Abstract
Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, in their 1972 workParticipation in America, advance the notion that political participation is not unidimensional, but is comprised of different modes. In recent years, the availability of panel and cross-sectional time series data has led to greater interest in the temporal dimension of political participation. Using data from nine American National Election Studies, we confirm the Verba and Nie findings with respect to voting and campaign participation and expand upon them. We examine the factor structure of indicators used in composite indices of voting and campaign participation and find that the structure of participation is stable across age groups, cohorts, and periods, confirming that composite indices of voting and campaign participation are not confounded by age, cohort, or period effects.
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This study was supported by grants from the Wayne State University Graduate School and the National Institute on Aging (NIA 5 AG06344-02).
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Jankowski, T.B., Strate, J.M. Modes of participation over the adult life span. Polit Behav 17, 89–106 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01498785
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01498785
Keywords
- Time Series
- Factor Structure
- Life Span
- Series Data
- Time Series Data