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Improving the measurement of policy preferences in surveys: bringing the status-quo back in
[conference paper]
Abstract "One of the fundamental uses of surveys is the measurement of policy preferences. We
can ask voters how they locate themselves on policy dimensions of substantive interests,
and we can ask them how they perceive the positions of political parties. Likewise,
we can use surveys to get political elite ... view more
"One of the fundamental uses of surveys is the measurement of policy preferences. We
can ask voters how they locate themselves on policy dimensions of substantive interests,
and we can ask them how they perceive the positions of political parties. Likewise,
we can use surveys to get political elite to reveal their policy positions or experts to
judge the positions of parties on a set of salient policy dimensions. Increasingly, such
surveys present respondents with issue scales defined as trade-offs between different
policy goals. Surprisingly, scholars have not paid much attention to the fact that
such scales are directional and include an implicit reference point: the status quo.
We examine the effects of indicating an explicit status quo midpoint in trade-off issue
questions using an experimental setup in an online survey that was part of the German
National Election Study in 2009. We show that status quo labeling has three major
effects. First, the indication of the status quo significantly reduces item non-response.
Second, issue scales with status quo indication change respondents' self-placement and
the perception of political parties due to the provision of an explicit reference point.
Third, individually perceived ideological distances between a voter and her preferred
party are smaller when a status quo is indicated. This leads to a slightly stronger
predictor of ideological distance in a conditional logit model of vote choice. The findings
have implications for designers and users of voter and expert surveys." (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
voting behavior; party; voter; attitude; survey; preference; measurement; self-assessment; response behavior; political elite
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Method
development of methods; basic research
Document language
English
Publication Year
2010
City
Mannheim
Page/Pages
26 p.
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications
Data providerThis metadata entry was indexed by the Special Subject Collection Social Sciences, USB Cologne