How to study political activists: A petition survey approach |
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| Institution: | 1. Dept. of Sociology, Washington College, Chestertown, MD 21620, United States;2. Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43201, United States;3. Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43201, United States;4. Dept. of Sociology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43201, United States;1. Department of Ophthalmology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, One Gustave Levy Place, New York, NY, 10029, USA;2. Department of Ophthalmology, Seoul St. Mary''s Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea;3. Black Family Stem Cell Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA;1. Department of Sociology, University of Notre Dame, United States;2. Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Arlington, United States;1. Justice at the Third Environment Court and Economic Institute, Universidad Austral de Chile, Av. Viel S/N, Isla Teja, Valdivia, Chile;2. Department of Economics, Finance and Legal Studies, Culverhouse College of Commerce, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0224, USA |
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| Abstract: | A major challenge for social movement and political campaign studies is generating large, representative samples of political activists. This paper outlines a strategy of surveying those who participate in a common, baseline form of political action: signing petitions. Similar to protest surveys, signing a petition constitutes a more baseline low cost/low risk form of political activism. In 26 states in the U.S. petition lists are public record and, with modest effort, can be used to study a wide variety of issues, groups and campaigns. We outline the steps and costs involved in such a petition survey and how to improve response rate. To assess response bias, we compare demographic and political affiliation measures acquired from a marketing analytics company (Experian) for respondents and non-respondents to our survey of petition signers for two state-level initiative elections, finding only modest and interpretable response bias. The methods presented here have broader implications for survey research in general. |
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| Keywords: | Protest Contentious politics Political participation Political activism Survey methodology Response bias |
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