Getting Out the Latino Vote: How Door-to-Door Canvassing Influences Voter Turnout in Rural Central California

Using randomized experimentation, this study of a municipal election in Central California examines the effects of face-to-face canvassing on voter turnout. This is the first randomized experiment to focus on Latino voter mobilization. Building on previous field experimentation, this study focuses on a local school board election held in Dos Palos, CA. Two kinds of appeals were made to potential voters: one emphasized ethnic solidarity; the other emphasized civic duty. Canvassing was remarkably successful; voters who were contacted were significantly more likely to vote. The mobilization effort had a particularly large effect on the turnout of Latino Democrats.     

Bias in Conditional and Unconditional Fixed Effects Logit Estimation

Fixed-effects logit models can be useful in panel data analysis,when N units have been observed for T time periods. There aretwo main estimators for such models: unconditional maximum likelihoodand conditional maximum likelihood. Judged on asymptotic properties,the conditional estimator is superior. However, the unconditionalestimator holds several practical advantages, and thereforeI sought to determine whether its use could be justified onthe basis of finite-sample properties. In a series of MonteCarlo experiments for T < 20, I found a negligible amountof bias in both estimators when T 16, suggesting that a researchercan safely use either estimator under such conditions. WhenT < 16, the conditional estimator continued to have a verysmall amount of bias, but the unconditional estimator developedmore bias as T decreased.     

Not That There’s Anything Wrong with That: The Effect of Personalized Appeals on Marriage Equality Campaigns

An increasingly predominant strategy used by organizations seeking to increase support for gay marriage is to personalize the issue by focusing on individuals in the LGBT community. However, competing theoretical traditions (e.g., Allport??s contact theory, group threat, implicit bias) raise questions about whether this strategy has the desired effect. This paper presents results from an original field experiment conducted in coordination with a marriage equality organization. Callers who self-identified as a member of the LGBT community were less effective in soliciting donations compared to callers who did not self-identify, suggesting that personalization has a negative effect on persuasion efforts. The findings cut against the grain of the Allport (The nature of prejudice, 1954) hypothesis and have important implications for social advocacy organizations in terms of rhetorical and message strategy.     

The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence

Political Behavior - Can citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their partisan and ideological attachments? The “backfire effect,” described by Nyhan...     

Pigeonholing Partisans: Stereotypes of Party Supporters and Partisan Polarization

Political Behavior - What comes to mind when people think about rank-and-file party supporters? What stereotypes do people hold regarding ordinary partisans, and are these views politically...     

When do you follow the (national) leader? Party switching by subnational legislators in Japan

In 1993, after 38 years of single-party control, more than 20% of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) House of Representatives members left the party to form new alternatives and create an anti-LDP coalition government. However, despite substantial popular support, the new parties attracted few subnational politicians. The effect of this lack of subnational party switching was substantial since the relatively small pool of subnational defectors meant that the new parties had difficulty forming the strong subnational bases of support that would help them to compete with the LDP in the future. In this paper, we consider why so few subnational politicians were willing to switch to these new party alternatives. Using case studies and conditional logit analysis of party affiliation pattern among prefectural assembly members in Japan, we find that party switching was most common among subnational politicians who had powerful patrons who had also left the LDP and had maintained especially good access to central government largesse. We also find that subnational politicians from urban areas, which depend less upon central government pork, were considerably less likely to switch parties, than their rural counterparts.