2007 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Paper Priming the Quantity and Identities of Immigrants
John Sides, George Washington University
Jack Citrin, University of California, Berkeley
Overview: We present the results of a series of survey experiments
that exposed respondents to information about the quantity and
identities of immigrant in the U.S.
Disc. John E. Transue, Duke University
25-18 POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
Room Salon 7, 3 rd Floor, Thur at 2:35 pm
Chair Zoe M. Oxley, Union College
Paper Political Sophistication and Ideological Self-Placement
Judd R. Thornton, Michigan State University
Overview: We seek to explain why individuals misidentify their
own ideological self-placement. We hypothesize that it is political
sophistication not value conflict which explains misplacement.
Paper Ideological Partisanship in Two Dimensions of Political
Attitudes and Values
Brendon Swedlow, Northern Illinois University
Overview: Democratic voters are generally more liberal than
communitarian, but also conservative and libertarian. Except for
those who vote mostly Republican, Republicans are almost
equally conservative, libertarian, and communitarian.
Paper Constrained Conservatism: The Impact of Group
Consciousness on Black Ideology
Tasha S. Philpot, University of Texas, Austin
Overview: A great deal of variance in the ideological expressions
of African-Americans is masked by a sense of group
consciousness. The higher their level of group consciousness, the
more black conservatives will mirror their liberal counterparts.
Paper The Reciprocal Effects of Ideology and Issue Positions
Jeremy F. Duff, Michigan State University
Overview: A wealth of research has been written on how
ideological identification helps form opinions about political
issues. I argue that for some people the relationship works in
reverse, with issues playing a role in determining ideological
identification.
Paper Mass Public Opinion: Attitudes, Non-Attitudes, Stability and
Change
James W. Lamare, Florida Atlantic University
Overview: An examination of opinion change and stability as
detected in a panel study conducted in New Zealand during the
1990s. The findings suggest that views are real responses to
political stimuli. Non-attitudes are not affecting change or
stability.
Disc. Zoe M. Oxley, Union College
26-11 RE-EXAMINING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF
VOTING
Room Clark 9, 7 th Floor, Thur at 2:35 pm
Chair John E. McNulty, SUNY, Binghamton
Paper Turnout and Competitiveness in Space and Time
John S. Matthews, Queen's University
Richard Johnston, University of Pennsylvania
Amanda Bittner, University of British Columbia
Overview: This paper examines the impact of electoral
competitiveness on federal voter turnout in Canada, using
measures of competitiveness at multiple geographical levels
(riding, province, nation) and time points (current election,
previous election).
Paper Katrina's Voters: Floods and Representation
Betsy Sinclair, California Technical College
Overview: Using voter history files, flood data, and census
information, we evaluate the consequences of Hurricane Katrina
on the propensity of voters to participate in the 2006 mayoral
election in New Orleans.
Paper Electorate Size and Turnout
Sloane Kuney, George Washington University
Garry Young, George Washington University
Overview: Using a natural experiment based on the 1960s one
person, one vote redistricting, we examine whether changes in
electorate size affect voter turnout in U.S. House elections.
Paper Left Out: How Party Polarization is Affecting Who Votes
Michael H. Murakami, University of California, Berkeley
Overview: I investigate how party polarization is affecting turnout
in U.S. Presidential elections over the past 50 years and find that
pure Independents and increasingly atypical partisans are less
likely to vote over time.
Paper An Aggregate Analysis of Negative Campaigning and Voter
Participation
William W. Franko, Jr., Kent State University
Overview: This study uniquely tests the effects of negative
campaigning on voter participation at a larger level than is
possible with random survey responses. My findings suggest that
negative ads do demobilize the electorate.
Disc. John E. McNulty, SUNY, Binghamton
Daniel C. Reed, University of Georgia
27-1 EFFECTS OF THE INFORMATION
ENVIRONMENT ON THE PUBLIC (Co-sponsored
with Public Opinion, see 25-22)
Room Parlor F, 6 th Floor, Thur at 2:35 pm
Chair Michael G. Hagen, Temple University
Paper Issue Publics, News Interest, and the Information
Environment
Jennifer Jerit, Florida State University
Overview: This study examines how changes in the amount of
media coverage influence patterns of news attention among issue
publics and the electorate at large.
Paper Uncertain Information, Beliefs, and Opinions
Jason Barabas, Florida State University
Betsy McGraw, Florida State University
Overview: Political knowledge studies focus on questions with
undisputed answers, but facts are often unclear or unknown.
Natural and survey-based experiments show that variations in
information certainly affect factual beliefs and foreign policy
opinions.
Paper Who Moves Presidential Approval? The Impact of News
Coverage on Individual-Level Opinion Dynamics
Scott L. Althaus, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Overview: This paper sheds light on why individuals change their
approval of the president over time, and how these individual
changes drive aggregate shifts in job approval, with a novel quasiexperimental
survey design.
Paper The Social Roots of Evaluations of Fairness
Jennifer Wolak, University of Colorado, Boulder
Overview: I investigate the individual and contextual forces that
influence appraisals of the fairness of election outcomes.
Disc. Benjamin I. Page, Northwestern University
27-4 ENDORSEMENTS, EDITORIALS, AND NEWS
Room Clark 1, 7 th Floor, Thur at 2:35 pm
Chair Julio Borquez, University of Michigan, Dearborn
Paper Non-Presidential U. S. Newspaper Endorsements, 2002, 2004,
and 2006
Mark D. Harmon, University of Tennessee
Overview: The author sampled twenty large newspapers, tallying
candidate endorsements in the 2002 and 2004 general elections. In
2002 newspapers endorsed more Republicans; in 2004 more
Democrats. In 2004 newspapers endorsed incumbents by a six-toone
ratio.
Paper Examining Institutional Influences on Editorial Slant in
Campaign News
Johanna Dunaway, Sam Houston State University
Overview: This work addresses the following research question:
In what ways does the institutional structure of media outlets
affect the degree to which editorial preferences are reflected in
campaign news coverage?
Paper Newspapers and Public Policy: Legislators Read and Heed
Editorials
Steven M. Hallock, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Overview: This study uses a survey of all Illinois state legislators
to analyze the effects of newspaper editorials on issues of public
policy.
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