Political Analysis Walter Hill POSC 300 Spring 2010 The course is divided into three main sections. The material in the first section concentrates on the scientific method and its application in the social sciences. We will address the objectives of strategies adopted by research scientists. An introduction to quantitative statistical procedures used in the social sciences is the basis of the second section. Students will have an opportunity to get a sense of the results of social research by interpreting real data. Research design and research ethics are discussed in the third section. We will discuss problems associated with conducting research with examples coming from the text, handouts, and class discussion. If time permits there will be a fourth section in which we will study some well known research programs. Publications dealing with the use or misuse of IQ tests, or global models are candidate fields of study. Examining redistricting options is a possible area of additional analysis. I have been interested in political stock markets, and I have introduced them on an experimental basis in classes. There will neither be national nor state elections this semester, but there are elections later this year. Remember to register to vote before the next election. I do not anticipate that we will be saturated with news about political campaigns. However I anticipate that the swine flu story will remain visible. I intend to follow the story. There are also several political markets, but most are likely to be quiet. I like the market adopted by a group at the University of Iowa. They created a futures market for contemporary presidential elections. I have generally found it interesting to follow the Iowa Political Stock Market. The current URL for the market is . Other known sites of interest are the Hollywood stock market at . Some sites available as late as Spring 2009 no longer take trades from the United States: , , Intrade . A site with political survey data in the 2008 election was . I am looking for effective use of the technology on campus. I will keep a copy of this syllabus, or a longer version on the "L" drive. Look in . The evaluation of students will be determined by the number of points they have accumulated over the course of the semester. Points are obtained on tests, and homework assignments. There will be 3 tests worth about 100 points each and 3 or 4 homework assignments worth about 20 points each. Attendance, and to a lesser extent class participation, is also considered and it determines fractions of a grade (worth 10 to 20 points). Required Readings Henkel, Ramon E. (1976) Tests of Significance. Newbury Park, California: Sage. Hoover, Kenneth R. (2007) The Elements of Social Scientific Thinking. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, Inc. Nachmias, David and Chava Nachmias (2004) Research Methods in the Social Sciences. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. On reserve in the library Lecture Notes. On-line at L:\hss\posc\whill\lec_note. Final version in book store. Recommended Readings Akst, Daniel (2001) The Forgotten Plague: A murderous disease was ravaging the south. Then one brave and determined doctor discovered the cure - and no one believed him. American Heritage December/January 2001: 72-79. Angell, Roger (2008) 17 Nov 2008 Legacies: Class Report. Notes at Harvard, President James Conant, appoligized to Navy for having Lucien Victor Alexis, Jr. on Lacross team. Denied admission to Harvard Med. (no other "Negroes" to room with). Died in 1975 at age of 53. Page 44. Maybe this reference belongs in POSC315 under stress!! Babbie, Earl R. (1981) The Practice of Social Research Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Blalock, Herbert (1979) Social Statistics. New York: McGraw Hill. Copeland, Larry (2009) 'Money Steers Seat Belt Debate' USA Today Thurs 14 May 2009: page 3a - Seat belt story, notes primary/secondary states. seat belts save lives.[possibly for public policy class!] www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-05-13-seatbelts_N.htm expect on L drive- copeland20090513 The article cites Lilliard Richard, Univ of Missouri. That professor has article available on-line (Found with yahoo search). She shows a drop in young male deaths. The article cites James Baxer, president of the National Motorist Association, who opposes seat belt legislation. The article notes the money involved. Florida is eligible for $35 million federal funds. The article implies states must pass law by 30 june 2009. It has data from: Governors Highway Safety Association Institute for Highway Safety and state highway offices. Dunteman, George H. (1984) Introduction to Linear Models Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing. Horowitz, Lucy and Lon Ferleger (1980) Statistics for Social Change Boston: South End Press. Isard, Walter (1988) Arms Races, Arms Control and Conflict Analysis: Contributions from Peace Science and Peace Economics. Written with the assistance of Christine Smith and Charles Anderton. New York: Cambridge University Press. Leamer, Edward (1983) "Inference with Non-Experimental Data: A Bayesian View". New York: Wiley. Mukherjee, Ramkrishna (1983) Classification in Social Research Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Nobel, David F. (1987) America by Design Oxford, UK and New York: Oxford University Press. Olinick, Michael (1978) An Introduction to Mathematical Models in the Social and Life Sciences. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Pence, Gregory E. (1995) Classical Cases in Medical Ethics. New York: McGraw-Hill.ISBN=0-07-038094-5. Sagan, Carl (1984) "The Atmospheric and Climatic Consequences of Nuclear War" in Ehrlich, Paul, Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy Walter Orr Roberts Carl In The Cold and the Dark. New York: W. W. Norton: New York. SAS Basic or SAS Statistics. This manuals, and the Introductory Guide, give the main procedures of the language. Seabrook, John (2009) 'The Price of The Ticket' "New Yorker" 10 & 17 August:34-43. On rise in concert ticket prices. Begins 6 Nov 1965 in San Francisco. What may be of interest to students is on pages 35-36. There is a report on a paper by Marie Connolly and Alan Krueger. They sent out 12 Princeton students to a Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band concert. Average ticket price was $280 (box office paid $75). Springsteen could have collected an extra $4 million. Article says concert tickets are a secondary market, like the mortgage securities market. [Also, author interviewed on Tell Me More.] SPSS. There are several "popular" editions of SPSS and SAS. The SPSS Primer and the SPSS User's Guide overview the language and give the most important commands. The Primer is short and sweet, while the User's Guide is extensive and informative. The Guide will cover significantly more ground than the course requirements. (ISBN;= 0-07-046553-3 for the User's Guide). Velleman, Paul and David Hoaglin (1981) The ABC's of EDA Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. White, Louise G. and Robert P. Clark (1980) Political Analysis: Technique and Practice Monterey, CA: Brook and Cole Publishing Company. COURSE OUTLINE Week 1: General Introduction. Hoover, Cpt. 1-2. What is scientific thinking? Week 2: Hoover, Cpt. 2. Examples of Operationalization. Anticipate a task on international power as an example of operationalization. Bremer, Stuart A. (1980) "National Capabilities and War Proness" in J. David Singer editor "The Correlates of War II: Testing Some Realpolitik Models" New York: Free Press. Nachmias Cpt 1. Reading by Lakatos (e-reserves). Week 3-4: Theories in the social sciences. Hoover Cpt. 3-4. Read Hoover, Appendix A and B, on Putnam's thesis. Ehrlich and Sagan "In the Cold and Dark," selected chapter(s). Sidel, Victor and Barry S. Levy (2007) 'Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons' "American Journal of Public Health" Sept. 2007 Vol. 97 #7:1589-1594. [In JSTOR or elsewhere on-line]. Sagan, Carl and Richard P. Turco (1993) 'Nuclear Winter in the Post-Cold War Era' "Journal of Peace Research" Vol 30. #4: 269-373. [New *JSTOR] If you have not seen material on Critical Elections look in e-reserves for Flanigan, William H. and Nancy Zingale (1978) Political Behavior of the American Electorate Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc. See the discussion on Critical Elections on pages 31-49 in Chapter 2 titled 'Historical Electoral Patterns'. Susan Page, "USA Today" on Friday 5 September, page 1 has an article on the electorate saying the country is moving to a Democratic majority. Note for the class we will use 1968 NOT use 1980 as a breakpoint. The article was at . Or see "L" drive under the name Page. Week 5: Models See 1) Richardsons Arms Race model; 2) epidemic model; and 3) prey-predator model in Olinick note figure 2.6, figure 4.11 and figure 4.12. Look at the interpretation on pages 40-41 and pages 105-106. (E- reserves). In JSTOR find Stoll, Richard (1987) 'System and State in International Politics: A Computer Simulation of Balancing in an Anarchic World.' "International Studies Quarterly" Vol. 31 #4: 387-402. 4) *not in original* "When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of a Zombie infection" Munez et al. [For "fun"]. Week 6: Hoover Chapter 5. Levels of Measurement Additional material on Levels of Measurement in the Lecture Notes section 1. The end of Hoover's chapter has a model on prisons by Welch. Show some regression models. Include papers on 2008 election by Lewis-Beck and by S. Piston. Look on the "L" drive. Test 1 around here. Week 7: Hoover, Cpt. 6 (If time). This semester lean heavily on Lecture Notes. Here see section 1 (Descriptive Statistics). The companion section in Nachmias is Cpt. 7. Week 8: Univariate Analysis concentrating on measures of central tendency and spread. See Lecture Notes section 2 (Central Tendency and Spread). The companion section in Nachmias in Cpt. 15. If time, you will find a deeper analysis of the basis of hypothesis testing in Henkel, chapters 1-3.. An earlier version of the Lecture Notes are on the "L" drive. See . Week 9-10: Inferential Statistics. Lecture Notes section 3 (Hypothesis Tests and Inferences) and section 4 (Summary). The companion section in Nachmias is Cpt 19. In Spring 2009 Semester used Henkel pages 30-44. Read as much of book as possible. If needed, review the SPSS appendix in Nachmias. Cassel, Carol (2003) "Overreporting and Electoral Participation Research" 'American Politics Research' Vol. 31 #1 January: 81-92. Bhatti, Chad R. and Jennifer L. Wightmam (2008) 'Conditional Probability and HIV Testing: A Real-World Example' "The American Statistician." Vol 62, #3 (August):238-240. See table 2. Skim theoren 1. Week 11: More on Regression Regression example on reserve: Chapter 3 Lewis- Beck Forecasting Elections or Ray Fair's example. Test 2 around here. Week 12: Ethics Nachmias Cpt. 4. Ethics and related dilemmas facing researchers. If time, look at Akst, Daniel: The Forgotten Plague: Pellagra. Wade, Nicholas and Cohe Sang-Hun (2006) 'Human Cloning Was All Faked, Koreans Report' "New York Times" 10 January. Page 1,a12. Claims of Dr. Hwang Woo Suk of Seoul National University were fabicated. He had promised to make paralized people walk and was engraved on postage stamp. (Can students find on-line?) Privacy Issue: Jessica Bennett (4 May 2009) 'A Tragedy That Won't Fade.' Newsweek Story on the traffic accident of Nikki Catsouras. Also see Businessweek (31 Dec. 2009) 'Europe Frets Over "Nude" Airport Scanners.' Week 13: Nachmias Cpt. 5. Some research design including the Classical Experimental Design. Week 14: Nachmias Cpt. 6. Quasi-Experimental and other research designs. If time permits, either Nachmias Cpt. 7, Problems of Measurement, or Nachmias Cpt. 10, Survey Research, or World Models including Forrester, Bariloche and Globus. Test 3. ADDITIONAL READINGS Allday, Jonathan (1998) Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang Institute of Physics Publishing: Philadelphia. QC793.2.a394 Describes the rules of subatomic particles. The cover says accessible to "senior secondary school level". There are not extensive manipulations of equations. Berry, Scott (1999) "Bridging the Gap in Sports" Journal of the American Statistical Association September: 661-670. Statistical model for how retired athletes in baseball, hockey and golf would have performed in modern conditions. Brown, Courtney (1991) Ballots of Tumult: A portrait of Volatility in American Voting. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan ISBN:= 0-472-10250-8. Dawes, Robyn M. and Faust, David, and Meehl, Paul E. (1993) "Statistical Prediction versus Clinical Prediction: Improving what Works" in "A Handbook For Data Analysis in the Behavioral Sciences: Methodological Issues" edited by Gideon Keren and Charles Lewis. pages 351-368.: Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Gives some citations showing liner models do better than parole boards in predicting success. The bulk of article shows models work better in a range of fields (business bankruptcy, longevity, academic success, psychiatric diagnosis...) than experts. (BF39.h26435-1993). For parole hearing, he cites Dawes (1988) "Rational Coice in an Uncertain World" San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Drape, John (2008) 'Web Site Puts Focus on Fix in Sports Bets' New York Times" Sunday 25 May, Pages 1,11. Website Betfair allows betting in real time. Says some tennis games fixed. Shows prices of Roger Nadal victory ovrt Rafael Federer "last Sunday" (no hint it was fixed). Notes point shaving in basketball. Concern expressed of bettng in Beijing Olympics this summer. Guernsey, Lisa (1999) "Click Here for Ivory Tower: A Start- Up Enlists Elite Schools for On-Line Learning and Raises Eyebrows. (New York Times Thursday 2 September: page E1,E9). The article mentions that a century ago, Cornell professors would go on horseback to spread education to farmers. Although an MBA can be obtained over the internet, a Georgetown Professor is quoted as saying she does not think Unext offers anything not found on campus. Harville, David A and Michael H. Smith (1994) "The Home- Court Advantage: How Large is it and Does it Vary from team to team? The American Statistician Vol 48 #1: 22-28. The authors conclude the home court is worth about 5 points. Holt, Jim (2005) "Unintelligent Design" New York Times Magazine Sunday 20 Feb. page 15. Cites a CBS News/NYTimes poll of 18-21 Nov. 2004 Which statements reflect your views on the origin of human beings? 1) We evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process. 2) We evolved from less advanced life foroms over millions of years, but God guided this process. 3) God created us in our present form. Democrats Rep All Evolved w/o God 16% 9% 13% Guided by God 28% 23% 27% Created by God 51% 66% 55% Unsure 5% 2% 5% Horgan, John (1991) "Profile: Reluctant Revolutionary-Thomas S. Kuhn unleashed 'paradigm' on the world" Scientific American. May:40-49. Kuhn, Thomas (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolution Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meehl,P.E. (1954) "Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction" Minneapolis, MN: Univ. Minn Press. Milloy, Courtland (2005) "Out From Under the Thumb of White Bias" Washington Post Wednesday 26 January. Notes study by Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji on bias. You can take her bias test, the Implicit Association Test, on-line . The article also cites the Vedantam (M.I.T) study. The researcher in the latter study sent out 5,000 resumes to 1,250 employers in Chicago and Boston. Find which resumes trigger call backs. (A 1991 GSS run by NORC found whites and blacks thought blacks lazy.) Navarro, Vinvente (1991) Class and Race: Life and Death Situations Monthly Review. September Noru�is, Marija (1997) SPSS/PC+ Studentware. Chicago: McGraw Hill. Okie, Susan (2002) "Studies Cite Smallpox Vaccine Takeoff: Mass Innoculation Might Kill Hundreds, save Thousands" Washington Post Wednesday 8 May. Vaccines against bioterrorist attack reduce deaths. About one-quarter of the population would not get the vaccine: weakened immune (HIV, cancer...), pregnant women, children under 1 year old, people with skin condition eczema, those who live with high risk group. Vaccinating 75% of the 86 million 1-29 year olds result in 244 deaths, but the vaccination gives 10 deaths due to encephalitis for a cost of several million. The article cites Matthew Davis and Alex R. Kemper, Univ. Michigan, at a conference on infectious diseases in Atlanta. Post-attack vaccination ($3 million) gives 2,160 deaths. Routine vaccination in US ended in 1972. The mortality rate is 30%. Osler, Jason (2001) Taming the Beast: Choice in Technology. Gives the example that the Amish consider 2 tractors as more efficient versus a decision that requires you to expand a farm. Generally people make choices. Walking to corner store instead of driving for a quart of milk good use of tech. Microwave means takes 5 min instead of 90 to cook but you lose a connection to family. Remnick, David (2007) 'The Tsar's Opponent: Garry Kasparov takes aim at the power of Vladimir Putin' "The New Yorker" October 1,2007: 64-77. Notes most world chess matches have political overtones. Notes demokratia similar to dermokratia, the latter like feces. Gives Russian view of 1990s as era of corruption. Revkin, Andrew C. (2001) "The Devil Is in the Details: Efforts to Predict Effects of Global Warming Hinge on Gaps in Climate Models." The New York Times Tuesday 3 July, page d1,d2. Models have blocks 150 miles on a side, 19 atmospheric levels 20 oceanic levels. Segal, Robert (2004) "-----" All Things Considered Monday 5 January 2004. Interviews Prof. David Faust (Univ. Rhode Island) and Tom Miller (MD Board of Parole). Cites work of Paul Meehl (recently deceased). Three experiments: 1) Linear models do a better job of predicting success of parole releases than warm and fuzzy's of parole officers; 2) Horoscope given to three groups (a:No information, b:Year birth. c:Year+date). Groups giving more information rated the horoscopes better, the last group giving the highest rating. All horoscopes were the same; 3) Best test for paroles' success was Portiaz (sp) maze. Subject puts pencil in the middle of the maze. He/she is told to find a track out without lifting the pencil. The score is how many times the subject lifts the pencil! Shouse, Ben (2001) Science Brief news article on Philip Zimbardo's psychology experiment at Stanford in 1971 (9 prisoners and 9 guards). He notes a similarity to reality tv. Vol 294 9 Nov 2001. Stoll, Cliff (1989) Cuckoo's Egg. Ethical questions included, ex. should I let hacker enter through my computer?" Straight, Susan (2000) "Someone Will Win, You can bet on it." Business Week 10 April: page 8. Cites the Iowa market and London bookmakers www.ladbrokes.com. London has odds of 6 to 5 against both Bush and Gore. Note that Iowa pays out $70,000 annually. Surowiecki, James (2000) " ----- " New Yorker. 9 Oct: page 33. Long term capital management had only about 5 traders. This created high equity volatility. It does not matter if they are wearing mac shirts or golf shirts. Tobin, Jeffrey (2006) "Annals of Law: Drawing the Line; Will Tom DeLay's redistricting in Texas cost him his seat?" The New Yorker 6 March:32-37. Notes 1) Supreme court, 2) DeLay get Aappropriations seat left vacant by Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Ca) taking $2.4 million [and later getting jail time]; 3) 2006 race expected to be most expensive House race. vos Savant, Marilyn (2000) "Ask Marilyn" Washington Post: Parade Magazine page 11. Says Thomas Edison electrocuted dogs and cats in public. He wanted to show DC was safer than George Westinghouse's preferred AC. The article says an elephant named Topsy at Coney Island, who killed 3 men, was electrocuted in 1903 with AC. Edison filmed the event and showed it for the amusement of audiences. Vedantam, Shankar (2005) "See No Bias" The Washington Post Magazine pages 12-17,38-42. She reviews some tests of bias. Watkins, Beverly T. (1991) The Electronic Classroom: Vanderbilt courses mix film, video, graphic, sound, and text; use of the facility spreads. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Vol. 38 #2 (4 Sept.). Welsch, Lawrence (1982) "Using Electronic Mail as a Teaching Tool" Communications of the ACM Vol. 25 #2 (February): 105- 108.