WEEKS 1-2:

HISTORY OF DISCIPLINE, ETHICS, GOOD THEORY

 

The history of the discipline of political science starts with the Classical Era from 700 BC to 1850 AD, when we were a more philosophical field, and asked such questions as: how the government and society “ought” to be organized; and asked what “justice” truly is; and who should rule society, the “wise” or the multitude; and what the obligations of citizens and of the government are. Some class discussion may occur on these topics. The role of government as seen by liberals and conservatives was discussed. These philosophical questions are still important today, as you can see with the question of what is “social justice,” and is the American criminal justice system fair to minorities, and the debate over police misconduct. Who should rule- Democrats seek to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to vote, while Republicans are accused of “voter suppression”- trying to restrict the franchise to the higher socioeconomic status. So while this course will not be focused on the Classical Era, it is still an important part of our discipline; make sure that you take some of Dr. Chamberlain’s classes to learn more.

 

Next is the Institutional Era, which was from 1850 to 1900 AD. That era of political science focused on institutions and processes, such as the Congress and the stages whereby a bill becomes a law. It focused heavily on the U.S. constitution, and the structure and powers of the three branches of government. It took a legalistic case study approach to the legal process, as constitutional and civil liberty courses studied the historical evolution of how the bill of rights has evolved in practice over the years. In the international relations field, it viewed the nation as a “unitary actor,” acting as a united entity with a rational goal, such as self-interest, maintaining spheres of influence, and engaging in power politics.

 

Next is the Transitional Era from 1900 to 1945. Political scientists saw some problems with the institutional approach of studying politics, such as Irony of Form. An example is that non-democratic nations would have constitutions that looked very democratic on paper (elected Parliaments, Presidents, like Russia), but the governments acted in an authoritarian or totalitarian manner, suppressing opposition parties and the freedom of the press. Also, political scientists realized that one could not just study an institution or a nation as a whole, since there was considerable Pluralism within those institutions. For example, there is a big difference between how Democrats and Republicans act and govern in Congress today. Pluralism exists within a nation, such as the Blue (Democratic controlled) states and the Red states (Republican) in the U.S. today. So there is no unitary state. As such, political scientists turned to a new approach to studying politics.

 

The Behavioral era is from 1945 to present, and it is extremely important to know, since it is the approach that this course uses. Its characteristics are:

1) We use the scientific method, which relies on theories that seek to explain and predict political phenomenon. We look for patterns in the world.

An example is that we want to explain how and why people vote the way they do for presidential candidates. A sociological theory says that people are affected by their group membership, and that African Americans and lower income people in general are more likely to vote for the more liberal party, the Democrats, than are the majority white race and people having a higher income. A social-psychological theory of voting says that a person’s attitudes are more important in affecting their presidential vote. This University of Michigan model published in The American Voter in the 1950s theorized that party identification, issue attitudes, and evaluations of the candidates affected who people voted for. Party identification was a psychological identification with a political party. Issue attitudes might be measured by liberal-conservative self-identification. Therefore, Republican party identifiers, conservatives, and those viewing the Republican candidate as having more character and leadership were theorized to be more likely to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, compared to those who were Democrats, liberals, and those viewing the Democratic candidate as having more character and leadership. A third theory might seek to explain how southern state legislators vote on roll call bills. One might argue that race and party identification are the key factors, as African American Democrats cast the most liberal votes, white Democrats are more middle-of-the-road, and white Republicans are the most conservative in voting. Each of these three models are theories that seek to explain and predict voting patterns.

2) Your theory directs your research and what data (information) you gather.

For example, in the University of Michigan social psychological theory, you would gather data by conducting a national public opinion poll of voters, and asking every person their party identification, their attitudes on public issues, and their evaluations of the major party candidates on important traits such as honesty and leadership. To test the sociological model of voting, your national study would ask voters their race and income. In Shaffer’s study of Mississippi state legislators, he collected data on each of Mississippi’s 174 state legislators during the last 20 years of the 20th century, specifically their: political party, from their state legislative website or from the Secretary of State’s election results which listed the party they ran under; their race, identified from their biographies that listed their affiliations and membership in minority caucuses; their roll call votes on important issues, published each year by the major state newspaper, the Clarion-Ledger.

3) Value free. Researchers must be completely free of any personal, partisan, or ideological bias. They must be completely neutral. Researchers simply try to explain how the world works. They don’t try to change the world, an orientation that would hurt their objectivity.

An example is that an opinionated conservative on Fox News may claim that Reagan won the 1980 presidential election because of the popularity of his conservative philosophy, and an opinionated liberal may claim that Obama won in 2008 because of his liberal philosophy, but our research may indicate that each won merely because voters were dissatisfied with the incumbent party’s performance in the Presidency. In 1980 voters perceived Carter as a failed leader, due to the high unemployment (recession), the 13% annual inflation, the Iranian hostage situation, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. When Reagan’s supporters tried to implement a very conservative “mandate” and tried to significantly cut domestic spending, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives refused to do so, and Republicans lost seats in the midterm election. Democrats won in 2008 because of the financial crisis which occurred under a Republican President. When President Obama implemented liberal programs like the Affordable Care Act and a massive stimulus package, he lost control of the House in his first midterm election and then lost the Senate in his second midterm year. If Democratic and Republican party activists had been more "scientific" and value free, they may have kept their party's Presidents from veering too far to the ideological extreme, and maybe they would have kept control of Congress.

4) Our research is Interdisciplinary, as we draw on such fields as sociology, psychology, and economics.

An example from sociology is the sociological model of voting, where mere group membership can influence how someone votes. Note how about 90% of African Americans tend to vote Democratic, and how a majority of whites vote Republican. Historically, sociologists also examined voting differences in income groups, occupation, and religious groups. During the New Deal Democratic majority era before 1968, blue collar workers voted more Democratic, and white collar more Republican. The most Democratic voting group were people of the Jewish faith, the most Republican were northern Protestants, and Catholics leaned Democratic. Today, both blue collar workers and Catholics are up for grabs. An example from psychology is Shaffer’s study of balance theory, which tested the theory that voters seek to maintain consistency in their beliefs and attitudes, as consistency reduces psychological stress. As such, if you like a candidate, you will tend to believe that that candidate agrees with you on the issues that you care about. That can actually result in your misperceiving reality. If you really like Donald Trump, you maintain consistency by believing that he was a “Great President,” and so he must have won the last election, so the election was actually stolen! Sadly, this makes you psychologically consistent, though you are divorced from reality. Indeed, former President Trump may be an example of this theory, as it can also apply to political leaders. Regarding economics, Shaffer worked with economics professor (George Chressanthis) to determine that U.S. Senate elections were somewhat accountable to the public. Senate election margins were affected by presidential coattails, campaign spending, divisive primaries, and the preceding election margin. Economic conditions in the state and federal pork barrel dollars did not affect the election margins, however. Perhaps a better measure of Senators' job performance is the public's perception of their performance, which may be more affected by the publicity that they gain for federal money and projects that they bring into the state, so Senators' press secretaries may be instrumental in their electoral hopes.

5) We are methodologically sophisticated. Our methods are not merely case studies of individuals, but we study many people randomly selected and over many years.

For example, we conduct national public opinion polls that are representative of the nation's diversity. We do not conduct shopping mall polls, or phone-in or internet polls that fail to reflect the views of lower socioeconomic classes. So we can test whether the sociological group, or the social-psychological model of presidential voting is upheld. We have indeed found that party identification is the most important factor affecting the vote, with about 95% of Democrats and Republicans voting for their party’s presidential and congressional candidates. The issues of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are also important, and when times are good such as in 1984 and 1996, the incumbent President wins (Reagan, Clinton). When there is a recession, the incumbent tends to lose (Carter in 1980, Bush 1 in 1992). Candidate traits are also important, as Carter in 1980 was viewed as a failed leader. In another published study, I used such national polls from 1960 thru 1976 to explain how voter turnout declined during that period due to decreased political efficacy, decreased partisan intensity, and decreased newspaper readership. In my southern state legislative factions research, I started with one southern state, Mississippi, in only a few years. We then became more methodologically sophisticated and expanded to a twenty-year time frame in Mississippi. Then, we added other southern states, like Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas. My book co-authored with Charles Menifield, Politics in the New South: Representation of African Americans in Southern State Legislatures, won the V.O. Key award for the best book in southern politics. Shaffer's study of balance theory relied on the 1994-1996 American national panel study to examine cognition change over time; such panel studies follow the same people over time. The Shaffer and Chressanthis study of Senate accountability used a pooled time-series, cross-sectional approach. All even-numbered years from 1976 thru 1986 were included, as were all 33 state contests in each election year. Regression and probit were used, such sophisticated methods that we will only briefly cover one of them late in the course.

6) We rely on an Individual and group level of analysis, rather than a whole institution or whole nation focus.

For example, the presidential voting studies use the individual voter as the unit of analysis. The southern state legislative factions also looked at individuals (legislators in this case), and we combined them into three groups based on their race and party (only 3 groups, since there were no black Republicans). Balance theory and voter turnout studies also looked at individuals. Even our modern legal studies focus more on the individual justice rather than the evolution of case law over time. So, in my Honors Government class notes (website: https://sds17.pspa.msstate.edu/classes/honor/supremecourt.html), you can see how I have listed each of the 9 justices in each year since 1961, and indicated how they voted. Names in italics indicate that a Republican President appointed them. You can then see how they voted on each court case, and read the case outcome at the end to determine whether that was a more liberal or conservative vote. Our theory is that Republican appointed justices vote in a more conservative direction than Democratic appointed justices, and Democratic appointees vote in a more liberal direction. Hence, the controversy in 2016 of a Republican-controlled Senate refusing to consider President Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee, and Democratic threats in Biden's first years in office to expand the size of the court. Again, we focus heavily on individuals, not institutions as a whole.

Criticisms of Behavioralism- are people and events predictable, can we be value free; class discussion may occur.

Can this scientific behavioral approach explain the 2022 midterm elections?

One theory of midterm congressional outcomes is that the President's job approval rating and the economy are related to how many seats the President's party loses in Congress, and that the President's party almost always loses seats in midterm elections. Because President Biden's approval rating was in the low 40% and the nation faced fairly high inflation and a relatively weak economy, most political analysts expected a big Republican gain of seats in Congress. However, I pointed out that there were two exceptions to this pattern of presidential party midterm seat losses- 1998 (when Clinton's impeachment was viewed as very partisan) and 2002 (after the 9-11 terrorist attack). We also see a President's popularity increase when he runs for re-election, as the public must dampen their unrealistic high expectations as they compare the incumbent with the other party's presidential nominee. Former President Trump was so active in the midterm campaigns that voters did not focus solely on President Biden, but were also reminded of an even more unpopular alternative. Plus, President Biden and the Democrats reminded voters of the January 6 Insurrection, an event that some viewed as comparable to the divisive or dangerous events of 1998 and 2002. Finally, political science studies have found that Candidate Quality is important, and it is measured by candidates having previously held elective office or at least had run for office. Trump was successful in getting non-politician Republicans nominated, who were weaker candidates (as noted by Republican Senate Leader McConnell). Consequently, Republicans made only minor gains in the House elections, and even lost one Senate seat and two Governorships.

Comment on the field of Public Administration.

Methodological Issues in PA

Your Research Paper

We now turn to a discussion of your research paper. On January 31, you should turn in a few pages of your proposed paper, which includes an introduction, a drawing of your model, a list of your 5 hypotheses, and a few paragraphs on your methodology. To get started, think of something you would like to explain (your dependent variable), and then pick three variables that help you to explain it (your independent variables). Pick these four variables from the variables listed in the Mississippi Poll. They must all be asked in the same years, and try to choose two or three adjacent years, in order to increase the sample size and reduce the sample error. A nice summary of the questions asked in the Mississippi Poll, and what years they are asked in is available on-line.

Most papers will have one outside "early" variable, such as a demographic characteristic, two intervening variables (in the middle), and one dependent variable. Other papers have two outside variables, one intervening variable, and one dependent variable. The most recent and helpful student research paper is accessible here. Notice how our alumnus Ms. Moehrs (now Gardner) used sex, race, and ideology to explain people’s attitudes towards the death penalty. You can also see how her Introduction justified the importance of her topic, how she drew up her model, how carefully written her 5 hypotheses were, and (skip the lit review for now) how her methods section was written. More on all of that later; at this point just come up with a model with 4 interrelated variables that make sense in how they go together.

ETHICAL CONCERNS

The Stanley Milgram study was a controversial study of obedience to authority. He wanted to know whether what happened in Nazi Germany could ever happen in the United States. Would Americans blindly follow orders and hurt their fellow citizens? The researcher took “subjects” off of the street, and told them that a person was hooked up to electrodes in the back room, and that the subject would lead a “learning experiment.” The subject would read a list of objects and names, and the person in the back room would try to list them back from memory, and every time they made a mistake the subject would increase the dial and give the person an electric shock. When subjects would resist hurting them, the researcher would remind them that it was a very important experiment, so please increase the dial and pain. Most people followed orders, even when the person in the back room was moaning and yelling in pain. At the conclusion of the experiment, the researcher showed the subject that the person in the back room had never been physically harmed, as they weren’t really hooked up to any electricity. The researcher just lied to the subject. Is this an ethical experiment? No, because the subject of the experiment was lied to, and they could have been psychologically hurt (or even had a heart attack!). As such, today we have federal regulations over how we do our research. All universities must follow the protocol of Informed Consent, a very important topic for you to know. We must follow this protocol whenever we study human beings, including just doing a public opinion poll.

The four components of Informed Consent are:

 

Another important topic is the difference between Anonymity and Confidentiality.

In Anonymity, no one can identify a person with their responses. So, for example, if you were in a room with the subjects, and you asked them to vote for a candidate, you might give each of them a Red (Republican) and Blue (Democratic) marble, and they would drop the appropriate marble in a covered collection box and discard the other marble in a covered waste basket. Nobody would know how they voted, so it would be completely anonymous.

In Confidentiality, the researcher knows how the respondent answered, but promises not to tell anyone. That is like when we did a mail survey of county party executive committee members across Mississippi, and included a number on their questionnaires so that we could determine that they had returned their forms. As I got the forms back, I could determine what each individual had said on each of the sensitive questions that we asked them, but I didn’t look at their responses. So I held their responses in Confidentiality. Most of our studies, including the Mississippi Poll, are merely confidential, and not anonymous. As such, it is important to delink your poll results from the identity of the person who gave those responses. For example, in the early years of the Mississippi Poll, we had printed questionnaires and a first page with the phone numbers on them. Once pollsters completed the surveys, I immediate tore off the first page with the phone number on it, and threw it away. Therefore, I had turned Confidentiality into Anonymity, since I now just had 600 completed surveys but didn’t know who had answered what. You should also then destroy that list of 600 phone numbers. Yet another problem is if you are doing a survey of a small group of people, and you have enough specific questions that their responses could reveal who they are. In our NSF study of Mississippi grassroots party activists, we asked respondents their county, their party, and whether they were the county chair or just a member of the county committee. Therefore, the county chairs could be linked up with their responses. Therefore, the University of Michigan in archiving the dataset deleted not only the county identifiers but even the state identifiers. They ensured anonymity.

ASPA Code of Ethics: 5 sources of ethics for public administrators
1) Serve Public Interest: oppose discrimination and harassment, promote affirmative action; public right to know; involve citizens in decision-making
2) Respect Law and Constitution: change obsolete, counterproductive laws; prevent mismanagement of public funds, need audits; protect privileged information; whistleblower protect
3) Personal Integrity: give others credit for their work-avoid plagiarism; avoid appearance of conflict-of-interest, such as nepotism, gift acceptance, misusing public resources, improper outside employment; act nonpartisan in actions; admit own errors
4) Ethical Organizations: promote creativity, open communication among workers; permit dissent, no reprisal, due process used; merit use
5) Professional Excellence: keep current on new issues, problems, upgrade professional competence; be active in professional associations; help public service students, provide them internships

THEORY BUILDING

Four characteristics of a good theory (this is an important topic):

1. Explanation- why does something happen.

An example is from the Presidential voting models. People vote more Democratic because they psychologically identify with the Democratic party, because they are liberal, and because they prefer the Democratic presidential candidate's characteristics. A different presidential vote model is based on satisfaction or dissatisfaction. People hold the President's party responsible for economic conditions in the country, so they tend to vote for the President or his party's successor when things are going well, and they tend to vote against him or his party's successor when things are going badly. An example from the Southern state legislative factions theory is that white conservatives are gravitating toward the more conservative party nationally, the Republicans, therefore white Republican legislators tend to vote conservatively. Liberal African-Americans tend to join the more liberal party nationally, the Democrats, so African-American Democratic legislators tend to vote liberally. Moderate whites tended to join the more ideologically inclusive party in the 1990s South, so they tended to be Democrats; hence, white Democratic legislators tended to vote moderately.

2) Prediction- if we know people's positions on the independent variables, we can predict their positions on the dependent variable.

An example from the University of Michigan presidential vote model is that if a voter is a Democrat, a liberal, and prefers the Democratic candidate's attributes, we predict that they would vote for the Democratic presidential candidate. If a voter is a Republican, a conservative, and prefers the Republican candidate's attributes, we predict they would vote for the Republican presidential candidate. An example from the southern state legislative project is that we predict that African-American Democratic legislators will tend to vote more liberally, against anti-crime measures, for public education projects, and for affirmative action programs. We predict that white Republican legislators will tend to vote in the opposite manner, in a conservative direction. We also predict that white Democrats will tend to vote somewhere in between these two groups, being supportive of pro-education and anti-crime measures.

3) Generalizability- the theory should apply to different situations and circumstances and different times and geographic areas.

An example from the University of Michigan Presidential vote model is whether this theory can apply to other offices, such as U.S. Congress, governor, state legislature. It can. Can it apply to any time span (yes, but the 19th century would have different parties, such as the Whigs and Democrats, Federalists and Democratic-Republicans)? Can it apply to different geographic areas, such as other nations (yes, because Ohio State professor Bradley Richardson successfully tested the party identification model in Japan, Netherlands, Germany, France, Britain, and Italy)? Shaffer extended the University of Michigan party-issues-candidate model to the U.S. House, Senate, governors, and even to state legislatures. Scholars have extended the party identification model across decades. Richardson extended the model to other countries. So this is a very generalizable and powerful theory. Another example is the Southern state legislative factions project of Shaffer and Menifield. It was generalized to other southern states, even to northern states and to the Congress. It was generalized over time, such as 1980 to the present. Can it be generalized to other nations having a newly empowered group, such as South Africa is the final question?

4) Parsimony is simplicity with few independent variables. The simplest theory is best, if everything else is equal.

An example for the Presidential Vote model is that the Social-psychological model is parsimonious, as it has only three predictors--party identification, issues, candidates. The economic dissatisfaction presidential vote model has even fewer predictors—one (with two categories of the variable- satisfied or dissatisfied). So both of these presidential vote models are parsimonious theories. The Southern state legislative factions project has only two predictors--party and race of legislator. The dependent variable is less parsimonious, as it is not merely ideology, but different types of issues such as education, crime, race issues.

Example of Predictive Ability of a Theory.

The party identification model. The five presidential elections from 1992 thru 2008 were very competitive with Democrats winning three and Republicans winning two. So if we had no other information about a state like Mississippi, we would predict that a Mississippi survey respondent would have a 50-50 chance of voting Democratic or Republican. Our predictive success improves once we ask a respondent what their party identification (a 7-point scale, but we cite only 5 categories by omitting independents leaning to a party) is. How they vote follows (using the Mississippi Poll data):

We can then apply this theory to the last presidential election of 2012 that was asked in the Mississippi Poll. The results were very similar to previous years:

Hypothesis Testing

Independent variable is the predictor; it comes first temporally and causally, it causes the dependent variable.

Dependent variable is the effect; it is being caused by the independent variable.

Ideology --------------------------> Presidential Vote
(Independent var.).......................(Dependent Variable)

Hypothesis is a statement of a relationship between concepts.

Example: self-identified conservatives are more likely to vote Republican, compared to self-identified liberals.

Hypothesis test- example with crosstabulations, put independent variable at top, dependent variable at the side. Calculate column percents.

VOTE FOR:

LIBERAL

MODERATE

CONSERVATIVE

BARACK OBAMA

65%

54%

32%

JOHN MCCAIN

35%

46%

68%

100%

100%

100%

...................................Theory

.....................................|

....................................\|/

................................-Hypothesis-

..............Concept <------------------------> Concept
.......................(Relationship between concepts)

The hypothesis above is at the theoretical level- general, abstract.

............Indicator <------------------------> Indicator
..............(Relationship between indicators; hypothesis testing)

Operationalizing your concept is to select specific indicators of your abstract concepts. Hypothesis testing occurs at the indicator level, and it measures the relationship between the indicators. The indicator in this example may be ideological self-identification, just asking respondents: "In politics today, do you think of yourself as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate or middle of the road, somewhat conservative, or very conservative (we combined the "very" and "somewhat" categories).

If the hypothesis is rejected, maybe the indicator is not valid.

Religiosity example of a theory.

At the theoretical level, the two principal concepts are Social Deprivation and Religiosity. The principal hypothesis at the theoretical level is that people who are socially deprived are more likely to be intensely religious than are people who are not socially deprived.

Operationalizing the concepts is to choose valid, specific indicators of those concepts. One indicator of religiosity might be frequency of church attendance. An indicator of social deprivation might be annual family income before taxes. The major problem with operationalizing one's concepts is whether the indicators are valid measures of those theoretical concepts. Is a person who attends church twice a week necessarily more religious than someone who never attends church, but who reads the Bible and prays daily? Is a person with a large family income, but who also has a large family size, necessarily well-off financially? Can you think of more valid indicators of these concepts of social deprivation and religiosity?

Hypothesis Testing measures the relationship between the indicators. Are people with low family incomes more likely to attend church weekly, compared to people with high family incomes? Are people with lower net financial worth more likely to pray daily, compared to people with high net financial worth? If your hypothesis is rejected, there may be two reasons. Perhaps your theory is rejected, or perhaps your indicators are not valid measures of your concepts.

Actual Results of This Hypothesis Test:

Using the 2004-2010 Mississippi Poll, no significant relationship was found between reported family income and reported frequency of church attendance.

YOUR RESEARCH PAPER (the first part of your paper which is due January 31)

1) Introduction- discuss the importance of your subject. Discuss your initial expectations. Example of gender gap in party identification--why are women slightly more Democratic than are men? Why is this subject important? Why do you think this female Democratic bias is occurring?

2) Your model and hypotheses. List all five of your hypotheses, and draw your model.

Example of a model and its hypotheses:
Assume that sex is the earliest, independent variable; party identification is the latest, dependent variable; ideological self-identification and income are the two intervening variables located between sex and party identification.

SEX........(H1).......> Ideology .....(H2).....> PARTY
Male or...................(H3)..............................> IDENTIFICATION
Female.....(H4)........> Income ......(H5)........> (D or R)

The hypotheses are:
H1: Women are more likely to be liberal, compared to men.
H2: Liberals are more likely to be Democratic in party identification, compared to conservatives.
H3: Women are more likely to be Democratic in party identification, compared to men.
H4: Women are more likely to have lower incomes, compared to men.
H5: Lower income people are more likely to be Democratic in party identification, compared to higher income people.

3) Literature review. Skip this for this first part of your paper. It will be due at a later time. In your final, rewritten research paper, you should put the Literature Review after the Model and Hypotheses section and before the Methodology section.

4) Methodology section. Check the sample student paper, which you can cut and paste from for a basic outline (it follows):

METHODS

To test my model, I use data taken from The Mississippi Poll project, which has been carried out over the years through a series of statewide public opinion polls conducted by the Survey Research Unit of the Social Science Research Center (SSRC) at Mississippi State University and led by political science professor Stephen D. Shaffer. I combined or pooled telephone surveys conducted in three years-2010, 2012, and 2014 to maximize my sample size and minimize my sample error. The 2010 Mississippi Poll surveyed 604 adult Mississippi residents from April 5 to April 25, 2010, and had a response rate of 42%. The 2012 Mississippi Poll surveyed 439 adult Mississippi residents from April 2 to April 25, 2012, for a response rate of 26%. The 2014 Mississippi Poll surveyed 350 residents from April 7 to April 30, 2014, with a response rate of 31%. The three years combined contained 1,393 respondents. With 1,393 respondents interviewed, the sample error is 2.7%, which means that if every adult Mississippian had been interviewed, the results could differ from those reported here by as much as 2.7%. The pooled sample was adjusted or weighted by demographic characteristics to ensure that social groups less likely to answer the surveys or to own telephones were also represented in the sample in rough proportion to their presence in the state population. In all three years, a random sampling technique was used to select the households and each individual within the household to be interviewed, and no substitutions were permitted. The SSRC's Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing System (CATI) was used to collect the data.

For my analysis I chose four variables that were included in three years of the Mississippi Poll. The first variable, sex was a simple question as respondents were asked to choose between male or female. The second variable, race, was also straightforward as respondents chose between white, black, or other. For Ideology respondents were asked to self-identify based on the following question: “What are your political beliefs? Do you consider yourself very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate or middle of the road, somewhat conservative, or very conservative?” Finally, attitudes on the death penalty were measured by asking the following question: “For someone who is convicted of murder, do you generally favor the death penalty, life in prison without parole, or a jail term that is shorter than for the rest of someone’s life?”

For two of my variables I recoded or combined categories in order to make sure I had enough people to analyze using multivariate tables. The five ideological self-identification categories became three groups: liberals now included anyone who self-identified as “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal”, conservatives now included anyone who self-identified as “very conservative” or “somewhat conservative”, and the category in the middle, “moderate or middle of the road” became an intermediate “moderate” group. The three answers to the death penalty question became two dichotomous groups: those who answered in favor of using the death penalty for someone convicted of murder were now the “favor” group, and those who answered in favor of life without parole or a jail term shorter than the rest of someone’s life were now the “oppose” group. Sex did not have to be recorded because it only had two options. Race also only had two options so did not have to be recorded.

Notice that she has three short paragraphs: 1) Information about the years studied; 2) The exact wording of the questions examined; 3) How she plans to combine and recode categories of each variable so that she has enough people to analyze in the multivariate analyses. Where do you get all of this information?

The first paragraph which has the number of people survey each year and when they were interviewed is found here.

The sample error of your combined polls can be calculated from this table for calculating sample error for your pooled dataset. Just use the first column percentages, which assumes a closely divided population with a 50-50 split on your political subject.

The second paragraph that has the exact question wording of each of your variables is found in the cumulative Mississippi Poll codebook.

The third paragraph can rely on the codebook above and your own thoughts about how you would like to recode your variables. I will provide you feedback on your own ideas.

Remember, a quick and easy to read summary of the Mississippi Poll codebook to choose your four variables is available here.