Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Rising Political Participation of Senior Citizens: The Role of the American Welfare State

长期以来，政治学的比较政治学文献一直认为，社会运动和利益集团塑造了福利国家的结果。 在当前财政紧缩和福利国家紧缩的时代，当选的政治家寻求支持由直言不讳的利益集团和政治上活跃的受益者所倡导的项目，同时削减有利于政治上沉默的项目。 这种说法虽然有道理，但没有证据支持。 这个博士论文的研究项目表明，在美国的情况下，老年人，通过他们的政治参与率高，已经能够永久化他们的福利国家的好处，而在较低的参与水平，如穷人群体，遭受程序削减。 因此，老年公民的政治参与限制了政府的决策，并塑造了福利国家的结果，因为当选官员担心这个警惕和积极的群体的报复。 本论文项目将采用一个特别有价值的数据集，一系列的211个国家的横截面调查进行的罗珀组织每年十次，从1973年9月，通过1994年10月。 211项调查中的每一项都包含一组12个参与问题，其中大多数在其他纵向调查中没有。 这个项目产生了一个连接的数据集的12个参与行为和可用的政治和社会协变量，一个独特的资源，近211个月的阅读在美国的政治参与。 一旦公开发布，这一数据集将为政治参与调查的全部内容提供宝贵的补充。 对于这个项目，数据集是至关重要的三个原因：它包含参与行为，如请愿书签名和写信在任何其他纵向数据集不可用;包括感兴趣的时间段，当老年人超过非老年人在他们的参与率在其他数据证明;而且，这是唯一的每月参与数据，这将表明，老年人的参与是对福利国家计划的具体威胁作出反应。 这个博士论文研究项目承诺产生有趣和重要的数据集供其他学者使用。

Assertions have long been made in the comparative politics literature of political science that social movements and interest groups shape welfare state outcomes. In the current era of fiscal constraint and welfare state retrenchment, elected politicians seek to support programs championed by vocal interest groups and politically active beneficiaries while cutting programs that benefit the politically quiescent. While plausible, such assertions have not been backed by evidence. This Doctoral Dissertation research project demonstrates, in the American case, that senior citizens, through their high rates of political participation, have been able to perpetuate their welfare state benefits while groups at lower levels of participation, such as the poor, have suffered program cuts. Thus, the political participation of senior citizens constrains governmental decision-making and shapes welfare state outcomes because elected officials fear retribution from this vigilant and active group. This dissertation project will employs a particularly valuable dataset, a series of 211 national cross-sectional surveys conducted by the Roper Organization ten times per year from September, 1973, through October, 1994. Each of the 211 surveys contains a battery of 12 participation questions, most of which are unavailable in other longitudinal surveys. This project produces a concatenated dataset of the twelve participatory acts and available political and social covariates, a unique resource of 211 nearly monthly readings of political participation in America. When publicly released, this dataset will provide a valuable addition to the political participation survey repertoire. For this project, the dataset is crucial for three reasons: it contains participatory acts like petition-signing and letter-writing unavailable in any other longitudinal dataset; encompasses the time period of interest, when seniors overtook nonseniors in their rates of participation as evidenced in other data; and, is the only monthly participation data available, which will show that senior participation is responsive to specific threats to welfare state programs. This Doctoral Dissertation research project promises to produce and interesting and important dataset for use by other scholars.