The January 6 Insurrection and America's Standing Abroad: Natural Experimental Evidence from Five Unexpectedly Interrupted Public Opinion Surveys

American geopolitical power partly relies on foreign public support for its leadership. Pundits worry that this support is evaporating now that the United States—which claims to be the world’s beacon of democracy—has itself experienced democratic back- sliding. I provide the first natural experimental test of this hypothesis by exploiting that the January 6 insurrection of the US Capitol unexpectedly occurred while Gallup was conducting nationally-representative surveys in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Romania, and Vietnam. Because Gallup uses random digit dialing I can identify the effect by comparing US leadership approval among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, January 6, 2021. I find that the insurrection had no effect on US approval. If even a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election does not affect US approval abroad it is unlikely that any other domestic anti-democratic event will.

American Voters Do Punish Overt Undemocratic Behavior at the Polls: Natural Experimental Evidence from the 2021 Insurrection of the U.S. Capitol

Existing research suggests that overt undemocratic behavior by elected officials is insufficiently punished by American voters to electorally discourage democratic backsliding. Evidence for this proposition comes primarily from hypothetical survey experiments with relatively weak treatments. I test this hypothesis using a natural experiment with a powerful treatment: Donald Trump's incitement of the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The insurrection was unexpected to the general public, did not coincide with other events that could plausibly affect public opinion, and occurred while Gallup was conducting a nationally representative survey using random digit dialing. Comparing vote choice intention among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, the insurrection occurred suggests that the insurrection caused a 10.8% decline in support for the Republican Party, and an 8.4% increase in support for the Democratic Party. Politicians interested in winning elections have strong incentives to avoid insurrection-like events from occurring.

„Warum wird der Notruf 112 gewählt?“ – Befragung zum Notrufverhalten der Berliner Bevölkerung

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Steigende Notrufzahlen und vermehrte Inanspruchnahme notfallmedizinischer Versorgungsstrukturen sind derzeit Gegenstand umfassender gesundheitspolitischer Debatten in Deutschland. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht in einer repräsentativen Befragung die Kenntnisse, das Verhalten und mögliche Ursachen in Zusammenhang mit dem Notruf 112 im Land Berlin. Methode In Zusammenarbeit mit Infratest dimap wurde eine Telefonumfrage nach dem Random-digit-dialing(RDD)-Verfahren mit einer repräsentativen Zufallsstichprobe von 1002 Personen der deutschsprachigen Berliner Wohnbevölkerung zu Kenntnissen und dem Umgang mit dem Notruf 112 durchgeführt. Eingeschlossen wurden Menschen im Land Berlin, die zum Befragungszeitraum mindestens 14 Jahre alt waren und über einen Festnetzanschluss verfügten. In 12 Fragen wurden Informationen zum Wissensstand über den Notruf 112, alternative Versorgungsstrukturen, das Nutzungsverhalten der Befragten und alternative Hilfsangebote einschließlich standardisierter Fallbeispiele abgefragt. Experteninterviews wurden ebenfalls durchgeführt. Ergebnisse 58 % der Befragten gaben an, den Notruf 112 für medizinische Notfälle, 74 % für Notfälle der Brandbekämpfung zu kennen. 91 % der Befragten gaben an, dass sie den Notruf 112 nur bei lebensbedrohlichen medizinischen Situationen wählen würden. Befragte männlichen Geschlechts, ältere Menschen und Befragte mit einem niedrigeren Bildungsstand gaben häufiger an, den Notruf 112 auch bei nicht lebensbedrohlichen medizinischen Problemen in Anspruch zu nehmen. Alternativen zum Notruf kannten 56 % der Befragten, wobei insbesondere die hausärztliche Versorgung kaum eine Rolle spielte. Experten sehen die fehlende Verfügbarkeit von Alternativen als ursächlich für die zunehmende Frequenz von Notrufen. Schlussfolgerung Fehlende suffiziente Alternativen in der Notfallversorgung könnten bei der vermehrten Inanspruchnahme des Notrufs eine Rolle spielen. Dennoch scheint die Berliner Bevölkerung durchaus mit der richtigen Nutzung des Notrufs vertraut zu sein. Die Gesundheitskompetenz von vulnerablen Gruppen sollte in Bezug auf das Wissen zum Notruf 112 gestärkt werden. Eine Bevölkerungskampagne könnte einen sinnvollen Ansatz darstellen. Weiterhin muss die Verfügbarkeit alternativer Versorgungsformen verbessert werden.

Do American Voters Really Not Punish Overt Undemocratic Behavior at the Polls? Natural Experimental Evidence from the 2021 Insurrection of the U.S. Capitol

Existing research suggests that too few American voters hold politicians electorally accountable for overt undemocratic behavior to reasonably deter democratic backsliding. Evidence for this proposition comes primarily from hypothetical survey experiments with relatively modest treatments. I test this hypothesis using a natural experiment with a powerful real-world treatment: Donald Trump's incitement of the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The insurrection was unexpected to the general public, did not coincide with other events that could plausibly affect public opinion, and occurred while Gallup was conducting a nationally representative survey using random digit dialing. Comparing Republican Party support among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, the insurrection occurred suggests that the insurrection caused a 10.8% decline in support for the Republican Party. Voters predominantly moved to the Democratic Party, rather than Independent. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggests that this electoral penalty is sufficient to decide presidential elections.

Do American Voters Really Not Punish Overt Undemocratic Behavior at the Polls? Natural Experimental Evidence from the 2021 Insurrection of the U.S. Capitol

Existing research suggests that too few American voters hold politicians electorally accountable for overt undemocratic behavior to reasonably deter democratic backsliding. Evidence for this proposition comes primarily from hypothetical survey experiments with relatively modest treatments. I test this hypothesis using a natural experiment with a powerful real-world treatment: Donald Trump's incitement of the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The insurrection was unexpected to the general public, did not coincide with other events that could plausibly affect public opinion, and occurred while Gallup was conducting a nationally representative survey using random digit dialing. Comparing Republican Party support among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, the insurrection occurred suggests that the insurrection caused a 10.8% decline in support for the Republican Party. Voters predominantly moved to the Democratic Party, rather than Independent. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggests that this electoral penalty is sufficient to decide presidential elections.

Feasibility and Utility of Multi-Mode Data Collection in Random-Digit Dialing Cellphone Surveys For Young Adults: Evidence From a Survey Experiment (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Young adults’ early adoption of new cellphone technologies have created challenges to survey recruitment but offer opportunities to combine traditional random-digit dialing (RDD) sampling with web-mode data collection. The National Young Adult Health Survey (NYAHS) was designed to test the feasibility of this methodology. OBJECTIVE (1) Compare response rates across telephone- and web-modes, (2) assess sample representativeness, (3) examine the impact of sampling design and sample weighting on statistical precision, and (4) compare cigarette smoking prevalence to a gold standard national survey. METHODS The sampling frame was randomized to: (1) single-mode telephone interviews, (2) telephone to web sequential mixed mode, and (3) single-mode web survey, and 831 young adults (18-34 years) were recruited via RDD at baseline. A soft-launch was conducted prior to main-launch. We compared web-mode to pooled single-mode telephone and mixed-mode (telephone-mode) on the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) response rate 3 (RR3) and for the screening (S-RR3) and extended surveys (E-RR3). Base-weighted demographic distributions were compared to the American Community Survey (ACS). Telephone- and web-mode samples were pooled and calibrated to the ACS to calculate design effects (DEFF) and compare cigarette smoking prevalence to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Consistency of estimates was judged by overlap of 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS RR3 was higher in telephone- than web-mode (24% and 30% vs. 6.1% and 12.5% for soft- and main-launch, respectively), which was reflected in S-RR3 and E-RR3. The telephone-mode over-represented men (57.1% vs. 50.9%) and those enrolled in college (40.3% vs. 23.8%) and under-represented those with a BA/BS+ (34.4% vs. 55%). The web-mode over-represented white, non-Latinos (70.7% vs. 54.4%) and those with some college (30.4% vs. 7.6%) and under-represented Latinos (13.6% vs. 20.7%) and those with a HS/GED (15.3% vs. 29.3%). The DEFF was 1.29 (subpopulation range: 0.96 to 1.90). The NYAHS cigarette smoking prevalence was consistent with NHIS overall (15%, CI 12.4% to 18% vs. 13.5%, CI 12.3% to 14.7%), with notable deviation among 18 to 24 year-olds (15.6%, CI 11.3% to 22.2% vs. 8.7%, CI 7.1% to 10.6%), and those with <BS/BA as highest level of education (24%, CI 19.3% to 29.4% vs. 17.1%, CI 15.6% to 18.7%). CONCLUSIONS RDD sampling for a web survey is not feasible for young adults due to its low response rate. However, combining this methodology with RDD telephone surveys may have great potential for including media and collecting auto-photographic data in population surveys

Exploring the Feasibility of Recruiting Respondents and Collecting Web Data Via Smartphone: A Case Study of Text-To-Web Recruitment for a General Population Survey in Germany

The widespread usage of smartphones, as well as their technical features, offers many opportunities for survey research. As a result, the importance and popularity of smartphone surveys is steadily increasing. To explore the feasibility of a new text-to-web approach for surveying people directly via their smartphones, we conducted a case study in Germany in which we recruited respondents from a mobile random digit dialing sample via text messages that included a link to a web survey. We show that, although this survey approach is feasible, it is hampered by a number of issues, namely a high loss of numbers at the invitation stage, and a high rate of implicit refusals on the landing page of the survey.

Psychiatric symptoms and behavioral adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two population-representative cohorts

This study examined prevalences of anxiety and depression and their correlations with daily routines among Hong Kong Chinese during the COVID-19 pandemic. Random digit dialing recruited two population-representative samples of 6029 residents during a period of low infection and limited intervention (survey 1: n = 4021) and high incidence and intensive measures (survey 2: n = 2008). Prevalence of anxiety for survey 1 and survey 2 were 14.9% and 14% and depression were 19.6% and 15.3%, respectively. Increased odds of anxiety and depression were associated with disrupted routines and lower socioeconomic status in both surveys, whereas depression was inversely related to the novel preventive routine of avoiding going to crowded places in survey 1. The prevalences of anxiety and depression were higher than preceding public health/social crises. A heavier burden of psychiatric conditions was evidenced amongst people experiencing disrupted daily routines across different phases of the pandemic and without novel preventive routines in the early phase.

Support for the Death Penalty Reinstatement as a Protest Attitude: The Role of Political Trust

We argue that support for the reinstatement of capital punishment might reflect protest against an untrustworthy judicial system, framing this as a protest attitude. We test our argument with data from a probability sample of 2,366 respondents in Albania collected in 2015 via a cell phone random digit dialing technique. We found that respondents’ support for the reinstatement of the death penalty is associated with lack of trust in the country’s judiciary but not necessarily respondents prioritizing the war on crime. Also, we found that skepticism toward European Union (EU) membership conditionality as a drive for the country’s democratization is a good predictor of support for the reinstatement of the death penalty, but there is no evidence that respondents related their support for the country’s EU membership with support for capital punishment.