Level-of-Analysis Effects on Explanations of Voting: The Case of the 1982 US Senate Elections

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald C. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Path Model ◽  
Senate Elections ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Us ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Level Of Analysis

The availability of rich survey data, and concerns over the ecological fallacy, have led voting researchers to focus on the explanation of individual voting decisions at the expense of accounting for patterns of aggregate election outcomes. This has skewed our understanding of the relative importance of various factors in the electoral process. A framework for analysis of elections at multiple levels is developed and applied using data from twenty-three exit polls from the US Senate elections. Comparable parameters for a simple voting model are estimated for individual voting and for election outcomes. Election-level factors, especially candidates' issue strategies and incumbency, are substantially more important in accounting for election outcomes than in explaining individual voting decisions. Finally, working with election outcomes permits an estimate of a path model of Senate election outcomes that shows key relationships that are not accessible from individual level data.

scholarly journals A COVID-19 Risk Assessment for the US Labor Force

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Maher ◽  
Alexandra E Hill ◽  
Peter Britton ◽  
Eli P. Fenichel ◽  
Peter Daszak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Health Risk ◽  
Return To Work ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Social Risk Factors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Important Variation ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Us

AbstractThe consequences of COVID-19 infection varies substantially based on individual social risk factors and predisposing health conditions. Understanding this variability may be critical for targeting COVID-19 control measures, resources and policies, including efforts to return people back to the workplace. We compiled individual level data from the National Health Information Survey and Quarterly Census of Earnings and Wages to estimate the number of at-risk workers for each US county and industry, accounting for both social and health risks. Nearly 80% of all workers have at least one health risk and 11% are over 60 with an additional health risk. We document important variation in the at-risk population across states, counties, and industries that could provide a strategic underpinning to a staged return to work.One Sentence SummaryThere is important variability in the proportion of the US workforce at risk for COVID-19 complications across regions, counties, and industries that should be considered when targeting control and relief policies, and a staged return to work.

Life in the Middle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neilan S. Chaturvedi
Keyword(s):  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Congressional Record ◽  
The Us ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Two Sides

For almost thirty years, political scientists have believed that the US Senate would be less affected by partisan polarization due to the existence of a handful of moderate senators who would act as power brokers between the two sides, yet year after year we see partisan gridlock. Life in the Middle argues that the belief in the powerful, pivotal moderate neglects their electoral circumstances and overestimates their legislative power. Indeed, not all senators are elected under equal circumstances where the modern centrist has to balance between two conflicting constituencies like Susan Collins in Maine, or represents a state where the opposition outnumbers their base like Joe Manchin in West Virginia. Using data compiled from the Congressional Record, the book examines the legislative behavior of moderates and finds that they seldom amend legislation to their preferences, rarely speak on the record, and often lose on final votes. Using unique interview data with nineteen legislative directors and six retired centrist senators, it also finds that the behind-the-scenes conversations mirror the on-stage behavior where centrists are not influential or viewed as pivotal by party leaders. Furthermore, moderates reported less satisfaction with legislative outcomes than their peers. Life in the Middle suggests that lawmaking needs to be re-evaluated as being much more variable and less reliant on the work of moderates and more on party leaders. Indeed, the mainstream concerns about polarization and its negative effects of increased gridlock and ideological legislation may be true.

scholarly journals Quantifying Marginality Across the Globe: An Empirical Assessment of Vigil’s Multiple Marginality Model in Predicting Gang Involvement

2020 ◽  
pp. 105756772094857
Author(s):  
Nicole J. Johnson ◽  
Alyssa Mendlein
Keyword(s):  
Minority Youth ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Gang Membership ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Multilevel Analyses ◽  
Gang Involvement ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Using Data

Vigil’s multiple marginality (MM) model of gang formation has resulted in hypotheses about why minority youth join gangs, and how these processes play out at multiple levels of analysis and across contexts. However, with a few exceptions, this framework has rarely been tested quantitatively, and especially in countries outside of North America. The current study assesses the MM model using data from the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study and aggregate country-level data. Results from multilevel analyses reveal some support for the framework, in that at least one measure of each component of the MM model was found to be a significant predictor of gang membership. Controlling for individual and country variables, measures of street socialization exhibited the strongest effects on gang involvement. Yet not all proposed factors were significant predictors across all models. Longitudinal data are necessary to fully support the dynamics of the MM model.

Party Activists, Campaign Resources and Candidate Position Taking: Theory, Tests and Applications

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
WOOJIN MOON
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Support ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Senate Elections ◽  
Party Activists ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Stage Estimation ◽  
Ideological Voting ◽  
Theoretical Results

Electoral competition is here specified as revolving around both candidate policy positions and non-policy issues.Two candidates spend their resources on non-policy issues to sway citizens' ideological voting decisions but they are constrained by their party activists who provide them with electoral resources. In this setting, a candidate with a resource advantage converges more towards the centre, but a candidate with a resource disadvantage diverges more from the centre. This asymmetry in two candidates' incentives to converge generates the result that the two candidates do not converge towards each other. To test these theoretical results, two-stage estimation is used in this article to solve the reciprocal relationship between policy moderation and campaign resources. This analysis produces strong empirical support for the model in the context of US Senate elections between 1974 and 2000.

The Paradox of Less Effective Incumbent Spending: Theory and Tests

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
WOOJIN MOON
Keyword(s):  
Senate Elections ◽  
The Us ◽  
Swing Voters ◽  
Us Senate

In this article, the reason why incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending is explained. The argument is that incumbent spending efficiency depends on the marginality of seats: safe incumbent spending is less effective than marginal incumbent spending, since safe incumbents have to buy fewer extreme voters, whereas marginal incumbents can easily buy a larger number of swing voters. The analysis of the US Senate elections between 1974 and 2000 shows that safe incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending, but marginal incumbent spending is not. The analysis also shows that the previous finding of less effective incumbent spending is largely due to the fact that the data for marginal and safe incumbents have been aggregated.

History Made: The Rise of Republican Tim Scott

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (03) ◽  
pp. 405-413
Author(s):  
Scott H. Huffmon ◽  
H. Gibbs Knotts ◽  
Seth C. McKee
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
American South ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Us ◽  
Racial Polarization ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Race Ideology

ABSTRACTIn a time of unprecedented racial polarization in partisan voting, and in a staunchly Republican Deep South state, one black Republican managed to reach the pinnacle of public office. This article examines Tim Scott’s rise by analyzing precinct-level data to better understand his 2010 election to the US House and data from the Winthrop Poll to explore his more recent US Senate victory. To better understand support for Scott, we also report results from an embedded-survey experiment to assess respondents’ favorability toward Scott when he is characterized by two different frames: (1) “Tea Party favorite,” and (2) “first African American Senator from South Carolina since Reconstruction.” We found that conservatives, evangelicals, and less-educated individuals respond more positively to Scott when he is described as a “Tea Party favorite.” More than an intriguing case study, Scott’s rise tells a broader story of the complicated relationships among race, ideology, and partisanship in the contemporary American South.

scholarly journals Comparisons of individual- and area-level socioeconomic status as proxies for individual-level measures: evidence from the Mortality Disparities in American Communities study

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Moss ◽  
Norman J. Johnson ◽  
Mandi Yu ◽  
Sean F. Altekruse ◽  
Kathleen A. Cronin
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Census Tract ◽  
Household Income ◽  
County Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Census Tract Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mortality Disparities ◽  
Household Incomes

Abstract Background Area-level measures are often used to approximate socioeconomic status (SES) when individual-level data are not available. However, no national studies have examined the validity of these measures in approximating individual-level SES. Methods Data came from ~ 3,471,000 participants in the Mortality Disparities in American Communities study, which links data from 2008 American Community Survey to National Death Index (through 2015). We calculated correlations, specificity, sensitivity, and odds ratios to summarize the concordance between individual-, census tract-, and county-level SES indicators (e.g., household income, college degree, unemployment). We estimated the association between each SES measure and mortality to illustrate the implications of misclassification for estimates of the SES-mortality association. Results Participants with high individual-level SES were more likely than other participants to live in high-SES areas. For example, individuals with high household incomes were more likely to live in census tracts (r = 0.232; odds ratio [OR] = 2.284) or counties (r = 0.157; OR = 1.325) whose median household income was above the US median. Across indicators, mortality was higher among low-SES groups (all p < .0001). Compared to county-level, census tract-level measures more closely approximated individual-level associations with mortality. Conclusions Moderate agreement emerged among binary indicators of SES across individual, census tract, and county levels, with increased precision for census tract compared to county measures when approximating individual-level values. When area level measures were used as proxies for individual SES, the SES-mortality associations were systematically underestimated. Studies using area-level SES proxies should use caution when selecting, analyzing, and interpreting associations with health outcomes.

The First Decade of the Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health: A Critical Review

1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslea Peirson ◽  
Richard Walsh-Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Mental Health ◽  
Canadian Journal ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Research Relationship ◽  
Academic Settings ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Level Of Analysis

The purpose of our study is to describe the major features of the articles published in the first decade of the Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health (CJCMH). We examined all 194 articles published in 1982 through 1991 with respect to seven dimensions: authors' gender, authors' affiliation, collaboration, article categories, levels of analysis, populations of interest, and the research relationship. Our findings suggest that: (a) CJCMH has provided increasingly more opportunities for female authors over the years; (b) authors have typically been affiliated with academic settings; (c) the majority of articles were written collaboratively; (d) a minority of articles pertain to empirical research; (e) most empirically based articles employed an individual level of analysis methodologically, while overall authors' interpretations primarily reflect multiple levels of analysis; (f) consumers/survivors represent the population most often investigated; and (g) CJCMH authors are not providing much useful information regarding the research relationship. We conclude that CJCMH authors, reviewers, and editors must continue to consider and incorporate the key values and concepts of community mental health when preparing and soliciting articles for publication.

Keeping score on congress: explaining variations in interest group ratings of US senators

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel E. Chand ◽  
William D. Schreckhise
Keyword(s):  
Interest Group ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
The Impact

We adopt a novel use for an old type of data – interest group scorecards – to explore the impact business organizations have on the political process. By aggregating congressional scorecards, we can develop a sense of how satisfied groups are with the US Congress as a whole. To do this, we generate interest group-level ratings of the US Senate derived from individual-level ratings of each senator. We find business groups tend to give higher aggregated scores relative to other types of groups, suggesting business organizations more often get what they want form Congress, which in turn, illuminates the importance of these groups in the political process. We also find that well-funded “niche” organizations tend to show higher levels of satisfaction with senators than larger groups with broad public missions.

Do higher financial returns lead to better environmental performance in North America’s forest products sector?

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (9) ◽  
pp. 2515-2525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Yamaguchi ◽  
G. Cornelis van Kooten
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Forest Products ◽  
Financial Economic ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Us ◽  
Using Data

This study examines the relation between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial (economic) performance in North America’s forest products industry to determine whether there is a firm-level environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). An unbalanced panel of firm-level observations is constructed using data from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Environment Canada. The analysis focuses on methanol and formaldehyde emissions because these are the only pollutants for which consistent firm-level data are available in forestry. We find strong evidence of a firm-level EKC. The evidence is considerably weaker if endogeneity related to the effect of past pollution on current pollution or endogeneity resulting from a possible circular relationship between rate of return and pollution is taken into account, although the available time horizon is too short to conclude that endogeneity is a problem. Even so, there remains evidence of a negative relationship between financial performance and environmental performance for formaldehyde.

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