Review Questions

for the

Second and the Final Exam

1. Identify the basic factors that voters use as reasons for preferring one candidate to another. Indicate what factors have a short-term influence on voting, and which factors have a long-term influence. Explain why your classification of factors as short-term or long-term.

2. Presby and Scavo indicate that "A presidential election is ... a referendum on the performance of the incumbent administration." This is especially true when an incumbent vice president or president is running for election. In this regard retrospective evaluation is an important determinants of voting behavior. What do political scientists mean by "retrospective voting"? Include in your answer an example of how retrospective evaluation is measured using the data from the 1992 and the 1996 presidential election studies.

3. Everett Carll Ladd argues that a two-tier electoral system replaced the New Deal Realignment sometime in the late 1960s. Boyd's article uses normal vote analysis to study the 1968 presidential election. Does Boyd present any evidence to support Ladd's notion of the emergence of a two-tier electoral system? Your essay should:

(a) identify the issues and groups that defected from the Democratic Party;
(b) explain why these defections occurred;
(c) explain why Boyd used normal vote analysis; and
(d) what evidence Boyd found that supports Ladd's hypothesis of a two-tier electoral system.

4. Define the term "normal vote" and identify the three factors used to determine a normal vote. Using the data reported in [Figure 1], explain how the electorate's attitudes toward [mass demonstrations] effected voting behavior in the 1968 election. NOTE: the brackets indicate that any Figure and subject from the Boyd article can be used in this question.

5. Compare and contrast the assumption that V.O. Key, Jr. and Douglas Hibbs make about American presidential elections.

6. Compare and contrast the assumptions that Douglas Hibbs and Carll Everett Ladd make about American presidential elections.

7. According to Jerry Clubb, et al., what are the stages necessary for a successful realignment; why do realignments take place.?

8. Does ideology influence the selection of candidates by the voters? Explain how you would go about testing the relationship of ideology to presidential vote in the 1996 election? Include in your essay:

a description of the variables you would use;
a prediction of the relationship you expect to find; and
what control would you use and why you would use that control?

9. What evidence (other than aggregate economic data) does Douglas Hibbs use from survey research to support his hypothesis that the 1980 election was not an ideological "shift to the right" by the electorate.

10. American elections have become very volatile in the last two decades. Does this volatility have anything to do with what Everett Carll Ladd describes as the "two-tier" electoral order? Include in your essay an explanation of:

the socio-economic changes that encourage volatile elections; and
the implications the volatility of American presidential elections have for electoral realignment.

11. Boyd discusses partisan polarization or party conflict on issues. Identify and explain the two components necessary for party polarization on an issue.

12. What is a "control" variable, and why is it used in data analysis?

13. Explain why voters defect from their party identification in voting for a candidate.

14. Explain why the Expected Democratic Vote (EDV) would be 48.3% if there were an even balance (i.e., a mean of zero) between Democrats and Republcians on a particular issue position.

15. Clubb, el al. discuss realignment as a result of generational change in the electorate. What evidence do they cite to support a decay of the New Deal Party System related to generational change? Include in your essay a discussion of generational change in:

voting patterns and party identification of new voters;
the use of New Deal symbols and issues by new voters;
changes in social group identification of new voters; and
changes in the level of trust and confidence in government by new voters.