American Politics
which party is currently advantaged by the popular maladjustment of the Senate and Electoral College? Why?
Republicans, because their voters are more geographically diffuse.
Why do we need to clean raw survey data before conducting quantitative analysis?
Many responses are invalid for such analysis, such as NAs or non-responses.
Has incumbency advantage declined or risen in recent years?
Declined
What does "statistically significant" mean?
The relationship we see is highly unlikely to have been produced by chance, signaling a real relationship between 2 variables.
In the article we read about media framing of a KKK rally, which framing, security or free speech, caused people to be more open to allowing the rally?
What is gerrymandering?
Strategically drawing congressional districts to benefit one's own party.
What is the median voter theorem?
if voters are distributed along 1 political spectrum, with most voters in the middle, it is in the interest of all candidates to be as close to the middle as possible.
What is retrospective voting?
Voters evaluate candidates based on past performance.
What is the decimal cutoff for statistical significance?
0.05
Which party has benefitted more from the decline of incumbency advantage, according to Jacobsen?
Republicans
What do we mean by the "nationalization" of American politics?
Lower level political races being shaped by national political dynamics and debates, rather than local issues.
Name 2 assumptions median voter theorem makes that may not be true
1. Everyone votes
2. Everyone has perfect knowledge
3. Parties sole goal is to win elections, not service their donors/rich backers.
4. Assumes all politics can be condensed into 1 liberal-conservative spectrum.
What is recency bias?
Making voting choices based disproportionately on things that happened recently.
Name 2 good sources of survey data on Americans.
According to Arceneaux's study, which party is more willing to electorally punish those who deviate from the party line?
Republicans
What are the 4 categories of macro public opinion issues?
Social Welfare, Civil Rights, Foreign Policy, Cultural Issues
what is a conjoint experiment?
a research method where respondents are shown different combinations of a candidate or policy's attributes and asked to choose which they prefer, allowing researchers to determine the relative importance of each attribute.
Do lower or higher income Americans tend to be more socially liberal?
Higher income
Why can't we isolate causal effects in observational survey data?
We have no hard proof that the results are produced by the treatment, as we would in an experiment.
For which kinds of elections does Fiorina find evidence for retrospective voting, and for which does he not?
Presidential-yes. Congressional- no
What is the "thermostatic" model of public opinion?
When government policy shifts in a particular ideological direction (becomes more liberal or increases spending), public opinion tends to move in the opposite direction, demanding a correction.
Why is it difficult to study the disproportionate influence of the rich as compared to the poor by comparing whose opinions get turned into policy more often?
The rich and the poor often want the same thing, and the poor may be subject to manipulation by the rich.
What is sociotropic vs pocketbook voting?
sociotropic- based on perception of economy in general
pocketbook- based on one's own finances
Name 1 downside to experimental research.
Severely limits the scope of questions you can meaningfully answer, and results are always limited in their external validity.
According to Gelman and King, why are presidential elections so predictable when the polls early in the campaign are so wrong?
Partisans are not yet informed, and the campaign serves to do that and help then organize into their camps, which in turn make their voting decisions very predictable.