Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:57:36.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Participant Observation and the Political Scientist: Possibilities, Priorities, and Practicalities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2011

Andra Gillespie  and
Melissa R. Michelson
Andra Gillespie
Affiliation:
Emory University
Melissa R. Michelson
Affiliation:
Menlo College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Surveys, experiments, large-N datasets and formal models are common instruments in the political scientist's toolkit. In-depth interviews and focus groups play a critical role in helping scholars answer important political questions. In contrast, participant observation techniques are an underused methodological approach. In this article, we argue that participant observation techniques have played and should continue to play a key role in advancing our understanding of political science. After demonstrating the use of these techniques, we offer readers advice for embarking upon participant observation research and explain how this approach should fit into a scholar's long-term career plans.

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 261 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bergan, Daniel E. 2007. “Does Grassroots Lobbying Work? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effects of an E-Mail Lobbying Campaign on Legislative Behavior.” American Politics Research 37: 327–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burawoy, Michael, Barton, Alice, Ferguson, Ann Arnett, Fox, Kathryn J., Gamson, Joshua, Gartrell, Natalie, Hurst, Leslie, et al. 1991. Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Curry, Marshall, dir. 2005. Street Fight [DVD]. Brooklyn, NY: Marshall Curry Productions.Google Scholar
Emerson, Robert M., Fretz, Rachel I., and Shaw, Linda L.. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emory University Office of University-Community Partnerships. 2011. “Overview of OUCP.” http://oucp.emory.edu/about_oucp/index.html.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F. 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F. 1990. Watching Politicians: Essays on Participant Observation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Garcia, Edwin. 2004. “Cultural Persuasion: Drive for East P.A. Latino Vote Goes to the Living Room.” San Jose Mercury News, September 20, A1.Google Scholar
García Bedolla, Lisa, and Michelson, Melissa R.. Forthcoming. Mobilizing Inclusion: Redefining Citizenship through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Alan, Gimpel, James G., Green, Donald P., and Shaw, Daron R.. 2007. “The Influence of Television and Radio Advertising on Candidate Evaluations: Results from a Large-Scale Randomized Experiment.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April 12–15.Google Scholar
Gillespie, Andra. 2005. Community, Coordination and Context: A Black Politics Perspective on Voter Mobilization. Ph.D. diss., Yale University.Google Scholar
Gillespie, Andra. Forthcoming. Newark and the Clash of Two Black Americas: Race, Class and the Breakdown of Linked Fate, 2002–2010. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Han, Hahrie C. 2009. “Does the Content of Political Appeals Matter in Motivating Participation? A Field Experiment on Self-Disclosure in Political Appeals.” Political Behavior 31: 103–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, Brian F., and Michelson, Melissa R.. Forthcoming. “Not That There's Anything Wrong With That: The Effect of Personalized Appeals on Marriage Equality Campaigns.”Google Scholar
Malhotra, Neil, Michelson, Melissa R., Valenzuela, Ali Adam, and Rogers, Todd. Forthcoming. “Text Messages as Mobilization Tools: The Conditional Effect of Habitual Voting and Election Salience.” American Politics Research.Google Scholar
Michelson, Melissa R. 2005. “Getting Out the Vote in East Palo Alto: A Voter Registration Experiment.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Oakland, CA, March 17–19.Google Scholar
Miller, Joanne A., and Krosnick, Jon A.. 2004. “Threat as a Motivator of Political Activism: A Field Experiment.” Political Psychology 25: 507–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, Michael Leo. 2006. “Which Congregations Will Take Advantage of Charitable Choice? Explaining the Pursuit of Public Funding by Congregations.” Social Science Quarterly 87 (1): 55–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A.. 2000. Why Americans Still Don't Vote and Why Politicians Want It That Way. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar