Concepts, units and variables

Definition of concepts A concept is a political phenomenon that varies from low to high It is unidimensional

Examples of concepts? Democracy Political tolerance Culture Intelligence Interpersonal trust Self esteem Pluralism Germany Federalism

Units: time, people or places Units are the observations, which are placed on the unidimensional concept scale according to their low or high values People are more or less politically tolerant Countries are more or less democratic Years have higher or lower rates of crime rates People are more likely to litigate Countries can have higher or lower rates of litigation

Variables Variables are the operationalizations of concepts As researchers, we develop a systematic scheme for applying numbers to units When we do this, we have a variable

Examples of variables. What are the possible units? Murder rate Litigation rate Support for freedom of speech Income Party identification Liberalism

What is not a variable? Speed of light Parameters Statistics These are called constants. Some political phenomena can be concepts and variables for some units but not for others. September 11th is not a variable with people as the unit.

Political tolerance as a concept Political tolerance is a concept that indicates how much support people have for the civil liberties and rights of their most hated political group. It is not racial tolerance. Notice that to “tolerate” something, you have to, by definition, not like it.

Operationalization of support for ethnic violence I will now read some specific strategies that some people recommend to resolve problems in North Ossetia. For each one, please tell me whether you fully approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or completely disapprove.   … kill the same number of Chechens as were killed in Beslan Why: “that some people recommend” Completely disapprove Somewhat disapprove Somewhat approve Completely approve 1 2 3 4

Types of Variables Ordinal Dichotomous Nominal All of these variables can be either Independent Dependent

Dependent variable This is the political or social phenomenon we are interested in explaining. It should be important. And its explanation should matter to us. For the research question, why does y vary, the dependent variable is the y. There is only ONE dependent variable in any research project.

Independent variables These are the political or social phenomena we use to explain our dependent variable. Logic, along with previous literature, can be used to defend why you believe that the independent variables causes the dependent variable. There should be non-obvious, interesting and important implications from these relationships.

Ordinal Measurement With ordinal variables, there is a rough quantitative sense to their measurement, but the differences between scores are not necessarily equal. The values are in order but not fixed

Examples of Ordinal Measures Rankings (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) Grades (A, B, C, D, F) Education (High School, College, Advanced degree) Evaluations Hi, Medium, Low Likert Scales 5 pt (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree) 7 point liberalism scale (strongly liberal, liberal, weakly liberal, moderate, weakly conservative, conservative, strongly conservative) How carefully will the court consider the hostage’s story? Very carefully, rather carefully, not very carefully, not carefully at all

Ordinal frequency distribution

Nominal Variables With nominal variables, there is no ordinal sense to their measurement The values are not in order

Examples of nominal measures Race (White, Black, Asian, other) Occupation (teacher, manager, worker) Who is most guilty for causing the terrorist attack? Hostage takers, Putin, Duma, local government

Nominal frequency distribution mainguilt Who or what do you think is mainly guilty for causing your problems? 169 51.8 20 6.1 58.0 43 13.2 71.2 16 4.9 76.1 46 14.1 90.2 7 2.1 92.3 3 .9 93.3 1 .3 93.6 21 6.4 100.0 326 1 Hostage takers 2 President Putin 3 Other federal authorities 5 Moscow city authorities 6 FSB 7 Militia or GBDD 8 Doctors/emergency services 97 Refused 99 Unsure Total Valid Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Causal relationships with variables

Independent variable causes dependent variable Causal model X  Y Independent variable causes dependent variable For example: Percentage of people living in urban areas causes female literacy What could be the units of analysis in this example?

Predicting Perceptions of Fairness of a Supreme Court Decision Perception of Neutrality Belief that Conflict is Necessary Interest in Politics Political Knowledge -.22 (.10) .69 (.14) .27 (.10) 3.22 (.42) -.45 (.30) -.58 (.29) .74 (.25) .42 (.26) -.34 (.11) .43 -.44 (.13) .48 (.14) 1.30 (.47) 1.00 (.49) .58 (.21) .64 (.16) .60 (.38) Perception of Legality Perception of Bargaining Male Perception that the Process is Fair Approval of Current Justices Diffuse Support Perception of Future Certainty Specific Support Belief that Conflict is Necessary Dogmatism Support for Bush v. Gore Biblical Fundamentalism Conservatism Perception that the Process Should be Legalistic

Data rows = units columns = variables Country population Urban% Religion Austria 8000 58 Catholic Belgium 10100 96 Catholic Bosnia 4600 36 Muslim Bulgaria 8900 68 Orthodox Canada 29100 77 Catholic Croatia 4900 51 Catholic Czech Rep. 10400 72 Catholic Denmark 5200 85 Protestant Finland 5100 60 Protestant France 58000 73 Catholic Germany 81200 85 Protestant Iceland 263 91 Protestant

Female literacy and urban density 20 40 60 80 100 What are the units in this analysis? Female Literacy (%) People living in cities (%)

Non-obviousness? Optimism causes political participation Political efficacy causes political participation Hatred causes political participation

Non-obviousness? Interpersonal trust causes democratic stability Veto players (number of checks and balances) cause democratic stability Economic stability causes democratic stability

Non-obviousness? Urbanization causes suicide rates to increase Medical marijuana causes lower suicide rates Medical marijuana causes spending on Medicare to decrease

Non-obviousness? Religiosity causes low environmentalism Social identity salience over material identity salience causes support for courts

Non-obviousness? Experience with violence as a child causes empathy? Or lack of empathy? Perhaps it is conditional?

Non-obviousness? High opiate brain chemistry resulting from learning causes perseverance High opiate brain chemistry causes drug use Parent’s drug use causes children’s future drug use Wealth causes drug use