On not bothering to vote

Meg Whitman, former CEO of EBay and candidate for governor of California, didn't vote in a whole lot of elections according to this Slate article. The article gives the standard rational choice argument regarding no one vote ever deciding the election. Whitman apologized. Do you think California voters should care about this when they decide whether to vote for Whitman?

South African youths' political participation

Here is a (perhaps naively sunny) article about the effectiveness of South African youths' political participation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/world/africa/25safrica.html?hp

Equation 2

I know that Equation 2 provided great confusion in class today and I believe that I figured out the reason why. I believe we were misinterpreting the scale. From what I understand now after working several examples and then rereading the paragraph explaining the what the results mean, I believe we were mistaken in what the scale from -2 to +2 meant. In the essay she says:

Note that this measure is not identical to disagreement; it emphasizes not to the sheer volume of counter attitudinal information, but the mix of pro- and counter-attitudinal information.

This means that the it is not measuring if your group is totally supportive at one of the scale and the other end of the scale is not a group that is totally against your views. In other words the scale means that -2 is for groups that are completely homogeneous (either the whole group agrees or disagrees with your position). The +2 rating is representative of a group that is a 50:50 ratio between agreeable and disagreeable.

So since the max sample size is 4 people:

4:0 ratio = -2
3:1 ratio = 0
2:2 ratio = +2

Readings

Reading for Tuesday 9/29: Cho and McLeod on Knowledge Gap

Fall break on Thursday 10/1: no reading

Reading for Tuesday 10/6: Elmira study

Reading for Thursday 10/8: Read as much of the material on Robert Putnam's website and connected websites as you can.

Answer to Question about Sampling Weights

In class on Thursday, someone asked a question about footnote 11 on page 235 of Chapter 8 of Voice and Equality by Verba, Schlozman & Brady. I deferred because you all did not have copies of Appendix A, which describes the procedure. Here's the answer to the question regarding the meaning of that footnote:

Sometimes a sample does not reflect the underlying population. For instance, very slightly over half of people in the U.S. are female. But in many surveys, more women than men agree to be interviewed. (Why do you think this is the case?) If we count all the people who respond to such a survey equally, the results will reflect the answers of women more than a random sample of the U.S. population should. It would overcount women because men are underrepresented in the sample. To compensate, we might statistically given more weight to the answers of the men we were able to interview. In essence, this technique overcounts the answers of men to make up for the fact that men were under-counted in the sampling.

Footnote 11 tells you that the authors faced this problem with respect to racial groups. They *purposely* interviewed more Latinos and African-Americans than percentages in the population would suggest. They wanted to make sure they weren't using too few people in each group to represent the group. But then, when they wanted to make a complete picture of the US, there were too many interviewees from minority groups compared to the number of Caucasian people they interviewed for the whole sample to represent the proportions of each group that exist in the U.S. So they mathematically corrected for this.

Because the survey was done by a respected research facility (NORC), and the analysis was done by a respected group of authors, and the book and related articles have undergone peer review, I can tell you that we can trust these procedures. They are standard. However, since the book was written, better, or at least more complicated, statistical procedure have become more common. The method the authors used neglects some problems with variance, but this is outside the topic of this class. In short, merely over-counting the under-represented group doesn't address problems of estimating the spread of answers to the survey questions.

Readings

For Tuesday (9/22): Moy et al on antecedents to participation
For Thursday (9/24): Nir on ambivalent networks

Obama's Address to Congress

With all the hullaballoo surrounding that outburst of "YOU LIE!!!!" during the speech, I think we need to focus on what the President said and not Joe Wilson R-S.C. I mean, Barack spent like 48 minutes addressing the health care debate and the so-called "myths" inflaming the left & right wingers. Will any actual reform make its way to the President's desk? If so, can there be any bipartisanship besides tort reform? Tort reform and lawsuits and such seemed to be the only area of concensus, when both sides of the aisle rose and applauded heartily.

I like all the drama. Reminds me of the open-ballot days of the 1800's. Nothing gets me more excited (well almost) than when the President gets heckled as if this is some bad standup or laughter for that matter. Most of all, did anyone notice that whenever the Democrats applauded, stood up, yelled, etc. all those sitting down were Caucasian men sprinkled with a couple women???

Tigers 35
Commodores 24

Next week's readings

Next week our readings discuss social inequality and participation.

Reading for meeting 6 (Tu Sept 15) :
Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation

There are two readings for meeting 7 (Th Sept 17):
Women and Political Participation
Chapter 8 in Verba, Schlozman & Brady

French government at the time of deTocqueville's trip to the U.S.

I didn't do a very good job in class setting the scene for deTocqueville's tour of the U.S. that resulted in his book "Democracy in America."

In short, Charles X had been the King with the support of the Catholic church but overstepped, drawing the ire of public opinion when he tried to curtail rights too strictly. He fled to England as a result of the "July Revolution" of 1830, which led to revolutions elsewhere in Europe . Activism in France led to a constitutional monarchy: not exactly a democracy, but certainly a government with more rights protections than that of Charles and Louis 18. Here is an encyclopedia entry with more detail.

These were the home eyes through which deToqueville saw America when he began his trip in 1831.

The flu

If you're feeling unwell, please stay home and protect your own health and that of your classmates! I deliberately designed the class so that it's possible to miss a reasonable number of meetings without adverse effects on your grade. In light of how many people have reported a flu diagnosis (2, and counting), I am now further extending that permission:
* I will give 14 readings quizzes over the course of the semester and count only the best 10. This means you can miss up to 4 classes with no effect on your grade, even if those classes happen to fall on days I give a readings quiz.*
So if you think you might have the flu, stay home! There is no need to contact me. Just ask someone from class for the notes, check this blog, and stay current with the reading. You can write response papers from home if you feel up to it. You don't want me to grade while sick; I would be grumpy.
Good luck staying well; if you're feeling ill, I hope you recover in time for Seattle!