Election Studies: The State of the Field and Beyond

1. Ian McAllisterThe Australian National University ian.mcallister@anu.edu.au http://www.cses.org/ http://aes.anu.edu.au/ Election Studies:The State of the Field and Beyond

2. A Crisis in National Election Studies? Many national election studies now more than half a century old Expanded around the world. Now generally accepted part of political science Oldest national election studies: 1. United States 1948- 2. Sweden 1956- 3. Germany 1961- 4. Britain 1963- 5. Canada 1965- 6. Netherlands 1967- 7. Germany 1969- 8. Denmark 1971- 9. Australia 1987-

3. Inspired by Michigan model But election studies appear to have reached their limits Length of questionnaire in Australian Election Study

4. Number of variables in American National Election Study

5. Declining response rates, AES

6. Declining response rates, BES since 1963

7. Intellectual Issues Why study voting? Voting worth studying—William Riker’s ‘democracy’s central act’ Less recognition of normative questions about democracy But elections co-ordinating events, unique in social sciences —Temporal acts: occur at same point in time —Decisional acts: produce government —Collective events: citizens must co-ordinate with others —Social events: bring citizens, groups, parties together Political scientists emhasize co-ordinating event. But other aspects of interest to social scientists

8. Intellectual Issues,continued What should election studies focus on? Obvious focus single election, but at least three other dimensions —Longitudinal As studies accumulate, greater potential to leverage big questions about change —Comparative Relative lack of comparative electoral studies. Only since 1996 CSES —Contextual Link contextual information to better understand electoral dynamics

9. Intellectual Issues,continued Examples of contextual information: political context of the election institutional variations (CSES) media consumption social location elite studies (Comparative Candidate Survey http://www.comparativecandidates.org/ )

11. Methodological Issues Survey Method Personal interview (some mail self-completion, phone) Problems: declining response rates, cost, sampling frame Internet surveys (avoid method effects, cheap, fast) Problems: not probability, need to be weighted; payment of respondents Sample Size Usually 1,500-2,000 respondents Problems: effective sample smaller for voters; difficult to analyze some issues, groups

12. Methodological Issues,continued Study Design An enhanced portfolio of coordinated studies —independent rolling cross-sections in non-election years —rolling-cross-sections within the campaign —state or region over-samples

13. Administrative Issues Emphasis on collaboration; public use; broad oversight Economies of scale, test new ideas, hypotheses Generation of intellectual capital Capacity buildng, training in better social science Co-ordination to leverage resources Uniformity in study design, documentation, establish best practice

14. Summary No crisis, but need for organic change/generational replacement Need to ‘sell’ election studies more widely Restrict to ‘core business’ Link to other datasets, collections Develop the methodology to respond to problems