Collaborative Research: Local Elections in America Project (LEAP)

一段时间以来，城市政治学者一直对美国缺乏地方选举数据库感到遗憾。鉴于大量的案例（近90，000个地方政府）以及地方政府之间和内部相当大的制度和背景差异，人们可能会认为美国地方选举的研究是一个大量学术研究的领域。然而，这是一个相对未探索的研究领域。缺乏对地方选举的学术研究是很重要的，因为美国近50万当选官员中有96%代表地方而不是州或联邦管辖区，而且市政当局拥有最大比例的当选官员，占27%（美国人口普查局，1995年）。美国地方选举项目（LEAP）将实现两个目标。首先，它提供了一种开创性的方法来创建一个集中的，全面的和具有成本效益的地方选举数据库，这将为了解地方选举和美国城市的政治，种族和社会人口特征提供无与伦比的机会。该软件应用程序将系统地收集、储存和传播关于市理事会和市长选举的数据，采用一个自动化系统，该系统将在未来很长一段时间内继续收集选举数据，而不需要持续的外部资金。此外，该应用程序将具有高度灵活性，因此可以适用于处理不同类型的选举（例如，学校董事会或司法竞赛）或分析单元（选区）。该项目的第二个目标是使用LEAP数据库作为研究的基础，重点是种族/族裔在地方选举政治中的中心地位。美国人口中日益增加的种族/民族异质性在地方一级最为明显，这意味着地方选举为检验一系列理论提供了最好的竞技场。该项目的这一组成部分侧重于少数民族候选人在美国政治中的出现和政治抱负，以及候选人和选民种族/族裔在美国选举过程和结果中的作用。迄今为止，几乎没有任何研究审查过少数群体候选人竞选公职的条件，也没有什么理论指导对少数群体代表性的“供应方”的理解。少数族裔在选举职位中缺乏代表性是由于少数族裔候选人的失败还是由于少数族裔候选人的缺席？甚至没有任何研究对这个问题进行猜测。该项目将解决的其他具体问题包括：在什么条件下，非洲裔美国人和拉丁裔决定竞选地方公职，以及他们的“就职之路”与白色同行有何不同？而且，一旦少数族裔候选人获胜，他们的政治生涯将何去何从？候选人的种族/族裔如何塑造市政选举（包括初选）的竞争力？LEAP是数据收集和传播领域的一个前所未有的进步。该项目创造了急需的基础设施，以系统地描述，前所未有的，地方政治和选举的景观，以经验测试前所未有的社会科学理论，迄今为止很少在地方政治的背景下研究，并建立一个自动化和持续的数据收集过程。该数据库将为当前的数据库提供一个重要的推论，并向城市政治之外的学者开放地方选举。通过一个交互式网站提供LEAP数据将最大限度地为社会科学家，教育工作者和利益相关者团体提供访问和使用。该奖项部分由网络基础设施办公室（OCI）CF21风险基金资助，以促进网络基础设施（CI）元素的重用。

Urban politics scholars have for some time lamented the notable absence of a database on local elections in the US. Given the large number of cases (nearly 90,000 local governments) and considerable institutional and contextual variation across and within local governments, one might assume that the study of US local elections is an area of substantial scholarly investigation. And yet this is a relatively unexplored area of inquiry. The absence of scholarly research on local elections is significant, since 96% of the nearly half million elected officials in the US represent local rather than state or federal jurisdictions, and since municipalities have the largest share of elected officials, with 27% (US Census Bureau 1995). The Local Elections in America Project (LEAP) will accomplish two goals. First, it offers a path-breaking methodology to create a centralized, comprehensive, and cost effective local elections database that will provide unparalleled opportunities for learning about local elections and the political, racial and socio-demographic features of American cities. The software application will systematically collect, digitize, and disseminate data on city council and mayoral elections, employing an automated system that will continue to collect elections data long into the future without ongoing external funding. Moreover, the application will be highly flexible and could therefore be adapted to handle different types of elections (e.g., school board or judicial contests) or units of analysis (precincts). The second goal of this project is to use the LEAP database as the foundation for research that focuses on the centrality of race/ethnicity in local electoral politics. The increasing racial/ethnic heterogeneity of the US population is nowhere more evident than at the local level, which means that local elections provide the best arena for testing a whole range of theories. This component of the project focuses on the emergence and political ambition of minority candidates in American politics and the role of candidate and voter race/ethnicity in the process and outcome of American elections. To date almost no studies have examined the conditions under which minority candidates run for office and there is little in the way of theory to guide understanding of the "supply side" of minority representation. Is the lack of minority representation in elective office due to the defeat of the minority candidate or the absence of minority candidates? No study has even ventured a guess at this question. Other specific questions this project will address include: Under what conditions do African Americans and Latinos decide to run for local office, and how is their "path to office" different than that of their white counterparts? And, once the minority candidates are victorious, what is the trajectory of their political careers? How does candidate race/ethnicity shape the competitiveness of municipal elections (including primaries)? LEAP represents an unprecedented advancement in the areas of data collection and dissemination. The project creates the much needed infrastructure to describe systematically, as never before, the landscape of local politics and elections, to test empirically an unprecedented range of social science theories that have heretofore been little studied in the context of local politics, and to establish an automated and ongoing process of data collection. The database will provide a crucial corollary to current databases and open up local elections to scholars outside of urban politics. Making the LEAP data available via an interactive website will maximize access and use for social scientists, educators, and stakeholder groups.This award was partially funded by the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) CF21 Venture Fund for promoting the reuse of Cyberinfrastructure (CI) elements.