Voting and Non- Voting Theories

Voting and Non- Voting Theories: 2004 Presidential Election

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In applying theories of voting and non-voting behavior to 2004 presidential election, it is better to have some explanation on the theories themselves. Theories of voting are put into 2 categories: party identification and issue voting. If in an election people vote according to their party ID, regardless of who the candidate of their party is, we can say their model of voting behavior is party identification. But if people vote regardless of party affiliations, it is said that their voting behavior is issue voting. In the issue voting model, people put more emphasis on the candidates’ personalities and characteristics rather than their party affiliation. Besides, he issues of the time are also very crucial to their decision. In other word they look at candidates’ personalities and the position they take over specific issues of the time. This can be done either prospectively or retrospectively. In the prospective way, the voter looks at the policies of the parties and selects the on that resembles his/her position on the issues more. In the retrospective way, the voter only looks at the achievments and failures of the candidates as measure.

Non-voting behavior also has 2 explanations: institutional and socio-political. The difficult registration procedures that are mostly on the shoulders of the voter are one of the institutional explanations. 2 explanations exist in the socio-political branch; people are either happy or disillusioned with their conditions and for this they don’t participate or they participate in the process of decision-making in other ways.

I think the model of issue voting is more applicable to the voters in 2004 election. It is because the other model is not applicable. Let’s observe some data regarding party ID:

		Rep.		Dem.		Ind.		No. of Polls
			%		%		%
	2004
	Fourth quarter		31		32		31		4
	Third quarter		31		34		30		7
	Second quarter		28		33		32		2
	First quarter		30		33		29		7
	2003
	Fourth quarter		29		32		30		6
	Third quarter		29		32		31		6
	Second quarter		29		31		34		3
	First quarter		32		32		31		5
	2002
	Fourth quarter		29		33		32		4
	Third quarter		30		32		33		5
	Second quarter		31		30		33		3
	First quarter		31		30		35		2
	2001
	Fourth quarter		31		32		31		10
	Third quarter		30		33		30		5
	Second quarter		29		34		30		4
	First quarter		28		34		34		5

 (The data is taken from http://www.publicopinionpros.com/features/2005/aug/hugick.asp)

“The back and forth movement seen in party ID over the course of election year 2004 provides strong evidence that it is not a particularly stable measure. All other things being equal, we would expect party ID to change little from quarter to quarter, but experience shows that it can and does change direction, often in an unpredictable manner.”¹

Now consider the following statistics. The table “displays the demographic characteristics of the first major shift in party ID:

--2001 Pre-9/11--

2001-2002 -Early Post 9/11-

		Rep		Dem		Rep		Dem		Margin Shift		Minimum N
			%		%		%		%		%/party
	Total		28		34		32		31		+7R		7,270
	Men		30		29		33		27		+5R		3,515
	Women		26		38		31		35		+8R		3,755
	White		33		29		37		26		+7R		5,602
	Black		5		68		10		64		+9R		677
	Hispanic		17		43		25		36		+15R		490
	18-29		24		32		28		28		+8R		1,446
	30-49		29		34		34		30		+9R		2,789
	50-64		26		37		33		31		+13R		1,649
	65+		32		36		32		40		+4R		1,247
	College grad+		31		33		37		29		+10R		2,557
	Some college		30		33		33		28		+8R		1,693
	HS or less		26		35		29		34		+4R		2,946
	Northeast		24		36		29		33		+8R		1,355
	Midwest		28		31		32		28		+7R		1,882
	South		30		35		32		34		+3R		2,622
	West		28		33		33		28		+10R		1,411
	Southern white		39		27		39		26		+1R		1,907
	Non-South white		31		30		35		26		+8R		3,695
	Urban		22		39		26		37		+6R		2,152
	Suburban		29		33		34		28		+10R		3,501
	Rural		32		30		34		29		+3R		1,617

           (The data is taken from http://www.publicopinionpros.com/features/2005/aug/hugick.asp)

“Moving from the pre-9/11 to early post-9/11 period, the Republicans gained ground across the board, but those gains were generally larger among subgroups who had been less supportive of George W. Bush and his policies. The "rally 'round the flag" effect helped push Bush's approval rating to a level not seen since his father received close to 90 percent approval in the Newsweek poll after the Persian Gulf War victory, and it also seemed to boost the Republican Party's standing with those who don't generally lean that way. Republican gains were more pronounced among women than men. The Republicans improved their position significantly among African Americans, Hispanics, and whites who live outside the South” ^1.

As you see, the statistics show major changes in the party ID of the voters, which is called party dealignment. In cases of party dealignment, people no longer consider party affiliations and tend to focus on the issues of the day. David Remer gives a list of the issues that voters in 2004 election faced:

·  “Voter party identification

·      Political fund raising.

·      Public vs. Private education.

·      Schools: Local Standards vs. National Standards.

·      Public Debt.

·      War Powers: congressional vs. executive.

·      Government: open or secret.

·      One party or multiple party government.

·      Economic Mix.

·      Lobbyist Power.

·      National Security: Offensive vs. Defensive.

·      Wealth Distribution.

·      Media Responsibility and Ownership.

·      Public Resources: To privatize or not.

·      Globalization: Diplomatic Leadership vs. Force.

·      Environment: Proactive vs. Reactive policy. “²

So the voters considered these issues as measures for electing their candidates. That’s why I call 2004 election an issue voting election.

But for those who have not voted in 2004 election, the most likely reason can be the socio-political one. In this case I think it was disillusionment with the government that prevented people from voting. People knew that whoever became the President, their conditions as a country in war abroad would not change.               

1) http://www.publicopinionpros.com/features/2005/aug/hugick3.asp

2) http://www.watchblog.com/thirdparty/archives/000248.html

Social Stratification in America

Social Stratification in America                                                          this article can also be found in: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=900626

In discussing American society and its structure, first of all I'm going to define social stratification itself and the bases on which this concept is founded. Then I'm going to discus which category is more applicable to the American society.

To give a general description, social stratification is ranking social groups based on the things they have in common and the things that are different among them. This categorization is basically made in three different ways:

1) State systems,

2) Caste systems, and

3) Class system.

In a state system the authority and power is monopolized in the hands of a narrow elite. In such society, the elites rule and the rest of people are bent to their will; like the feudal societies. In a caste system, a person's place in society is given to him/her based on birth and ancestry. Thus the person cannot change his/her place throughout his/her life. And finally in a class society people are given status based on birth and also personal achievements and backgrounds. In other word people of such societies can change their status through their lives. Having said all this, we can now discuss the concept of social stratification in American society.

The history of America bears no sign of feudalism in it. Besides, as people of America were immigrants from other countries so the matter of birth was almost of low significance. Of course there were a number of British elite among the first settlers but they could not be proud of their ancestry in their new home as they were in their homelands; because every one had to work hard if s/he wanted to survive.

Therefore the conditions of young America were not suitable for the foundation of a feudal or caste system. So America took the form of a class system. But it's clear that we can not relate the formation of a class society in America only to conditions America had in early ages. Some other factors have also contributed to the continuation of this system even to today America. Among these factors are: individualism, industry and job opportunities, and a tendency toward mobility.

In America the idea of individualism is so profound that it can be seen in every aspect of peoples' lives. Individuals are preferred to societies and in this way personal achievement becomes the measure for giving a person his/her status in society. it is the individual who is responsible for his/her success and failure- it is interesting to know that 43 percent of people polled by Gallup believed "lack of effort as a reason people are poor" and "53 percent" believed ""strong effort" as a reason some people are rich" ¹.

We can conclude that most of the people believe in he class society values and features. The next tow factors are actually interrelated. Even we can trace the effects if individualism in these two. For an American finding a good job is one of the main priorities. They easily leave their homes and houses in hope to have better jobs and therefore better opportunities and conditions. As an effect of individualism, they feel less sense of belonging to family or homeland. In other words a good job opportunity is most of the times preferred over being near one's family and homeland. Again the matter of birth loses its significance because of this condition and each person is taken accountable for his/her status, thus reaffirming the class system in America.

Like other class societies, America consists of three basic classes: higher class, middle class and lower class. But some thing is different in America. Unlike in other class systems, in America class consciousness is actually absent ², which means people are not aware of their place in the social ranking. Actually most of them consider themselves as middle-class but they don't know where the boundaries of the three classes meet each other. However if we want to give an income- based definition of the middle class, according to statistics it ranges from"$ 32,653 to $ 48,979" ³.

The overlapping of classes in America is caused somehow the concept of credit shopping. In this way, even a person of a lower class income group can buy things that people of the middle class afford to buy through credit shopping. So s/he sees little difference between people of middle class and herself/himself. So he also thinks he belongs to middle class. I think that through such economical system, American government has been able to promote the standard of living among the citizens, spreading a sense of satisfaction among people. That's why most of Americans still consider their country the best place to live.

Footnotes:

- 1 and 2 Quoted from: http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/stats.html

-3 Quoted from: http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/APGOV_Political%20Culture.htm

Marzieh Motahhari, MA student of University of Tehran, Institute of North American studies

Human Rights in America

Human Rights in America

So many times we have heard American officials blaming other countries for not respecting human rights. Even if we look back at the history of the country we see the on of the major discussions over ratifying the constitution was about bill of rights. Besides, many of the pro- human rights institutions are founded in America like Human Rights Watch. "Human Rights Watch is a United States-based international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters is in New York City"¹. "Pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch opposes violations of basic human rights, including the death penalty and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Human Rights Watch advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and the press" ² . Many times countries like Iran or Syria have been under harsh criticism under this subject. But what about human rights in America? Is there no violation of human rights? The answer is that human rights are sometimes violated even in America. Through the history of America whenever the country has been facing crisis the first thing that suffers is human rights. When the security is shaky, the violation of rights is justified to save the country. The same happened after September 11 when many restrictions and violations were imposed on human rights, even for American citizens. Among all others American Muslims suffered more because they were looked at as terrorists. One of the organizations that works for the human rights for Muslims is IHRC (The Islamic Human Rights Commission ) that celebrated its 10 year anniversary on November 11, 2007.it is" an independent, not-for-profit, campaign, research and advocacy organization based in London , UK . We foster links and work in partnership with different organizations from all backgrounds, to campaign for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background"². In IHRC website you can see cases of violation of rights related to Muslims. There you can find some examples of human rights violation that occurred in US. Go and have a look at it. It'll worth it!

1)            Quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Watch

2)            Quoted from: http://www.ihrc.org/