Carol A. Cassel

Overreporting And Electoral Participation Research

Do nonvoters who say they voted bias electoral participation research? Early studies said they do not, but Bernstein, Chadha, and Montjoy concluded that overreporters alter the effects of most independent variables. This research tests whether overreporters bias conclusions about additional untested variables and whether we obtain the same results as Bernstein and his coauthors when we test different models. Overreporters bias the coefficients of only a small proportion of independent variables in more typical models, although overreporting is more problematic than the early studies reported. Specifically, in the models this research tests, overreporters change the effects of African American race, marital status, Southern residence, and closing date on presidential election turnout and African American race, marital status, Hispanic ethnicity, occupation, and open seat races on midterm turnout. A warning about how overreporting bias affects, or may affect, their conclusions should accompany studies that include these, or other,untested variables.

Simple Explanations of Turnout Decline

Several recent studies have claimed to explain the post-1960 decline in U.S. presidential and congressional election turnout in terms of just a few variables. Abramson and Aldrich (1982) attribute the great bulk of the decline to aggregate declines in partisanship and political efficacy. Shaffer (1981) attributes still more of the decline to aggregate decreases in these same two variables plus age and following the campaign in the newspapers. And Kleppner (1982) attributes “virtually all” of the decline to aggregate decreases in the first three of these variables. We show how these studies measure explanation too generously and how the very short-handedness of their models makes them seem more successful than they are. These few variables, we conclude, leave most of the decline unexplained.

Theories of Political Literacy

This paper tests cognitive mobilization, structural role, and traditional socialization agent theories of political literacy, conceptualized as the potential for informed political participation. Political literacy cannot be measured directly, but we presume that if people are politically literate, they understand party differences and know basic political concepts and facts. Other names for this concept include political expertise, political awareness, and civic competence. Using Jennings and Niemis youth-parent panel socialization data, we conclude that cognitive mobilization has the largest effect on political literacy, followed fairly closely by structural roles. Socialization agents have a very minor effect. This conclusion partly supports prevailing cognitive mobilization explanations of this concept. However, self-selection causes much of the relationship between political literacy and education, making educations cognitive mobilization potential far smaller than most political scientists assumed. Political involvement and ability are the main sources of cognitive mobilization instead, and educations spurious cross-sectional effect primarily reflects structural roles.

A Test of Converse's Theory of Party Support

Converses (1969) explanation of party support, whose main components are a life cycle process resulting from social learning, and an intergenerational transmission process based on fathers partisanship, is one of political sciences most elegant theories--but one with an aura of controversy. Thanks to Converses own defense, the theory survived early challenges from critics who argued that party support results from generation, not life-cycle change. More recently, the theory has been challenged by critics whose tests fail to support it in new electorates and, indirectly, by revisionists who reconceptualized partisanship. This paper provides clear and consistent support for the theory, using U.S. data. It estimates a model in three time periods, using a specification that is truer to Converses than previous tests; and it extends the analysis to 1990 with available data. The results are discussed in light of tests of new electorates and revisionist models of partisanship.

Predicting party identification, 1956–80: Who are the republicans and who are the democrats?

Multivariate predictions of party identification have been based on fathers party and social or demographic characteristics in past studies. This paper uses two policy attitudes to predict party along with the usual predictors of partisanship, from 1956 to 1980. The policy attitudes—domestic welfare policy opinion and civil rights policy opinion—have theoretical links to partisanship stemming from the New Deal and the 1960s. Domestic welfare policy opinion is found to be a major predictor of party identification. Despite the inclusion of the two policy attitudes and correction for attenuation caused by measurement error, only about 50% of the variance in party identification can be explained.

Testing the Converse Party Support Model in Britain

This article supports the Converse party support model in Britain and more generally. The Converse theory, which has implications for electoral stability, is that public support for political parties comes from individuals whose partisanship strengthens as they gain experience in voting for a party. Abramson recently concluded the theory does not apply in Britain because generational change and historical (period) effects account for partisan intensities. He argued that even if period effects concealed life cycle gains, the theory would not apply because historical events in Britain—and in the United States—are too modest. From British panel data, this article reports the strongest evidence to date supporting life cycle gains in partisanship. Cohort equations show generational change in addition, as a secondary explanation. Cohort equations also disclose which historical events caused dealignment. Dealignment periods in both Britain and the United States are limited, and the events that produced them are rare.