Participation and Democracy: Dynamics, Causes ... - Jacobs University

8.3 The Multilevel Model: What Determines Elite-Challenging Activities?
As stated in the previous chapter, a multilevel analysis allows to examine independent
effects of individual- und societal-level predictors on a dependent variable (measured on
the lowest possible level), and at the same time modeling interaction effects between
level-1 (individual level) and level-2 (societal level) factors to explain why people
participate in elite-challenging activities. Again, due to the dichotomous character of the
dependent variable, a hierarchical nonlinear regression model is used. 68
As a first step, a baseline model is calculated, taking into account only the individuallevel
variables (Model 1). There are two types of predictors. For one, motivation is
operationalized with (1) life satisfaction, (2) left-right self positioning (inversely
measured), (3) political interest, and (4) self expression values. Postmaterialism is part of
the self expression measure and not considered separately: As the correlations in
Appendix A8-2 showed, self expression values are the stronger predictor for participation
in elite-challenging activities. Resources are measured by (5) gender, (6) age, (7)
education and (8) income. Status inconsistency is not considered here, as it did not show
any significant effect in the resource model.
It is assumed that group differences can be observed (see Appendix A8-1 and A8-2),
meaning that the individual-level variables have different effects across societies. The
first model looks like this:
Model 1:
Prob (Yij) = (1/ β j ) = P
η ij = log [P/(1-P)] = β 0j + β 1j (life satisfaction) ij + β 2j (left-right self positioning) ij +
β 3j (political interest) ij + β 4j (self expression values) ij + β 5j (gender) ij + β 6j (age) ij +
β 7j (education) ij + β 8j (income) ij + r ij.
η ij is the dependent variable (participation in elite-challenging activities) for a level-1 unit
(individual i), nested in a level-2 unit (society j), or more precisely: the logit of the odds
68 For a more detailed outline of the model assumptions, please see chapter 6.
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