Daniel Rubenson

Help Me Help You: Conducting Field Experiments with Political Elites

Field experiments can teach important facts about the political world to both political scientists and political elites, whose shared interest in how that world actually works should encourage greater collaboration between the two. Nonetheless, for political scientists, conducting field experiments with elites can seem prohibitively challenging. Drawing on four field experiments with political elites, two in Benin and two in Canada, we outline key lessons on negotiating and conducting field experiments with political elites. Specifically, we outline how ethical concerns can be addressed and overcome. We discuss how the expectations and timelines of campaigns and elites can be managed, particularly when they (appear to conflict) with academic timing and process. Finally, we outline several general concerns about implementation of field experiments and provide some unique solutions.

The Source of Turnout Decline New Values or New Contexts

Voter turnout has consistently declined since the 1980s across a wide range of advanced democracies. Much of this decline appears to be the result of young people abstaining. In this article the authors test two arguments for this trend. The first rests on the claim that the character of elections has changed, specifically that elections have become less competitive and that young people’s propensities for voting are particularly negatively affected by this. The second maintains that recent generations have different values and that these value differences explain turnout declines. The authors test these two explanations using three different data sets: (a) individual-level and election-specific data from 83 elections in eight countries since the 1950s, (b) longitudinal individual-level and district-level data from British elections for the period 1974–2005, and (c) panel data from American presidential elections. The findings provide strong evidence for the generational value change argument, whereas the authors find scant support for the competition argument.

For want of a nail: Negative persuasion in a party leadership race

Should party leadership candidates communicate their policy positions to the party’s electorate? And should they do so when their own ideal position is outside their party’s mainstream? This article presents evidence from a field experiment into the communication of controversial policy positions through direct mail. Working with a front-running campaign during the race for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, we randomly assigned a subset of convention delegates to receive a direct mail treatment featuring policy messages outside the mainstream of the party. Using a survey instrument, we measured the effects of this treatment on delegates’ ratings and preference ordering of leadership candidates. The effects of the direct mail were principally negative; receiving the mail reduced the probability of the candidate being supported.

Geographic Mobility, Social Connections and Voter Turnout

It is known that those recently moved are less likely to vote. If the decision to vote is a cost–benefit calculation, then those intending to move may also be less likely to vote as they will not be affected by the local result. This self-interested calculation might be mitigated if people vote sociotropically. We show that the effect of intending to move is conditional on levels of social capital: those who have invested in their community are less affected by their intention to move in their decision whether to vote. Using survey data from the UK we show that (a) those intending to move are less likely to vote, (b) higher social capital increases the likelihood of voting and (c) the negative effect of intending to move diminishes when people have more social investments in their community.

The Impact of News Photos on Support for Military Action

Drawing on two experiments embedded in online surveys, this article examines the impact of news photos on support for military action. In 2011, respondents were asked about support for ongoing military involvement in Afghanistan while being randomly exposed to one of two photos—one of a soldier with a child, the other of a soldier with a gun. The former photo increased expressed support for war; and the effect was greater for those who self-identify as being very interested in international affairs. Three years later, a follow-up experiment was fielded that looked both at the past intervention in Afghanistan and ongoing interventions in Syria; results were very similar. Both experiments speak to the potentially profound role of mass media in generating support (or not) for foreign military engagements, and the increased impact of frames on those who are more attentive to the issue domain.

Strategies for Dealing with the Problem of Non-overlapping Units of Assignment and Outcome Measurement in Field Experiments

Researchers conducting field experiments are sometimes faced with the challenge of analyzing field experiment results when the unit of assignment does not coincide with the unit of outcome measurement. For example, in electoral research, election results may be reported at a level of geography defined by electoral law, while the assignment of treatment can be made only at a level of geography different from this. Using examples from field experiments conducted in Canada and Mexico, we describe this problem and its consequences for analysis and interpretation of field experiment data and results. We also offer a number of practical solutions analysts can employ when faced with non-overlapping units of assignment and outcome measure in field experiments.