Ask: Research and Methods. Volume 23, Issue 1 (2014)
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Popular Perceptions of Actual and Just Earnings: A Questionnaire Experiment
Karpinski, Zbigniew pp. 5-34
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Estimating Support for Extremism and Its Correlates: The Case of Pakistan
Al Baghal, Tarek pp. 35-56
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Representation of Southeast European Countries in International Survey Projects: Assessing Data Quality
Kolczynska, Marta pp. 57-78
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Paid work versus accessibility in surveys: Are we running the risk of nonresponse bias? The example of ESS 5 in Poland
Sztabinski, Pawel B. pp. 79-102
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Democratic Values and Protest Behavior: Data Harmonization, Measurement Comparability, and Multi-Level Modeling in Cross-National Perspective
Tomescu-Dubrow, Irina; Slomczynski, Kazimierz M. pp. 103-114
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Construction and Use of a Relational Database to Analyze the Careers of Professional Politicians in Poland, 1985–2007
Nyckowiak, Justyna pp. 115-134
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Item Construction and Use of a Relational Database to Analyze the Careers of Professional Politicians in Poland, 1985–2007(The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with IFiS Publishers, 2014) Nyćkowiak, JustynaThis article describes a unique version of a longitudinal database featuring the Eastern Europe Parliamentarian and Candidate Database (EAST PaC). This version contains contextual and biographical information on career politicians from Poland, 1985-2007. I define career politicians as those who, three times during the period covered in the data, were granted a parliamentary seat in either the upper (Senat) or lower house (Sejm). As part of this project, I reconstructed the political biographies of career politicians. Based on practical experience in using these data, I propose the use of relational databases as a best practices approach to manage data of this type. I describe the need for relational databases in general, and describe in detail how to apply them to longitudinal data consisting of parliamentarians and their contexts.Item Representation of Southeast European Countries in International Survey Projects: Assessing Data Quality(The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with IFiS Publishers, 2014) Kołczyńska, MartaThis paper deals with the problem of unequal representation of countries in international surveys, and the differences in data quality between survey projects, both obstacles to cross-national comparative research. The first part of the paper investigates international surveys on general population samples conducted in South-East Europe in the period between 1990 and 2010. Documentation of country participation in both general and region- or theme-specific survey projects shows that some countries are systematically excluded from surveys. Consequently, from comparative perspective, the generalizability of research results is not only limited but also potentially biased, omitting atypical cases. The second part of the paper focuses on the quality of surveys. It finds that the most problematic element of surveys is survey documentation, an essential component of the data. Without documentation the value of datasets, analyses using them and conclusions drawn on their basis are questionable. The proposed synthetic measure of data quality, the Survey Quality Index, could lead to setting standards for the documentation of the survey process, and thus facilitate cross-national research and allow for meaningful integration of existing survey data.Item Democratic Values and Protest Behavior: Data Harmonization, Measurement Comparability, and Multi-Level Modeling in Cross-National Perspective(The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with IFiS Publishers, 2014) Tomescu-Dubrow, Irina; Slomczynski, Kazimierz M.This article describes the research project Democratic Values and Protest Behavior: Data Harmonization, Measurement Comparability, and Multi-Level Modeling. This survey data harmonization project engages with the relationship between democracy and protest behavior in comparative, cross-national perspective by proposing a theoretical model that explains variation in political protest in light of individual-level characteristics, country-level determinants, and interactions between the two types of factors. Methodologically, the project requires data with information at both the individual- and the country-level that varies over time and across space. While the social sciences have a growing wealth of survey projects, the data are often not comparable. This project selects variables from existing international surveys for ex post harmonization to create an integrated dataset consisting of large number of variables with individuals nested in countries and time periods. Throughout this process, focus is on three important and well-defined fields of methodology, namely data harmonization, measurement comparability, and multi-level modeling.Item Paid work versus accessibility in surveys: Are we running the risk of nonresponse bias? The example of ESS 5 in Poland(The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with IFiS Publishers, 2014) Sztabiński, Paweł B.Research data shows that nonresponse in surveys is increasingly connected with respondents’ lack of time caused, among others, by respondents’ performance of paid work. Since paid work is one of the key sociological characteristics, the underrepresentation of working citizens creates a risk of nonresponse bias in surveys. This paper draws on data from the fifth round of the European Social Survey in Poland to demonstrate how realistic this risk is. Apart from paid work, the paper analyses three dimensions of workload: total work hours, regular/irregular nature of work and place of residence/place of work (the same or different location) and time spent commuting to/from work. The results of our analysis show that there is a risk of nonresponse bias associated with the performance of paid work and time spent commuting to/from work in another location. This risk may be reduced by increasing the number of contact attempts with hard-to-reach respondents.Item Estimating Support for Extremism and Its Correlates: The Case of Pakistan(The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with IFiS Publishers, 2014) Al Baghal, TarekThe extent of support of extremist ideology is a major area of concern for both policy makers and academic researchers. Identifying the extent and correlates of a difficult to measure concept such as extremist ideology is often limited by the use of a single imperfect indicator. This paper outlines one approach, latent class analysis (LCA), to overcome this issue and uses the example of estimating support for such ideology in Pakistan. Using survey data from Pakistani men, the level of support is estimated using LCA employing several indicators related to extremism. The results suggest that although most Pakistanis are not supportive of extremist ideology, a substantively important portion of men are supportive. LCA also allows for class assignment, which is useful for understanding covariate relationships with the latent variable. Based on the results of the LCA, respondents are assigned to different classifications of extremist support, and a continuation-ratio logistic regression model is employed allowing for more covariates to be examined. The results suggest that there are a number of characteristics important in influencing support within this subset of the population. In particular, younger and less educated men are more likely to support extremism ideology. The results suggest a potentially useful methodology in understanding extremism, as well as a greater understanding of the problem of extremist support.Item Popular Perceptions of Actual and Just Earnings: A Questionnaire Experiment(The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with IFiS Publishers, 2014) Karpiński, ZbigniewIn social surveys, questions are often asked as to what subjects think people in various occupations actually earn and what they think these people should earn. Responses to these questions figure prominently in sociological studies on legitimacy of inequality and perceptions of justice. In the present study, responses to these questions are employed as well, but the major focus is on investigating the effects, if any, the way these questions are asked affects estimates of actual and just earnings provided by the subjects. More specifically, two hypotheses are proposed, the first of which concerns the association between actual and just earnings, as perceived by subjects, as a measure of legitimacy. It is argued that changing the order in which questions about the earnings are asked affects the strength of this association. A substantive justification for this hypothesis borrows from reward expectation theory and its concept of referential structures. The second hypothesis deals with between-subject agreement in the evaluations of just earnings and it proposes that the agreement may appear weaker or stronger depending on how the occupations to be evaluated by subjects have been selected. This hypothesis builds on expectations states theory, in particular, on status-processing principles in status-inconsistent situations.