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Some Applications of Statistical Method to Political Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Stuart A. Rice
Stuart A. Rice*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
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Extract

This paper deals with the applicability of statistical principles and methods to research in political science. The subject is virgin and comprehensive. At the outset it will be necessary to delimit the treatment to be given it here, and to state some of the premises upon which this treatment will be based.

In the first place, the topic is unrelated to questions of public finance, or any of the bookkeeping aspects of government. I shall confine attention to more fundamental problems, distinctly psychological and sociological as well as political in character. These have to do with the nature and operation of forces that give rise to political activity and that determine its forms and its direction. A socio-political-psychology, quantitative in method, is the goal with respect to which orientation is sought.

In the second place, only data of a kind now available for research will be considered. Every statistician will agree with Professor Merriam's demand for the development and extension of governmental reporting, but my immediate concern is with undeveloped possibilities of utilizing existing materials.

In the third place, the desirability of a quantitative approach to political research problems is taken for granted. Yet the statistical method has serious limitations, not merely because it can never replace logic as a means of interpretation, but also because it is not universally available for scientific inquiry. The developments of recent years in the field of abnormal psychology, for example, have no quantitative method of discovery behind them. When subjective processes give rise to or accompany behavior, measurements of the latter may be possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , May 1926 , pp. 313 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1926

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References

1 “The Political Vote as a Frequency Distribution of Opinion,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, March, 1924.

2 Cf. Wissler, Clark, Man and Culture, especially Chapter IVGoogle Scholar.

3 Ibid., 12–18, 42–43, 136, 138 and passim.

4 This is not equivalent to political homogeneity in general, which is not of present concern.

5 The coëfficient of variation equals 100 times the standard deviation divided by the mean. The relationship in the case of the 11 states included in Table II, ascertained by the method of correlation by grades, is expressed by the coëfficient of correlation, r= .94.

6 “Diffusion” as here used implies something more than the mere spread of acquaintance with an attitude, or the ideas upon which it is ostensibly based. That which is being spread is an acceptance of the attitude by individuals. It is regarded as a process which may still be going on after some individuals in a given community have adopted the attitude. This use of the term may seem objectionable, but the term itself is the most appropriate that has been found to express the meaning. The term “velocity” is used because it implies the rate at which this acceptance of attitude is taking place. The rate of acceptance within a group of individuals is obviously dependent upon the speed with which acceptance is taking place within individual members of the group. This, it may be supposed, is to no small degree dependent upon the frequency with which the attitude is exhibited to one individual by other individuals, that is, upon the reiteration of its expression. That is, when A and B express the same attitude to C, the effect upon C's attitude is probably greater than the mere sum of the effects of A's and B's attitudes, each taken independently. As the number of individuals having the same attitude increases, the number of separate contacts between those and other individuals will increase in the same ratio. The probable number of duplicate or reinforced contacts with these other, non-infected, individuals will, however, increase at some rate greater than that of the total number of contacts. It follows from this that the rate of acceptance will for a time accelerate, because of the proportionately greater chance of reiteration. Deceleration would result from the principle of diminishing returns from reiteration. Continued reiteration of an attitude by others, that is, might eventually cease to have any effect upon the unconverted individual. These sup-positions, reminiscent of Gabriele Tarde's “Laws of Imitation,” are, of course, wholly speculative at present.

7 By a schedule similar to that of Professor Moore, Henry T., in his article “Innate Factors in Radicalism and Conservatism,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, October, 1925 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Cf. for example, Mills, F. C., Statistical Methods, Chap. VIIGoogle Scholar.

9 Review of Economic Statistics, January, 1919, pp. 18–31 Google Scholar.

10 “The Influence of the Business Cycle on Certain Social Conditions,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1922, pp. 324–340 Google Scholar.

11 Some slight modifications of this method were employed, which itis not essential to describe here.

12 Sixty-first Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Doc. 654.

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