Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Elect oral District Structure and Political Behavior

政治学博士论文研究：选举口头选区结构与政治行为

• 批准号: 9906209
• 负责人: John Alford
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-07-01 至 2001-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9906209&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Do variations in the shape and location of electoral districts affect citizen engagement in the political process? Can districts be manipulated in ways that impact the political attitudes and behaviors of citizens? Although these questions are central to current debates over congressional redistricting, there has been little systematic examination of the link between district characteristics and citizens. This dissertation analyzes this linkage by (1) collecting data on electoral district characteristics and citizen attitudes and behavior in the 1980s and 1990s, and (2) using multi-level analytical techniques to investigate how the context created by various electoral districts impacts the political attitudes and behaviors of district residents. The primary objective of this researc is to address a basic and important question: How can electoral districts be structured geographically to encourage or discourage political engagement and participation on the part of citizens? Specifically, it develops and tests a theory linking geographic characteristics of districts to citizen behavior via the effects that a district can have on the ease of information exchange in the environment. By gathering data on district characteristics (such as compactness scores and the degree to which districts conform to county and city boundaries) from the range of districts in place in the United States, and merging this information with citizen attitude and participation measures, this dissertation is able to determine how variation in citizen attitudes relates to district differences. This provides much-needed information to the debate over the standards applied to the drawing of electoral districts. More generally, it also provides insight into how contextual variables can contribute to an understanding of individual-level behavior.

选区形状和位置的变化是否会影响公民参与政治进程？ 是否可以通过影响公民政治态度和行为的方式来操纵地区？ 尽管这些问题是当前有关国会重新划分选区的辩论的核心，但很少系统地研究选区特征与公民之间的联系。 本论文通过以下方式分析这种联系：(1) 收集 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代选区特征以及公民态度和行为的数据，以及 (2) 使用多层次分析技术来调查不同选区创造的环境如何影响选区居民的政治态度和行为。本研究的主要目标是解决一个基本且重要的问题：如何在地理上构建选区以鼓励或阻止公民的政治参与和参与？ 具体来说，它开发并测试了一种理论，通过地区对环境中信息交换便利性的影响，将地区的地理特征与公民行为联系起来。 通过收集美国现有地区范围内的地区特征数据（例如紧凑度分数以及地区符合县和城市边界的程度），并将这些信息与公民态度和参与措施相结合，本论文能够确定公民态度的变化与地区差异之间的关系。 这为有关选区划分标准的辩论提供了急需的信息。 更一般地说，它还提供了关于情境变量如何有助于理解个体层面行为的见解。