Testing Tripwire Theory Using Survey Experiments

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.33774/apsa-2021-kf3n3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Musgrave ◽

Steven Ward

Keyword(s):

Empirical Analysis ◽

Political Support ◽

Survey Experiments ◽

Commitment Devices

Many scholars and policymakers assume that attacks on forward deployed U.S. troops—“tripwires”—will prompt strong domestic political support for escalation against the attacker. This conjecture informs policy and has deep theoretical roots, yet it is undertheorized and largely untested. We identify and develop two theoretical mechanisms – reputation and revenge – capable of explaining why such attacks might prompt support for escalation, even though prior research shows that casualties suffered during a conflict reduce support for intervention. We then use two survey experiments to examine whether and how attacks influence Americans’ support for intervention. We find that hypothetical attacks on contingents of troops deployed overseas increase support for escalation only modestly and in ways that better reflect demands for revenge rather than concerns about reputation. Our findings imply that confident assessments that forward deployed troops serve as strong pre-commitment devices need to be tempered, pending further theoretical and empirical analysis.

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New Instruments for Popular Understandings of Democracy

10.1093/oso/9780197570401.003.0002 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 23-46

Author(s):

Jie Lu

Keyword(s):

Empirical Analysis ◽

Validity And Reliability ◽

Instrument Selection ◽

Methodological Foundation ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Survey Experiments ◽

Survey Instruments ◽

Psychometric Models ◽

New Instruments ◽

Elusive Concept

This chapter reviews pertinent research on varying understandings of democracy to assess the empirical challenges in studying this elusive concept and to propose some new survey instruments (i.e., the PUD instruments) with theoretical justification. In particular, it emphasizes the embedded tensions and critical trade-offs as people view and assess democracy and brings such tensions and trade-offs to the center of instrument selection. The chapter further examines the validity and reliability of the PUD instruments using both survey experiments and different psychometric models to establish a solid methodological foundation for subsequent empirical analysis.

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The Revival of Charisma: Experimental Evidence From Argentina and Venezuela

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414018797952 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 52 (5) ◽

pp. 687-719 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Caitlin Andrews-Lee

Keyword(s):

Experimental Evidence ◽

Party System ◽

System Development ◽

Political Support ◽

Democratic Politics ◽

Political Movements ◽

Face To Face ◽

Survey Experiments

Scholars have long claimed that political movements founded by charismatic leaders must undergo “routinization,” or depersonalization, to survive. Yet many such movements appear to have sustained their charismatic nature and have persisted or reemerged in cases as diverse as Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Turkey, and China. Focusing on Argentine Peronism and Venezuelan Chavismo, this article examines the potential of new leaders to revive their charismatic predecessors’ legacies to perpetuate the movement and gain the followers’ support. Through face-to-face survey experiments conducted in both countries, the article shows that new leaders who (a) implement bold, initially impressive policies and (b) symbolically tie themselves to the charismatic founder cause citizens to express stronger emotional attachments to the movement and garner political support. The results challenge the notion that charismatic movements are short-lived and underscore the potential of these movements to impact democratic politics and party-system development long after their founders disappear.

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Enemy or Ally? Elites, Base Relations, and Partisanship in America

Public Opinion Quarterly ◽

10.1093/poq/nfz031 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 83 (3) ◽

pp. 534-558 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

John V Kane

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Real World ◽

Social Groups ◽

Empirical Support ◽

Motivated Reasoning ◽

Political Support ◽

Symbolic Meaning ◽

Political Elites ◽

Party Membership ◽

Survey Experiments

Abstract A wealth of research demonstrates that partisans dismiss information that challenges their attitudes toward political elites, especially when citizens are aware of these elites’ party membership. Relatively little is known, however, about the conditions under which partisans will adjust their support for such elites. Drawing upon research on the group-foundations of partisanship, I hypothesize that, issues and policy stances aside, partisans’ support for, and willingness to compromise with, a given elite is contingent upon how well the elite relates to the groups associated with his or her party (i.e., the party’s “base”). In short, partisans should be inclined to exhibit greater political support for, and greater willingness to compromise with, the enemy of their socio-political enemies, but less support for the enemy of their socio-political allies. Findings from survey experiments and observational analyses involving real-world executives offer strong empirical support for these contentions. Thus, while acknowledging the powerful effects of cues involving elites’ party labels, this study reveals that “base relations” cues can potentially counteract the motivated reasoning processes that arise from partisans’ attentiveness to party cues alone. Such effects should be observed, I argue, precisely because base relations cue an elite’s fidelity to the very groups that endow the party label with its symbolic meaning. Therefore, more broadly, this study advances our understanding of polarization by demonstrating an important way in which politically aligned social groups underpin American partisanship and public opinion.

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Contested Ground: Disentangling Material and Symbolic Attachment to Disputed Territory

Political Science Research and Methods ◽

10.1017/psrm.2018.22 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (04) ◽

pp. 679-697 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Devorah Manekin ◽

Guy Grossman ◽

Tamar Mitts

Keyword(s):

Empirical Analysis ◽

Jewish Population ◽

West Bank ◽

Territorial Disputes ◽

Far Right ◽

Methodological Challenges ◽

Survey Experiments ◽

Symbolic Value

Territorial disputes are prone to conflict because of the value of territory to publics, whether due to its strategic and material worth, or to its intangible, symbolic value. Yet despite the implications of the distinction for both theory and policy, empirically disentangling the material from the symbolic has posed formidable methodological challenges. We propose a set of tools for assessing the nature of individual territorial attachment, drawing on a series of survey experiments in Israel. Using these tools, we find that a substantial segment of the Jewish population is attached to the disputed West Bank territory for intangible reasons, consisting not only of far-right voters but also of voters of moderate-right and centrist parties. This distribution considerably narrows the bargaining space of leaders regardless of coalitional configurations. Our empirical analysis thus illustrates how the distribution of territorial preferences in the domestic population can have powerful implications for conflict and its resolution.

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An Empirical Analysis of the Obtrusiveness of and Participants' Compliance with the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759.23.4.248 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 248-257 ◽

Cited By ~ 58

Author(s):

Matthias R. Mehl ◽

Shannon E. Holleran

Keyword(s):

Empirical Analysis ◽

Sampling Method ◽

Daily Life ◽

Assessment Method ◽

Data Confidentiality ◽

Short Term ◽

Naturally Occurring ◽

Two Samples ◽

Audio Recorder ◽

Term Monitoring

Abstract. In this article, the authors provide an empirical analysis of the obtrusiveness of and participants' compliance with a relatively new psychological ambulatory assessment method, called the electronically activated recorder or EAR. The EAR is a modified portable audio-recorder that periodically records snippets of ambient sounds from participants' daily environments. In tracking moment-to-moment ambient sounds, the EAR yields an acoustic log of a person's day as it unfolds. As a naturalistic observation sampling method, it provides an observer's account of daily life and is optimized for the assessment of audible aspects of participants' naturally-occurring social behaviors and interactions. Measures of self-reported and behaviorally-assessed EAR obtrusiveness and compliance were analyzed in two samples. After an initial 2-h period of relative obtrusiveness, participants habituated to wearing the EAR and perceived it as fairly unobtrusive both in a short-term (2 days, N = 96) and a longer-term (10-11 days, N = 11) monitoring. Compliance with the method was high both during the short-term and longer-term monitoring. Somewhat reduced compliance was identified over the weekend; this effect appears to be specific to student populations. Important privacy and data confidentiality considerations around the EAR method are discussed.

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What Can We Learn From Factorial Surveys About Human Behavior?

Methodology ◽

10.1027/1614-2241/a000161 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 19-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Knut Petzold ◽

Tobias Wolbring

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Behavioral Intentions ◽

Actual Behavior ◽

Full Time ◽

Factorial Survey ◽

Survey Experiment ◽

Intended Behavior ◽

The Social ◽

Survey Experiments ◽

High Level

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.

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