Shifting patterns: South's new Negro voters: can they swing an election? Negroes can outvote whites in some counties; but simple arithmetic shows they can't take control of the South
In: U.S. news & world report, Band 59, S. 38-40
ISSN: 0041-5537
In: U.S. news & world report, Band 59, S. 38-40
ISSN: 0041-5537
In: U.S. news & world report, Band 49, S. 59-61
ISSN: 0041-5537
In: Public opinion quarterly: journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Band 29, Heft 1, S. 1-15
ISSN: 0033-362X
Election statistics from the US & western Europe show continuity & smoothness in a time series. There is a serial-r, one side of this is the appearance of tides of swings. 2 explanations are discussed (1) a stimulus, & (2) a response, theory. According to (1), aggregate response (the vote) forms a smooth curve because stimulus strength, like business conditions, forms a similar curve. In (2), a degree of inertia is assumed & response follows stimulus changes with some delay. By means of a growth (or decay) function, simple catalytic growth, & a series of 500 simulated election results with a stimulus balance which varies (within certain limits) in a random manner, it is shown that continuity & tides result. A slowly reacting system will respond to ramdom shocks in a seemingly cyclical way. The implications of this are discussed against the back-ground of current thinking on pol'al sociol & attitude theory. The need for an inductive study of speed & time concumption of soc processes is stressed, & for model parameters that remain constant, or are predictable, form one res situation to the next. AA.
In: Revue française de science politique, Band 10, Heft 3, S. 658-672
ISSN: 0035-2950
The measure of political mobility (PM) among French citizens which has emerged from the statistics of successive elections makes possible an estimate of the permanent instability of the French multi-party system. That which is called 'the rate of mobility' is calculated as follows: an estimate is made of the % of votes for each list of electors in the elections under consideration & of the % of abstentions; the diff between the %'s in each election is then calculated & these diff's totaled up. A comparison between the 'rate of mobility' in France on the one hand & Switzerland & the US on the other indicates that the rate is much higher in France. 3 other features of French PM are further evident in such studies: (1) the shifts in opinion are due to pol'al conversion rather than to the periodic mobilization of non-voters (as is the case in the US during presidential elections); (2) PM in France is cumulative; there is no stable structure here, as in Switzerland, which would allow the pendulum to swing back (a redistribution of power among a pre-determined number of party members); & (3) the number of parties increases this tendency toward PM in France, though such mobility is not inevitably the result of such a multiplicity of parties. Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA.