Browsing by Author "Druckman, James N."

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    An Audit of Political Behavior Research
    (Sage, 2018) Robison, Joshua; Stevenson, Randy T.; Druckman, James N.; Jackman, Simon; Katz, Jonathan N.; Vavreck, Lynn
    What are the most important concepts in the political behavior literature? Have experiments supplanted surveys as the dominant method in political behavior research? What role does the American National Election Studies (ANES) play in this literature? We utilize a content analysis of over 1,100 quantitative articles on American mass political behavior published between 1980 and 2009 to address these questions. We then supplement this with a second sample of articles published between 2010 and 2018. Four key takeaways are apparent. First, the agenda of this literature is heavily skewed toward understanding voting to a relative lack of attention to specific policy attitudes and other topics. Second, experiments are ascendant, but are far from displacing surveys, and particularly the ANES. Third, while important changes to this agenda have occurred over time, it remains much the same in 2018 as it was in 1980. Fourth, the centrality of the ANES seems to stem from its time-series component. In the end, we conclude that the ANES is a critical investment for the scientific community and a main driver of political behavior research.
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    Mobilizing collective identity: Frames & rational individuals
    (2009) Aroopala, Christy Annie; Druckman, James N.; Alford, John R.
    Who wins and loses in politics often depends on the relative strengths of competing groups. To increase their strengths and prevalence, groups often engage in mobilization efforts. How and when these attempts work is the topic of my dissertation. I take a micro approach by exploring the specific ways that varying rhetorical strategies enhance the likelihood of successful mobilization. Specifically, I combine rational choice and psychological theories to generate hypotheses concerning the role of thresholds (rules that determine how far the group is from its goal), the stakes involved in the decision, and source credibility in moderating the success of frames in increasing group participation. I then test these predictions in a series of three experiments---a voting game laboratory experiment, a mobilization survey-experiment, and a public goods laboratory experiment. I find evidence that group-based mobilization is most successful when moderators reinforce the mobilization messages, suggesting that identity-based politics have a greater underlying rational (i.e., instrumental) component than previously thought. The findings of this project have significant implications for the role of mobilization and identity in politics.