Philip E. Converse

A Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Model of Electoral Choice

This article develops a simultaneous equation model of the voting decision in a form thought to mirror the main lines of cognitive decision-making processes of individual voters. The model goes beyond earlier efforts in two respects. First, it explicitly represents the causal interdependence of voter assessments in the election situation, permitting such estimations as the degree to which correlations between voter issue positions and issue positions ascribed to preferred candidates arise because of projection onto the candidate or persuasion by the candidate. Secondly, the model is truly dynamic, in the sense that it is dependent on longitudinal data for its proper estimation. The utility of the model is certified by the goodness of fit achieved when applied to 1972–76 panel data for a sample of the national electorate.

Of Time and Partisan Stability

IT IS A COMMONPLACE expectation that newly established social and political institutions somehow accumulate a deepening stability with the passage of time. In the very long run, of course, once-established institutions may obsolesce, evolve into new forms, or be more brusquely overturned. But the timing of these terminal events, embedded as they will be in a complex nexus of change, seems almost impossible to forecast at long range. What is utterly predictable, however, is that threats to the survival of a new institution will be very high in its infant stages. In the degree that it can outlast these first precarious periods, it will typically have put forth roots of sufficient strength so that challenges to its very being diminish in number and those that do occur are warded off with

Political representation in France

There can scarcely be a greater tribute to the vitality of the Fifth Republics democracy than this monumental work. A searching analysis of how the will of the voters is translated into authoritative political decision making, this book not only uncovers political truths about contemporary France but also provides a model for the study of other popular forms of government. The authors set out to find an answer to the perplexing question of how representative government operates in France in the seemingly unstable context of multiparties. By interviewing voters as well as legislators in 1967 and in 1968 after the great upheaval, and by monitoring policies of the National Assembly from 1967 to 1973, the authors test relationships between public opinion and decision making. They are able to sort out the abiding political cues that orient the French voter, to establish the normal electoral processes, to gauge the nature of mass perceptions of the political options available to voters, and to interpret the strikes, riots, and demonstrations of 1968 as a channel of communication parallel to the electoral process itself. Lucid in style, methodologically sophisticated, and often comparative in approach, Political Representation in France is a seminal work for political scientists, sociologists, and historians.

Plus ça change…: The New CPS Election Study Panel *

Between 1956 and 1960, the first long-term panel study of the American electorate was carried out at the University of Michigan. Among other findings from this original panel were sharp contrasts between the high individual-level stability of party identification and more labile individual preferences on major political issues of the day. Since 1960, several changes in the nature of the American electoral response have caught the attention of scholars, including an erosion of party loyalties on one hand and an increasing crystallization of issue attitudes on the other. Completion of a new panel segment, 1972–76, makes it possible to review the original 1956–60 findings in the light of these intervening changes. We discovered that the contrasts in individual-level continuity of party and issue positions remain nearly identical to those estimated for 1956–60. The theoretical significance of these counter-intuitive results is discussed.

The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964)

(2006). The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964) Critical Review: Vol. 18, Democratic Competence, pp. 1-74.

Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election

Without much question, the third-party movement of George C. Wallace constituted the most unusual feature of the 1968 presidential election. While this movement failed by a substantial margin in its audacious attempt to throw the presidential contest into the House of Representatives, in any other terms it was a striking success. It represented the first noteworthy intrusion on a two-party election in twenty years. The Wallace ticket drew a larger proportion of the popular vote than any third presidential slate since 1924, and a greater proportion of electoral votes than any such movement for more than a century, back to the curiously divided election of 1860. Indeed, the spectre of an electoral college stalemate loomed sufficiently large that serious efforts at reform have since taken root. At the same time, the Wallace candidacy was but one more dramatic addition to an unusually crowded rostrum of contenders, who throughout the spring season of primary elections were entering and leaving the lists under circumstances that ranged from the comic through the astonishing to the starkly tragic. Six months before the nominating conventions, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had been the expected 1968 protagonists, with some greater degree of uncertainty, as usual, within the ranks of the party out of power. The nominating process for the Republicans followed the most-probable script rather closely, with the only excitement being provided by the spectacle of Governors Romney and Rockefeller proceeding as through revolving doors in an ineffectual set of moves aimed at providing a Republican alternative to the Nixon candidacy. Where things were supposed to be most routine on the Democratic side, however, surprises were legion, including the early enthusiasm for Eugene McCarthy, President Johnsons shocking announcement that he would not run, the assassination of Robert Kennedy in the flush of his first electoral successes, and the dark turmoil in and around the Chicago nominating convention, with new figures like Senators George McGovern and Edward Kennedy coming into focus as challengers to the heir apparent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Assessing the accuracy of polls and surveys.

Direct measurements of public opinion about national affairs appear with increasing frequency in all of the mass media. While such survey results are often with statements as to expected error margins, discrepancies between multiple surveys in the news at the same time on what seem to be the same topics may convince casual consumers that such error margins must be considerably understated. A brief review of the several sources of variability and fixed bias in such surveys provides a clearer frame of reference for the evaluation of such data.

Measures of the perceived overall quality of life

Respondents participating in a national quality of life study were asked to assess their levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with each of a set of fifteen domains of their lives. They were also asked to describe their lives as a whole, using both satis-faction and semantic-differential types of scales. Canonical correlation analysis was used to find the combinations of domain-specific and global items with the highest correlation. The two indices derived from this analysis, the Index of Well-being and the Index of Domain Satisfactions, have been examined in relation to a variety of demographic and situational variables, including age, indicators of socioeconomic status, employment status, and size of community. The relationships discovered provide some preliminary evidence for the validity of these indices. The reliability of the measures (as measured cross-sectionally) and their stability over a period of some eight months are both acceptably high. We conclude that both of these measures form acceptable indicators of the perceived overall quality of life.

Stability and Change in 1960: A Reinstating Election

John F. Kennedys narrow popular vote margin in 1960 has already insured this presidential election a classic position in the roll call of close American elections. Whatever more substantial judgments historical perspective may bring, we can be sure that the 1960 election will do heavy duty in demonstrations to a reluctant public that after all is said and done, every vote does count. And the margin translated into “votes per precinct” will become standard fare in exhortations to party workers that no stone be left unturned. The 1960 election is a classic as well in the license it allows for “explanations” of the final outcome. Any event or campaign strategem that might plausibly have changed the thinnest sprinkling of votes across the nation may, more persuasively than is usual, be called “critical.” Viewed in this manner, the 1960 presidential election hung on such a manifold of factors that reasonable men might despair of cataloguing them. Nevertheless, it is possible to put together an account of the election in terms of the broadest currents influencing the American electorate in 1960. We speak of the gross lines of motivation which gave the election its unique shape, motivations involving millions rather than thousands of votes. Analysis of these broad currents is not intended to explain the hairline differences in popular vote, state by state, which edged the balance in favor of Kennedy rather than Nixon. But it can indicate quite clearly the broad forces which reduced the popular vote to a virtual stalemate, rather than any of the other reasonable outcomes between a 60-40 or a 40–60 vote division.

Democratic theory and electoral reality

Abstract In response to the dozen essays published here, which relate my 1964 paper on “The Nature of Belief Systems in the Mass Publics” to normative requirements of democratic theory, I note, inter alia, a major misinterpretation of my old argument, as well as needed revisions of that argument in the light of intervening data. Then I address the degree to which there may be some long‐term secular change in the parameters that I originally laid out. In the final section, I provide a case study of public understanding of factual trends in federal tax policy in recent decades which seems commendably veridical on average. The preferences of the public thereon add up to a remarkably clear popular mandate. But this mandate seems to disappear rather magically in the voting booth, probably due to a combination of limited contextual information on the public side, and considerable skill on the elite side in manipulating apparent political realities.