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Review Article: Election Studies of the Survey Research Center

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Kenneth Prewitt  and
Norman Nie
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Review Article
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1971 , pp. 479 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 See especially Angus Campbell and Kahn, Robert L., The People Elect A President (Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, 1952)Google Scholar, a monograph report on the 1948 election. For additional material on the 1948 study, see also Mosteller, Frederick et al. , The Pre-Election Polls of 1948: Report to the Committee on Analysis of Pre-election Polls and Forecasts (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1949.)Google Scholar The three major books pertinent to the present review are Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald and Miller, Warren E., The Voter Decides (Evanston: Row, Peterson, 1954)Google Scholar; Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960)Google Scholar; and by the same authors, Elections and the Political Order (New York: John Wiley, 1966).Google Scholar The latter is a collection of articles and excerpts from previously published books. It includes the major articles read in preparation for this paper. The central analysis of the 1968 election is to be found in Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., Rusk, Jerrold G. and Wolfe, Arthur C., ‘Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election’, American Political Science Review, LXIII (1969), 1083–1105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The S.R.C. research team has also pioneered in the methodology of election studies, though no review of contributions in this area will be presented here. It should also be noted that the data from the election studies have been made available to many users, and that these data constitute an important part of the archive of the Inter-University Consortium under the direction of the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

3 See, in particular, Butler, David and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1969), an award winning bookGoogle Scholar; Philip E. Converse and Georges Dupeux, ‘De Gaulle and Eisenhower: The Public Image of the Victorious General’ and by the same authors, ‘Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States’, both available in Campbell et al., Elections; Angus Campbell and Henry Valen, ‘Party Identification in Norway and the United States’, also in Campbell, et al. , Elections, and Campbell, Angus and Rokkan, Stein, ‘Citizen Participation in Political Life: Norway and the United States of America’, International Social Science Journal, XII (1960), 69–99 of English edition.Google Scholar

4 We do not wish to harp about what the S.R.C. researchers have failed to do, but we do feel that in ignoring voter registration they present a less than complete picture of the electorate. Nowhere in their work is there a tabulation comparing the characteristics of citizens who register and those who do not. Another study, using aggregate analysis, shows that the proportion of voters registered accounts for more variance in voter turnout than any other measure. See Kelley, Stanley Jr, Ayres, Richard E. and Bowen, William G., ‘Registration and Voting: Putting First Things First’, American Political Science Review, LXI (1967), 359–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 This distinction is borrowed from Eulau, Heinz, especially Chap. I in The Behavioral Persuasion in Politics (New York: Random House, 1963).Google Scholar

6 Campbell, and Kahn, , The People Elect a President, p. 3.Google Scholar

7 This is not to suggest that these early reports were self-consciously macro in either design or execution. The analysis of the 1952 data which did advance propositions about the role of elections in the political system is to be found in Janowitz, Morris and Marvick, Dwaine, Competitive Pressure and Democratic Consent (Ann Arbor: Bureau of Government, Institute of Public Administration, 1956).Google Scholar Indeed, the Janowitz and Marvick study raised questions about the quality of electoral choice in the U.S. which have yet to be satisfactorily answered.

8 Eulau, Heinz, Class and Party in the Eisenhower Years (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962)Google Scholar; and Key, V. O., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1961).Google Scholar Eulau relied completely and Key to a large extent on data collected as part of the S.R.C. election studies.

9 Key, V. O. Jr, Southern Politics (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1950)Google Scholar, his ‘A Theory of Critical Elections’, Journal of Politics, XVII (1955), 3–18Google Scholar; and with Munger, Frank, ‘Social Determinism and Electoral Decision: The Case of Indiana’ in Burdick, Eugene and Brodbeck, Arthur J., eds., American Voting Behavior (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1959).Google Scholar

10 Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and Mcphee, William N., Voting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954).Google Scholar

11 Peter Rossi, ‘Four Landmarks in Voting Research’, in Burdick and Brodbeck, American Voting Behavior.

12 Key, Southern Politics, and Munger, ‘Social Determinism’.

13 Campbell, et al. , The American Voter, p. 121.Google Scholar

14 Rossi, , ‘Four Landmarks’, p. 41.Google Scholar

15 Converse, Philip E., ‘The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics’, in Apter, David E., ed., Ideology and Discontent (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964).Google Scholar

16 Donald E. Stokes and Warren E. Miller, ‘Party Government and the Saliency of Congress’, available in Campbell et al, Elections.

17 See Converse et al., ‘Continuity and Change’.

18 Reported in Brody, Richard A.,Page, Benjamin I., Verba, Sidney and Laulicht, Jerome, ‘Vietnam, The Urban Crisis, and the 1968 Presidential Election’, paper delivered at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California, 1969.Google Scholar

19 Goldberg, Arthur S.,‘Social Determinism and Rationality as Bases of Party Identification’, American Political Science Review, LXIII (1969), 5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 The final chapter of Voting makes the transition from findings about individual levels of political information and rationality to a consideration of the ‘rationality’ of the system of democracy. However, the authors do not bring to bear the type of data necessary to answer the questions they pose. See Berelson et al, Voting. Perhaps the study which most systematically and empirically raises the issue of the quality of the electoral choice and rationality is the previously cited monograph by Janowitz and Marvick, Competitive Pressure and Democratic Consent. The position argued in our paper is partly reflected in a comment by Butler and Stokes, Political Change. Writing about critical elections they note that ‘such elections have sometimes been seen as those in which there is an abrupt and profound change of the electorate's loyalties, establishing a new pattern of partisan dispositions sufficiently stable to endure irrespective of the changing conditions of future elections. Such a view almost certainly underestimates the importance of the choices and appeals subsequently presented to the electorate in deciding whether a new electoral pattern is to survive. If the issues and leaders that evoked the pattern persist in future elections, the pattern will tend to persist. If they do not, it may prove highly transient.’ p. 9. Consent. The position argued in our paper is partly reflected in a comment by Butler and Stokes, Political Change, Writing about critical elections they note that ‘such elections have sometimes been seen as those in which there is an abrupt and profound change of the electorate's loyalties, establishing a new pattern of partisan dispositions sufficiently stable to endure irrespective of the changing conditions of future elections. Such a view almost certainly underestimates the importance of the choices and appeals subsequently presented to the electorate in deciding whether a new electoral pattern is to survive. If the issues and leaders that evoked the pattern persist in future elections, the pattern will tend to persist. If they do not, it may prove highly transient.’ p. 9.

21 Campbell, et al. , The American Voter, p. 92.Google Scholar

22 Data supporting this and the following point are reported in Verba, Sidney and Nie, Norman, Citizen Participation in American Politics (New York: Harper & Row, forthcoming).Google Scholar

23 Kerry Ban made this finding available to us. It will appear in her dissertation, ‘Political Activists – 1956–1968’, Stanford University.

24 Butler, and Stokes, , Political Change, p. 35.Google Scholar

25 Converse, Philip E., ‘Of Time and Partisan Stability’, Comparative Political Studies, II (07 1969), p. 144.Google Scholar

26 Converse, and Dupeux, , ‘Politicization of the Electorate’, p. 291.Google Scholar

27 Converse, , ‘Of Time and Partisan Stability’, p. 167.Google Scholar

28 Converse, ‘Of Time and Partisan Stability’.

29 Relevant discussion of this and previous points appear in Chap. 3 of Butler and Stokes, Political Change.

30 Butler, and Stokes, , Political Change, p. 57.Google Scholar

31 Lipset, S. M. and Rokkan, Stein, Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1967).Google Scholar

32 It should be noted that The American Voter partially anticipates this analysis as, for instance in the observation that realignment is partly to be explained by ‘the relative advantage of the party that dominates the era in recruiting new identifiers from among those who are first developing their political values’, p. 535.

33 Butler, and Stokes, , Political Change, p. 109.Google Scholar