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Many political behavior theories explicitly incorporate the idea that context matters in politics. Nonetheless, the concept of spatial dependence—in particular, that behavior in geographic units is somehow related to and affected by behavior in neighboring areas—is not extensively explored. The study of campaign finance is no exception. Research in this area concentrates on the attributes of the individual donor, leaving context underexplored. Concepts such as contribution networks, for instance, are not rigorously tested. This article reexamines the impact of conventional socio‐demographic covariates on campaign donation behavior by ethnic contributors and explicitly models spatial effects. The spatial analysis reveals that patterns of campaign donations are geographically clustered (exhibiting both spatial dependence, implying a neighborhood effect, and spatial heterogeneity, implying a regional effect), and that this clustering cannot be explained completely by socio‐economic and demographic variables. While socio‐demographic characteristics are important components of the dynamic underlying campaign contributions, there is also evidence consistent with a contagion effect whereby ethnic contribution networks are fueling funds to candidate coffers.

AbstractResearch on Asian American politics is hampered by data limitations. Asian Americans comprise a small proportion of the population, and few political candidates are of Asian descent. However, because the Asian American population is growing quickly, interest in the group's political behavior has grown. One source of data that can be exploited to understand Asian American political behavior is the state of Hawaii. Hawaii provides a natural experiment since the majority of its citizens are Asian American and Asian political candidates are commonplace. This study of Hawaiian politics focuses on Asian American campaign finance behavior. I find that as Asian Americans locate themselves in more multicultural settings, they become more politically strategic, less focused on national-origin groupings, and more inclined to embrace a pan-ethnic identity.

Socioeconomic theories have long been the cornerstone of political participation studies. However, these theories are incomplete & particularly unsuited to explaining behavior found within immigrant minority communities. While increases in age & education provide skills that ease political participation, if these variables do not concurrently socialize an individual to stronger beliefs about the efficacy of voting & democratics ideals, they will not result in the expected higher participation. Here, evidence is presented that socioeconomic status variables merely provide the skills necessary for activity in a suitable political context. Socialization determines how these skills will be manifested. 4 Tables, 2 Figures, 36 References. Adapted from the source document.

I examine a recently proposed solution to the ecological inference problem (King 1997). It is asserted that the proposed model is able to reconstruct individual-level behavior from aggregate data. I discuss in detail both the benefits and limitations of this model. The assumptions of the basic model are often inappropriate for instances of aggregate data. The extended version of the model is able to correct for some of these limitations. However, it is difficult in most cases to apply the extended model properly.

Although scholars have long been interested in how context shapes racial attitudes, research in this area has fallen short of a consensus. Instead, the results span a wide range, with some studies finding that racial understanding is promoted by intergroup contact whereas others claim that racial and ethnic outgroups are perceived as a threat to economic and political interests. These varying results arise from research rooted in different conceptualizations of context. Our analysis is unique in the attention we pay to the measure of context for our particular data set. Employing a sociodemographic definition of neighborhood social context, we find that contextual socioeconomic status plays a critical role in mediating the effects of intergroup contact on racial attitudes. These contacts are more likely to produce racial harmony in high-status neighborhoods than in neighborhoods marked by low income and low levels of education.

This paper examines the role of spatial effects in ecological inference. Both formally and through simulation experiments, we consider the problems associated with ecological inference and cross-level inference methods in the presence of increasing degrees of spatial autocorrelation. Past assessments of spatial autocorrelation in aggregate data analysis focused on unidimensional, one-directional processes that are not representative of the full complexities caused by spatial autocorrelation. Our analysis is more complete and representative of true forms of spatial autocorrelation and pays particular attention to the specification of spatial autocorrelation in models with random coefficient variation. Our assessment focuses on the effects of this specification on the bias and precision of parameter estimates.

In research on American politics, the use of geographic information systems (GIS) is most often thought of in connection with redistricting and the study of election results. In the past ten years, political scientists have realized that GIS can help them address many research questions and data analysis tasks quite apart from these traditional applications. These include the analysis of point patterns and the detection of clustering; the study of diffusion of influence; and the measurement of spatial relationships involving key constructs such as proximity and distance, flow, and interaction. GIS tools also prove to be the exploratory complements to the suite of tools being used in spatial econometrics to test explicit hypotheses about the impact of geography and spatial arrangement on political outcomes. Adapted from the source document.