Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- CONGRESS AS PUBLIC ENEMY
- 1 Introduction: What is wrong with the American political system?
- 2 Changing levels of support for individual institutions
- 3 Perceptions of political institutions
- 4 Perceptions of congressional features and reforms
- 5 Focus groups and perceptions of the Washington system
- 6 Who approves of Congress?
- 7 Support for democratic processes
- 8 Conclusion: The people and their political system
- Appendix
- References
- Index
Appendix
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- CONGRESS AS PUBLIC ENEMY
- 1 Introduction: What is wrong with the American political system?
- 2 Changing levels of support for individual institutions
- 3 Perceptions of political institutions
- 4 Perceptions of congressional features and reforms
- 5 Focus groups and perceptions of the Washington system
- 6 Who approves of Congress?
- 7 Support for democratic processes
- 8 Conclusion: The people and their political system
- Appendix
- References
- Index
Summary
NATIONAL SURVEY
The data sets used throughout most of this book are part of the Perceptions of Congress project funded by the National Science Foundation. The telephone-survey data were collected by the Bureau of Sociological Research at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. The bureau hired and trained interviewers for this project. The bureau purchased a list of telephone numbers from a national random sample and then randomly generated the last digit of the telephone number. When interviewers called a household, they asked to speak to the person in the household who was at least 18 years old and who had had the most recent birthday (Salmon & Nichols, 1983). The telephone interviews were conducted from July to October 1992 and had a 57 percent response rate. A total of 1,433 people completed the survey.
The survey items and scales used in the regression analyses in Chapters 6 and 7 were standardized to range from o to 1, making comparisons across variables easier. See King (1986) and Luskin (1991) for a discussion of how to interpret scales using this method of standardizing variables.
Demographics
Education: What is the highest level of education you have completed? 1 = less than high school; 2 = some high school; 3 = high school graduate; 4 = some technical school; 5 = technical school graduate; 6 = some college; 7 = college graduate; 8 = postgraduate or professional degree.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Congress as Public EnemyPublic Attitudes toward American Political Institutions, pp. 163 - 173Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995