POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Continuation of lecture from yesterday on political socialization There is evidence that K through 12 education tends to inculcate standard political values for students. Strong identification with democracy, although vaguely defined and often not critically examined. Emphasis on the value of freedom over equality. Strong identification with free enterprise and the American capitalist system. Acceptance of the existence of a supreme being, if not inculcation into Christian thought. These values tend to be reinforced by agents of socialization in the community. There is evidence that higher education tends to break down some of the earlier learning. But it depends on the nature of the higher education. Prestigious, national schools like Northwestern are most corroding of parental, K 12, and community values. This diversity may account for why schools like Northwestern also tend to produce students who are more liberal, rather than conservative Explaining political participation Are Americans politically apathetic? Americans tend to vote at lower rates than citizens in other countries. Compared with What? 7.2, page 222 But Americans tend to participate more in other forms of political participation. both conventional participation Compared with What? 7.1, page 214 and unconventional participation How can one explain political participation? Recognize that multiple factors cause political participation. participation is the dependent variable--that to be explained the explanatory factors are the independent variables, as in this model Use a model for explain that accommodates multiple factors. On pages 58 and 59, Dalton presents predictors of voting turnout and campaign activity Unfortunately, these variables (turnout and campaign activity) are not included in his data set. Multiple regression is statistical method for assessing the independent effects of a set of variables on a single dependent variable. Multiple regression: the general model: Y = X1 + X2 + X3 + X4 + X5 + X6 + X7 Y = Voting turnout = Education + Age + Male + Party attachment + Union attachment + Political satisfaction + Left/Right Perfect explanation would result in a multiple correlation coefficient, R, of 1.0. Short of perfection, the higher the R, the better the overall explanation. The effect of these independent variables is expressed through regression coefficients, which state each variable's effect on the dependent variable in the United States. .36 * Education .21 * Age .00 * Gender (0 = female and 1 = male) .15 * Party attachment .10 * Union attachment .03 * Political satisfaction .00 * Left/Right Position The overall multiple correlation (R) = .42, not very high but respectable. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 in Dalton uses regression analysis to assess the effect of different variables on political participation. His technique to display the findings varies the thickness of the arrows to indicate the strength of the effects. Studying these graphs disclose some important differences between the countries: Education and age are the strongest predictors to turnout in the US and education is the only strong predictor to campaign activity. In the other countries, party attachment is one of the strongest predictors to both turnout and campaign activity. These data suggest that parties perform a more important role in other countries in mobilizing the citizenry to participate in politics than they do in the U.S., where participation is more individually-motivated. Another attempt at logging into the UNIX computers.