Collaborative Research: Southern Grassroots Party Activists, 2001

这项调查通过邮寄问卷的方式调查了南方11个州中民主党和共和党的地方活动人士。该项目补充了1991年进行的南方草根活动家项目的类似调查。通过在2001年收集类似的数据，调查人员产生了一个数据集，对政党和南方政治感兴趣的学者非常感兴趣。这项研究的组织方式与1991年的项目类似。调查人员负责：1)项目的整体管理和协调；2)问卷的构建与制作；3)数据的编码和处理；4)编写代码本和发布数据集；并且，5)编辑代表该项目立即出版的作品的三卷。研究小组还包括11个州的州调查员，他们：A)构建采样框架；B)对党内积极分子进行邮件调查；C)收集相关语境数据；D)分析数据，并为这三卷编辑的内容贡献章节。这个项目的研究小组包括许多参与1991年研究的人。虽然该项目将产生一套适合学术界各种用途的数据集，但指导研究的两个主要理论问题是：a)调查党际和党内冲突的性质及其关系；b)调查该地区双方发生的组织发展和变化。这两个问题都与1991年项目所做的工作有关，但该项目对这两个领域的调查远远超出了原来的研究。能够在两个时间点对积极分子进行比较，使我们在各种研究问题上有了实质性的优势。本研究及所得数据对其他对此课题感兴趣的学者有一定的参考价值。

This investigation surveys local-level activists in the Democratic and Republican parties, in each of the eleven southern states, through a mail questionnaire. The project complements a similar survey, the Southern Grassroots Activists project conducted in 1991. By collecting similar data in 2001, the investigators produce a data set that is of great interest to scholars interested in political parties and southern politics.The research is organized in a manner similar to the 1991 project. The investigators are responsible for: 1) overall project management and coordination; 2) the construction and production of the questionnaire; 3) the coding and processing of the data; 4) preparation of the codebook and the data set for dissemination; and, 5) editing three volumes that represent the immediate published work from the project. The research team also includes state investigators in each of the eleven states who: A) construct the sampling frames; B) conduct the mail surveys of party activists; C) collect related contextual data; and, D) analyze the data and contribute chapters to the three edited volumes. The research team for this project includes many of the individuals who were involved in the 1991 study.While the project would produce a data set suitable for a variety of uses by the scholarly community, two major theoretical concerns guide the research: a) investigating the nature of and relationship between inter-party and intra-party conflict; and b) investigating the organizational development and change that has taken place in both parties in the region. Both concerns are related to the work done by the 1991 project, but this project goes well beyond the original study in its investigation of these two areas. Being able to compare activists at two points in time gives us substantial leverage over a variety of research questions.This study and the data are of use to other scholars interested in this topic.