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5 results

  • Quality in Measurement Matters: Adjusted American Bar Association Ratings and Circuit Court Confirmation Hearing Word Choice

  • James A. Sieja
  • Journal:
    Journal of Law and Courts ,
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    10 January 2024, pp. 1-22
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  • Though widely used in studies of judicial politics, American Bar Association (ABA) ratings have a partisan bias. As a result, when researchers include ABA ratings and ideology in a model together, the results may be biased toward non-findings with respect to the effect of ideology, qualifications, or both. This study leverages new data on the ABA rating process to create a valid and reliable new measure for the qualifications of nominees to the US Courts of Appeals. In an empirical example, I test the new measure against alternative specifications to demonstrate its potential. The empirical example also presents a new data set on circuit court confirmation hearing speech. The findings contrast with well-established conclusions from previous studies.

  • 16 - Reforming the Presidential Nominating Process: A Curmudgeon’s View

  • Edited by Eugene D. Mazo, Rutgers University, New Jersey, Michael R. Dimino
  • Book:
    The Best Candidate
    Published online:
    10 September 2020
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020, pp 386-403

  • Summary

    With the conclusion of each presidential election, scholars, commentators, and political junkies begin the quadrennial exercise of discussing reform of the presidential nomination system. If we could alter the process in just the right way, goes the thinking, we would get better nominees, a more informative campaign, and everyone, or at least a lot of people, would be happier with their choices on the next presidential ballot.

    And why not? How hard can it be to improve our presidential nominating system? After all, in 2016, both Gallup and Pew reported that voters had historically negative impressions of both major party nominees, so changes that would improve voter satisfaction must be low-hanging fruit. Indeed, the authors in this volume have offered up a number of thoughtful, intelligent suggestions for reform.

  • 12 - Democratizing the Presidential Debates

  • Edited by Eugene D. Mazo, Rutgers University, New Jersey, Michael R. Dimino
  • Book:
    The Best Candidate
    Published online:
    10 September 2020
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020, pp 279-308

  • Summary

    When it comes to electing the chief executive of the United States, the presidential debates play an important role in shaping public opinion and the choices facing voters. Having a fair process in place to determine who is eligible to participate in the debates and to guarantee that the debates are conducted neutrally is crucial to ensuring the integrity of the electoral process as a whole. In the past, controversies have arisen concerning which candidates should be invited to participate, which political parties should be represented, and whether the debates have been conducted in a way that is fair and neutral. Most of these controversies have never been resolved satisfactorily. Today, much more work needs to be done to ensure that our presidential primary and general election debates live up to their potential to provide truly diverse policy views to the public and are conducted in a manner that is wholly free from bias. Gender bias in terms of the questions asked of the candidates was evident in 2016, and other kinds of biases may appear in the future. Problematically, the eligibility rules for the general presidential debates have remained unchanged for decades. Meanwhile, government oversight of the debates remains virtually non-existent.

  • Comparing the measurement of different social networks: Peer nominations, online communication, and proximity data

  • T. J. van Woudenberg, K. E. Bevelander, W. J. Burk, C. R. Smit, L. Buijs, M. Buijzen
  • Journal:
    Network Science / Volume 8 / Issue 1 / March 2020
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    31 January 2020, pp. 62-78
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  • Background:

    Technological progress has enabled researchers to use new unobtrusive measures of relationships between actors in social network analysis. However, research on how these unobtrusive measures of peer connections relate to traditional sociometric nominations in adolescents is scarce. Therefore, the current study compared traditional peer nominated networks with more unobtrusive measures of peer connections: Communication networks that consist of instant messages in an online social platform and proximity networks based on smartphones’ Bluetooth signals that measure peer proximity. The three social network types were compared in their coverage, stability, overlap, and the extent to which the networks exhibit the often observed sex segregation in adolescent social networks.

    Method:

    Two samples were derived from the MyMovez project: a longitudinal sample of 444 adolescents who participated in the first three waves of the first year of the project (Y1; 51% male; Mage = 11.29, SDage = 1.26) and a cross-sectional sample of 774 adolescents that participated in fifth wave in the third year (Y3; 48% male; Mage = 10.76, SDage = 1.23). In the project, all participants received a research smartphone and a wrist-worn accelerometer. On the research smartphone, participants received daily questionnaires such as peer nomination questions (i.e., nominated network). In addition, the smartphone automatically scanned for other smartphones via Bluetooth signal every 15 minutes of the day (i.e., proximity network). In the Y3 sample, the research smartphone also had a social platform in which participants could send messages to each other (i.e., communication network).

    Results:

    The results show that nominated networks provided data for the most participants compared to the other two networks, but in these networks, participants had the lowest number of connections with peers. Nominated networks showed to be more stable over time compared to proximity or communication networks. That is, more connections remained the same in nominated networks than in proximity networks over the three waves of Y1. The overlap between the three networks was rather small, indicating that the networks measured different types of connections. Nominated and communication networks were segregated by sex, whereas this was less the case in proximity networks.

    Conclusion:

    The communication and proximity networks seem to be promising unobtrusive measures of peer connections and are less of a burden to the participant compared to a nominated network. However, given the structural differences between the networks and the number of connections per wave, the communication and proximity networks should not be used as direct substitutes for sociometric nominations, and researchers should bear in mind what type of connections they wish to assess.

  • Escaping the Disengagement Dilemma: Two Field Experiments on Motivating Citizens to Report on Public Services

  • Mark T. Buntaine, Daniel L. Nielson, Jacob T. Skaggs
  • Journal:
    British Journal of Political Science / Volume 51 / Issue 2 / April 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    13 November 2019, pp. 685-705
    Print publication:
    April 2021
    • Article
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      • Open access
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  • To promote good governance, citizens can inform governments directly and routinely about the implementation of policies and the delivery of public services. Yet citizens lack incentives to provide information when they do not expect governments to be responsive, and citizen disengagement in turn often prevents governments from providing public goods effectively. In two field experiments, we studied potential remedies to this dilemma related to solid waste services in Uganda. We randomly assigned reporters to be recruited by community nomination and to be recognized by community leaders in an attempt to select for and motivate information sharing. We also randomly assigned reporters to hear from the government about how their reports were used to make real improvements to waste services. Community nominations and public announcements did not increase reporting. However, responsiveness boosted participation over several months for reporters who had been recruited earliest and had been reporting longest, highlighting the critical role of timely government responsiveness in sustaining information flows from citizens.