INTERLUDE: I hear a lot of political scientists say that all Americans are partisans. They’re really loud during election time too. Say, some 94% of the vote is determined by partisanship, and on and on. Really, in light of the fact that both American parties are liberal parties (Ware) because Republicans and Democrats both promote capitalism and democracy to unique degrees, these political scientists are liberal society consensus scholars!
But what about me–a small r republican?! You can read my republican platform in N. Awakening. It should now be plain to see that I am not a Democrat or a Republican. As an independent republican (not a liberal), how am I represented in Washington? Or to the point, which political party will win my vote in 2016? Or, if I ran for office, how would I legitimately craft a republican platform in line with either the Democratic or Republican platform(s)?
The Point: I assume that there are more republicans in America–like me. We really are independents due to our differences in preferences for governance. We disagree with liberals on multiple issues. The median voter deserves an equal opportunity to engage efficacious and worthwhile activity. We seek nondomination. Honestly, during election time, both parties on various issues don’t represent me or indeed, misrepresent me.
Political Pipeline 
Have you read McCloskey and Zaller’s 1984 book The American Ethos: Public Attitudes Toward Capitalism and Democracy?
right on. it’s a paragraph in my dissertation, Chapter 4.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009681C4U/ref=oh_d__o00_details_o00__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This book might be of interest to you. You could do similar analysis but instead of trustee v. delegate you could have those who prefer republicanism to liberalism. just do flesh out who are republicans. and then move from there. conduct similar experiments to that in chapter four to see how that influences candidate evaluations.
thanks. will check it out.
Oh wow. Did not expect a big ol’ picture like that. Just thought I would be sharing the link.
yea, do you work for Oxford?
Its possible. 😉
Does WSU has a mechanism through which graduate students/faculty can run experiments and surveys on student samples? If not, you should work to get one set up. Alternatively, you can use amazon’s mechanical turk service. You can create a survey experiment in qualtrics and then link to it via the amazon platform. And well, I guess, it is possible that even without a mechanism for student samples, you could create the survey and send out the link (and ask other professors/graduate students send it to their classes too!) and off extra credit for students who complete it.
interesting, I’ll look into it. Mostly, students work with approx. 5-6 profs during graduate school on projects. Like, a full professor opens up her file cabinet on federalism and state politics….I haven’t taken her up on it because I’m so busy with other projects, but that’s the type of opportunity that many professors advance. They are experts in one sub-field, and you may begin a long-term working relationship with them in line with their research.
But yea, in Research Design, for example, we spend some time going through GSS and running data. And is Stats 2, we run multiple types of regression and design our own simultaneous equations.
I’m curious, to run your surveys, do you need IRB approval?
This is the way it is set up at my institution, students in certain classes can opts into an additional one credit hour practicum. To receive credit, they must finish ~six survey/experiments. The department gets broad IRB approval for the practicum courses and grad students and faculty are not required themselves to get IRB approval for their particular projects.
If you use the amazon mechanical turk platform, you do not need any type of IRB approval.
That’s really interesting. A couple years ago, I joined the Political Science Graduate Student Organization. During that term, we built a Blackboard space for grad students to relay all the information they would need as a grad student coming into the program…. one of my side projects was to begin the Facilitating Research Project. Basically, I ask grad. students what their researching and made a list–and made that list available to faculty. I also started the American Publishing Project–where 4-6 dissertating grad students get together to see if they can collaborate on a project…. so far both are works in progress.
Come to think of it, I’ll make a quick post about the blackboard site.
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