Assessing Trends and Decomposing Change in Nonresponse Bias: The Case of Bias in Cohort Distributions

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Gummer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nonresponse Bias ◽  
Social Surveys ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Comparison ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
Cohort Change ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Tools And Methods ◽  
Cross National

Survey research is still confronted by a trend of increasing nonresponse rates. In this context, several methodological advances have been made to stimulate participation and avoid bias. Yet, despite the growing number of tools and methods to deal with nonresponse, little is known about whether nonresponse biases show similar trends as nonresponse rates and what mechanisms (if any) drive changes in bias. Our article focuses on biases in cohort distributions in the U.S. and German general social surveys from 1980 to 2012 as one of the key variables in the social sciences. To supplement our cross-national comparison of these trends, we decompose changes into within-cohort change (WCC) and between-cohort change. We find that biases in cohort distributions have remained relatively stable and at a relatively low level in both countries. Furthermore, WCC (i.e., survey climate) accounts for the major part of the change in nonresponse bias.

Investigating Differentiated Production Systems: The U.S. Machine Tool Industry

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 41-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gordon ◽  
Joel Krieger
Keyword(s):  
Machine Tool ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Organizational Innovation ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Potential Significance ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
Level Production ◽  
The U.S

This article is intended to conceptually tighten an understanding of firm-level production systems. It should be read as part of a broader effort to conceptualize and analyze the social and spatial organization of innovation and production in a way that integrates the local, regional, national, and global dimensions within and across sectors of production. In the first section, we introduce models for analyzing (1) product and production strategies and (2) the social and technical organization of the enterprise. Taken together, they conceptually ground a typology of Differentiated Production Systems, which we present as a way of conceptualizing and analyzing the social organization of innovation and production at the level of the firm. The second section of the article introduces the machine-tool study and analyzes key variables associated with technological and organizational innovation in the respondent firms. In the third section, we present a set of case studies to demonstrate the applicability of the models we have introduced. We conclude with a brief interpretation of the U.S. machine tool sector drawn from our framework and a preliminary appraisal of the potential significance of our conceptualization.

scholarly journals The Impossible Dream: Scientism as Strategy against Distrust of Social Science at the U.S. National Science Foundation, 1945–1980

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-238
Author(s):  
Mark Solovey
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Science ◽  
Science And Culture ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
The U.S

Distrust of the social sciences has deep roots in American politics, science, and culture. This article examines how distrust became a serious issue in the nuclear age by focusing on the U.S. National Science Foundation’s involvement with the social sciences from 1945 to 1980. I propose, first, that in this context distrust of NSF’s social science activities came in two forms, which rested on two different sources of doubt. Epistemological Distrust stemmed from doubts about the scientific status of the social sciences. Social Distrust involved worries about the social relevance and policy uses of the social sciences. Second, I propose that efforts to address and contain these two types of distrust played a major role in NSF’s elaboration of a view of the social sciences and corresponding strategy for funding them that I will refer to as Scientism, which assumed a unified scientific framework that took an idealized conception of the natural sciences as the gold standard.

scholarly journals Trust and victimization: A cross-national comparison of Finland, the U.S., Germany and UK

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
Matti Näsi ◽  
Pekka Räsänen ◽  
Teo Keipi ◽  
Atte Oksanen
Keyword(s):  
Social Activity ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Online Victimization ◽  
Perceived Trust ◽  
Country Level ◽  
National Comparison ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Cross National

This study examines the relationship between average means of generalized trust on two groups of social connections, namely people in general and people only met online, and respondents’ past experiences with online and offline victimization. Our data was collected from four countries, Finland, the U.S., Germany and UK from participants aged 15–30 years. Each country was analyzed separately using OLS regression models. Our findings indicated that offline victimization had a negative association with perceived trust in people in general in all four countries. Online victimization was negatively associated with trust in people in general only in Finland and Germany. Trust towards people only met online was not as clearly associated with online and offline victimization, but in the U.S. and UK online victims reported higher trust. Gender, age, social activity, residence area and age also indicated country level differences in terms of their association with trust.

scholarly journals Concepts of labour status and their operationalisation in cross-national comparative social surveys

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik ◽  
Uwe Warner
Keyword(s):  
Labour Force ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Occupational Prestige ◽  
International Labour Organisation ◽  
Social Surveys ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
The Social ◽  
Demographic Background ◽  
Social Demographic ◽  
Cross National

In the social sciences, the occupation variable is used to derive socio-economic status and/or occupational prestige. This article describes occupation as an indicator for social status and labor status as an indicator of the respondent's position in the life-cycle. First, we identify variables necessary to measure occupation, employment and the labour force concept from ILO (International Labour Organisation, Geneva). Second, we introduce strategies for harmonizing the underlying social concepts of the measurements in surveys across countries. Third, we present our own instrument to measure occupation and labour status as social demographic background variables in cross-national comparative surveys. Finally, we summarize the findings from a pilot survey. The test revealed that the instrument enables the data needed for the social science analysis of socio-economic status and occupational prestige to be collected with ease.

U.S. Marxist Scholarship in the Analysis of Health and Medicine

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Power Elite ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Praxis ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Work And Health

This article makes a review of 1.) dominant analyses of health and medicine in the social sciences of the U.S. and 2.) Marxist critiques of these analyses. It presents the roots of Marxist scholarship in the study of health and medicine and discusses the main Marxist critiques of the hegemonic pluralist and power elite interpretations of the institutions of medicine and of their corporatization. It also reviews Marxist studies of 1.) the crisis of medicine; 2.) the relationship between production, work, and health; and 3.) imperialism, health, and medicine. It concludes with a discussion of the operational meaning of Marxism in health and medicine, with presentation of current Marxist debates on socialist medicine and their consequence for political praxis.

scholarly journals Outside the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-341
Author(s):  
MICHAEL A. ALLEN ◽  
MICHAEL E. FLYNN ◽  
CARLA MARTINEZ MACHAIN ◽  
ANDREW STRAVERS
Keyword(s):  
Military Personnel ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Cross National

How do citizens within countries hosting U.S. military personnel view that presence? Using new cross-national survey data from 14 countries, we examine how different forms of exposure to a U.S. military presence in a country affect attitudes toward the U.S. military, government, and people. We find that contact with U.S. military personnel or the receipt of economic benefits from the U.S. presence correlates with stronger support for the U.S. presence, people, and government. This study has profound implications for the role that U.S. installations play in affecting the social fabric of host nations and policy implications for the conduct of U.S. military activities outside the United States.

scholarly journals The new institutionalism and international relations: A step forward

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-358
Author(s):  
Rudy Baker
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New Institutionalism ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
The 1960S

The behavioral revolution of the 1960s which engulfed the social sciences, and particularly Political Science and Sociology, led to a large-scale disinterest in the study and structure of institutions. The 1980s saw a new movement emerge upon the social sciences, which stressed the centrality of institutional analysis in the study of politics and society and resurrected the study of institutions as key variables. Dubbed the New Institutionalism, this movement would have profound effects on the direction of research in Political Science and Sociology. Unfortunately, the New Institutionalist movement has been largely ignored by International Relations theorists and practitioners, even though it has generated both a useful toolkit of methods, and a rich source of findings that could be of much use to International Relations theory.

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