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Research Note on Political Correlates of Voter Participation: A Deviant Case Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Gerald W. Johnson
Gerald W. Johnson*
Affiliation:
Auburn University
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Extract

This note attempts to show the explanatory limits of current generalizations about political participation behavior by analyzing a deviant case (West Virginia). Voter participation patterns in West Virginia cannot be explained in terms of traditional research findings based on socioeconomic variables. The present study therefore suggests a research framework that complements the customary socioeconomic and political output analysis. Its thesis, broadly stated, is that political style, culture, and organizational variables must be included in any paradigm that attempts to explain the relationships between state political systems and voting behavior patterns. The West Virginia data support this thesis.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , September 1971 , pp. 768 - 776
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1971

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References

1 The inadequacy of current political participation behavior generalizations to explain voting turnout in “developing” societies was recently stated by Rabushka, Alvin, “A Note on Overseas Chinese Political Participation in Urban Malaya,” this Review, 64 (03, 1970), 177–178 Google Scholar.

2 For a summary of these findings and relevant citations see Milbrath, Lester W., Political Participation (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1965)Google Scholar.

3 Milbrath, Lester W., “Political Participation in the States,” in Jacob, Herbert and Vines, Kenneth N., eds., Politics in the American States (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965), pp. 38–40 Google Scholar.

4 Ritt, Leonard G., “Presidential Voting Patterns in Appalachia: An Analysis of the Relationships Between Turnout, Partisan Change, and Selected Socioeconomic Variables,” (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1967), p. 143 Google Scholar.

5 Ritt, op. cit., p. 126.

6 Dye, Thomas R., Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1966), p. 62 Google Scholar.

7 Milbrath, , “Political Participation in the States,” p. 44 Google Scholar.

8 Dye, op. cit., p. 63.

9 Ritt, op. cit., p. 126.

10 Milbrath, , Political Participation, p. 119 Google Scholar.

11 This writer is cognizant of the difficulties in using voter turnout as the sole measure of political participation since political participation takes many forms. See Milbrath, Political Participation, Chapter I.

12 Other researchers have employed a slightly different list of variables. See, for example, Dye, op. cit., Appendix. The variables employed in this study are primarily those used in a previous study by Jonassen, Christen T. and Peres, Sherwood H., Interrelations of Dimensions of Community Systems, A Factor Analysis of Eighty-Two Variables (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

13 The factor analysis technique used in this study consisted of a simple structure solution with an oblique rotation. For an explanation of the technique, see Rummel, R. J., “Understanding Factor Analysis,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 11 (12, 1967), 444–480 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Policy output variables selected for analysis were those primarily used in previous state political system studies. See Dye, op. cit.

15 Final factor scores for each county on each factor were obtained by isolating its rank on each variable which loaded .30 or higher on that factor; each rank was in turn multiplied by the variance explained by that variable, and the resulting figures were summed for each county. Correlation techniques consisted of simple, partial, and multiple correlations.

16 Nie, Norman H., Powell, G. Bingham Jr., and Prewitt, Kenneth, “Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships,” this Review, 63 (06, 1969), 361–78Google Scholar, and 63 (September, 1969), 808–832.

17 Nie, et al., op. cit. (September, 1969), p. 808.

18 Wilkinson, J. Harvie, Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics: 1945–1966 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

19 Key, V. O. Jr., Southern Politics (N. Y.: Random House, 1949), p. 20 Google Scholar.

20 Key, V. O. Jr., American State Politics: An Introduction (N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1956), p. 136 Google Scholar.

21 The limitations in statistical analysis using aggregate data with reference to the above findings were recently noted by Riley, Dennis D. and Walker, Jack L. in “Communications”, this Review, 63 (09, 1969), 900–903 Google Scholar.

22 This point was recently made by Ira Sharkansky and Richard I. Hofferbert: “The study of elite and organizational behavior, plus exploration of the values that prevail in the cultural environments of the individual states may be essential for a thorough understanding of interstate differences in politics and public policy.” Quoted from “Dimensions of State Politics, Economics, and Public Policy,” this Review 63 (09, 1969), p. 879 Google Scholar. And, as Patterson, Samuel C. stated, “We have very little empirical data on the characteristics of political culture within American states,” Journal of Politics, 30 (02, 1968), 195 Google Scholar.

23 The author took the liberty of extracting this comment from a written critique by an anonymous reviewer of a first version of this note.

24 See Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1965)Google Scholar; Elazar, Daniel J., American Federalism: A View from the States (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966)Google Scholar; and, Patterson, Samuel C., “The Political Cultures of the American States,” The Journal of Politics, 30 (02, 1968), 187–209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Sharkansky, Ira, “Economic Development, Representative Mechanisms, Administrative Professionalism and Public Policies: A Comparative Analysis of Within-State Distributions of Economic and Political Traits, The Journal of Politics, (02, 1971), p. 131 Google Scholar.

26 Nie, et al., op. cit., p. 813.

27 Nie, et al., op. cit., p. 819.

28 Dye, Thomas R., Politics in States and Communities (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1969). p. 8 Google Scholar.

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