Election Studies: The State of the Field and Beyond Ian McAllister The Australian National University

A Crisis in National Election Studies? Many national election studies now more than half a century old Expanded around the world. Now generally accepted part of political science Oldest national election studies: 1. United States Sweden Germany Britain Canada Netherlands Germany Denmark Australia1987-

Inspired by Michigan model But election studies appear to have reached their limits Length of questionnaire in Australian Election Study

Number of variables in American National Election Study

Declining response rates, AES

Declining response rates, BES since 1963

Intellectual Issues Why study voting? Voting worth studying—William Riker’s ‘democracy’s central act’ Less recognition of normative questions about democracy But elections co-ordinating events, unique in social sciences —Temporal acts: occur at same point in time —Decisional acts: produce government —Collective events: citizens must co-ordinate with others —Social events: bring citizens, groups, parties together Political scientists emhasize co-ordinating event. But other aspects of interest to social scientists

Intellectual Issues, continued What should election studies focus on? Obvious focus single election, but at least three other dimensions —Longitudinal As studies accumulate, greater potential to leverage big questions about change —Comparative Relative lack of comparative electoral studies. Only since 1996 CSES —Contextual Link contextual information to better understand electoral dynamics

Intellectual Issues, continued Examples of contextual information: political context of the election institutional variations (CSES) media consumption social location elite studies (Comparative Candidate Survey )

Methodological Issues Survey Method  Personal interview (some mail self-completion, phone) Problems: declining response rates, cost, sampling frame  Internet surveys (avoid method effects, cheap, fast) Problems: not probability, need to be weighted; payment of respondents Sample Size  Usually 1,500-2,000 respondents Problems: effective sample smaller for voters; difficult to analyze some issues, groups

Methodological Issues, continued Study Design  An enhanced portfolio of coordinated studies —independent rolling cross-sections in non-election years —rolling-cross-sections within the campaign —state or region over-samples

Administrative Issues Emphasis on collaboration; public use; broad oversight Economies of scale, test new ideas, hypotheses Generation of intellectual capital Capacity buildng, training in better social science Co-ordination to leverage resources Uniformity in study design, documentation, establish best practice

Summary No crisis, but need for organic change/generational replacement Need to ‘sell’ election studies more widely Restrict to ‘core business’ Link to other datasets, collections Develop the methodology to respond to problems