, though their proper use requires attention to correlated patterns of measurement error and missing data. The evidence for the validity of extant de jure measures is weaker. Among other findings, we do not observe a strong and direct link between the rules that allegedly promote judicial independence and independent behavior. The results suggest that while the measurement of both de jure and de facto judicial independence requires a …

‘For The Times They Are A Changin’: Explaining U.S. Supreme Court Justices’ Voting Through Identification Of Micro-Publics, Brian P. Levey, Jeffrey L. Yates, Justin Moeller

Brian P Levey

In assessing how social forces may shape U.S. Supreme Court justices’ decision making it has been presumed that there is one, singular public opinion and that it affects the individual justices in largely the same fashion. We suggest that it is more likely the case that justices’ world views are informed and shaped by a myriad of social concerns and group identities upon which these individuals structure and process their experiences and develop and refine their personal schemas. While some have already begun to question the proposition of a monolithic public opinion influence on judicial behavior and have begun to …

Analyzing The Determinants Of Group Identity Among Alevis In Turkey: A National Survey Study, Cigdem V. Sirin

Cigdem V. Sirin

This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's prioritization of Alevi identity. Last, no significant differences are observed regarding group identity between Alevis who reside in urban areas and those who live in rural areas.