COMMUNITY IDENTITY AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
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Community Identity and Political Behavior
Mary R. Anderson
COMMUNITY IDENTITY AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
Copyright © Mary R. Anderson, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–62191–6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anderson, Mary R., 1973– Community identity and political behavior / Mary R. Anderson. p. cm. ISBN 978–0–230–62191–6 (alk. paper) 1. Community organization—United States. 2. Community life— United States. 3. Political participation—United States. 4. Community development—United States—Citizen participation. 5. United States— Politics and government. I. Title. HN65.A687 2010 307.0973—dc22
2009041146
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: July 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.
This book is dedicated to my children Grace, Joe, and Will.
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Contents
List of Tables and Figures
ix
List of Appendices
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Acknowledgments
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1 Introduction
1
2
A Research Design for Studying Sense of Community and Political Behavior: Methodological Considerations
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3
Measuring Sense of Community
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4
Sense of Community, Efficacy, and Trust
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5 Political Participation and Sense of Community 6 7 8 9
The Interplay between Sense of Community and Political Discussion
77 95
The Relationship between Political Knowledge and Sense of Community
109
An Alternate Approach: Simple Membership versus Sense of Community
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Broadening Our Perspective
131
Appendices
143
Notes
211
Bibliography
217
Index
223
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Tables and Figures
Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5
Demographic Characteristics of Counties in Jury Pool Sample Demographic and Political Characteristics of Jury Pool Sample Demographic and Political Characteristics of Jury Pool Respondents by County Demographic and Political Characteristics of Context Survey Sample Demographic and Political Characteristics of Telephone Survey Sample Descriptive Statistics for Sense of Community Items Used in Jury Pool Survey Factor Loadings for Sense of Community Items Used in Jury Pool Survey Descriptive Statistics of Sense of Community Scales for Jury Pool Survey Descriptive Statistics for Sense of Community by Context for Telephone Survey Highest and Lowest Values for Sense of Community by Context for Telephone Survey The Effect of Sense of Community on Internal Efficacy: Estimated via OLS and Ordered Logit The Effect of Sense of Community on External Efficacy: Estimated via OLS and Ordered Logit The Effect of Sense of Community on Personal Trust: Estimated via Ordered Logit The Effect of Sense of Community on Political Trust: Estimated via Ordered Logit Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for Internal Efficacy
26 27 28 31 32 41 41 42 48 50 60 64 68 69 73
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4.6 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for External Efficacy 4.7 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for Personal Trust 4.8 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for Political Trust 5.1 The Effect of Sense of Community on General Participation Model: Estimated via OLS Regression 5.2 The Effect of Sense of Community on Participation by Political Act: Estimated via Ordered Logit 5.3 The Effect of Sense of Community on Local Voting: Estimated via Ordered Logit 6.1 Average Frequency of Local Discussion by Context 6.2 The Effect of Sense of Community on Local Discussion and General Discussion: Estimated via Ordered Logit 6.3 The Effect of Sense of Community on Discussion Partner: Estimated via Ordered Logit 6.4 The Effect of Sense of Community on Exposure to Dissimilar Political Views: Estimated via OLS Regression 7.1 Frequency Distribution of General Political Knowledge and Local Political Knowledge 7.2 The Effect of Sense of Community on General Political Knowledge Estimated via Ordered Logit 7.3 The Effect of Sense of Community on Local Political Knowledge Estimated via Ordered Logit 8.1 Internal Efficacy: Predicted Probabilities Comparing Membership Alone to Sense of Community at Three Levels 8.2 Local Vote: Predicted Probabilities Comparing Membership Alone to Sense of Community at Three Levels 8.3 Local Discussion: Predicted Probabilities Comparing Membership Alone to Sense of Community at Three Levels
74 74 75 81 84 90 100 102 104
106 112 114 116
125
126
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Figures 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
Hypothetical Scenario 1 Hypothetical Scenario 2 Histogram context by context: Jury Pool Sample Distribution of Responses: Context Survey Sample
37 39 43 47
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3.5 Distribution of Responses for two Neighborhoods: Telephone Survey Sample 49 4.1 Internal Efficacy Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels 62 4.2 External Efficacy Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels 66 4.3 Personal Trust Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels 70 4.4 Political Trust Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels 72 5.1 Path Model of Participation 82 5.2 Letter Writing Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 87 5.3 Petition Signing Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 89 5.4 Local Vote Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 91 6.1 General Political Discussion Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 103 6.2 Local Political Discussion Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 103 6.3 Discussion Partner Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 105 7.1 Local Political Knowledge—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts 117
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Appendices
A B
Sample Request Letter for Jury Coordinator Assistance Jury Pool Questionnaire—Survey Items for Sense of Community C Context Survey D Tallahassee Community Survey (Telephone Survey) E Final Dispositions (Telephone Survey) F Descriptive Statistics of Key Variables G Adapted Sense of Community Index based on McMillan et al (1986) H Simple Membership Models
143 147 149 165 201 203 205 207
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Acknowledgments
I
have always considered myself as one who has been fairly involved with the people with whom I lived, worked, and played. However, as a graduate student, I realized that these were one in the same. Pretty early on in my graduate study, I discovered that the people with whom I interacted nearly 12 hours a day had become those that I lived, worked and played with. I was rather disconnected from my neighbors in my small little apartment building with only four units, yet I was immensely connected with the people on the Fifth Floor of the Bellamy Building which housed the Department of Political Science. So when we began to discuss the things that influence participation and attitudes, we naturally came to the topic of community. Although we all agreed it ought to have an impact I realized that we really only considered community to be geographic in nature. As the discussions progressed I began to question how community might come to mean something different for each of us sitting around the table. For me at this time period, the most influential community in my life was my cohort on the Fifth Floor and I wondered are we (political scientists) missing something by simply thinking about community only in the geographic sense? I continued to ponder this question, examining it from different angles in all sorts of seminars and research classes and it ultimately led me to the work that I have produced here. However, it has been a long journey and while the work here is entirely my own and I take full responsibility for the content including any errors that might exist—I absolutely could not have completed this project without the guidance and support of many, many people along the way. As you will see I have been blessed with a wonderful community of family, friends, and mentors who have encouraged and supported me even when it seemed like the continuation of my journey as a graduate student might be in jeopardy because of unforeseen events. While a graduate student, I had the good fortune to be the beneficiary of funding to support this research project. I wish to thank the
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National Science Foundation, the DeVoe L. Moore Center for the Study of Critical Issues in Economic Policy and Government at Florida State University and the Leroy Collins Institute for Public Policy at Florida State University for funding the data collection effort of this project. I also wish to thank the DeVoe L. Moore Center for the generous research fellowship that allowed me to complete this project. During my time at Florida State University, where this project began, I benefited from the exchange of ideas and constant feedback on this work as it progressed in developmental stages. I would like to say thank you to the many faculty members who were there at that time including Bill Berry, Bob Crew, Damarys Canache, Bill Claggett, Bob Jackson, Paul Hensel, Will Moore, Sara Mitchell, Evan Ringquist, Dale Smith, and John Scholz, each of whom offered advice and guidance during times in which I presented parts of this project at departmental colloquia. I also wish to thank the wonderful community of graduate students that listened to my ideas and provided suggestions all along the way. Thank you Mike Allison, Chardie Baird, Ethan Bernick, Ramiro Berardo, Sabri Cifti, Belinda Davis, Christina Fattore, Brad Kile, Emilia Powell, Scot Schraufnagel, Steve Shellman, Cliff Sherrill, Tom Sowers, Joe Young, and especially to my dear friend Rod Lewis. Your willingness to review and offer guidance on nearly every aspect of this project along with your methodological know-how has been a blessing but it all pares in comparison to your friendship. Thank you as well to Paul Speer, a faculty member and community psychologist at Vanderbilt University who I met at an ICPSR networking conference; it was through our discussions that this project came to take on its final shape. Finding the world of community psychology has been wonderful adventure. Thank you Paul for putting me on the path. To Heather Price and Dave Richards, my colleagues at the University of Memphis, thank you for your encouragement and support as I wrestled with the adjustment of being a new faculty member, I appreciate the time you spent “talking me down.” I am grateful that we had that time together and that we remain close still. I also wish to thank the editors of Political Behavior and Political Psychology for their approval and permission for the use of previously published work to be included in this book. Four faculty members at Florida State deserve a special thank you. They offered guidance and support for which I am utterly grateful and I wish to thank them personally here. Carol Weissert, thank you for lending support to this project, particularly in the final stages
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(including funding) and providing me with the confidence to reach the finish line. Charles Barrilleaux, thank you for lending your ear to this project from its inception and providing me with countless hours of advice. You mentored me from the first day that I walked through the doors of FSU. I am particularly indebted to you for your generous assistance in helping me find sources of support to keep this project on track. To Tom Carsey, thank you for teaching me about the rigor of analysis and for instilling in me the confidence to persevere despite seemingly difficult odds. Above all, thank you for your friendship and for sharing your family with me. Finally, I am deeply grateful for the continued support, mentorship, and friendship that Jeff Mondak has provided me. Thank you for teaching me to think critically, work independently, and to believe in myself. Thank you for encouraging me to seek out the real answers to my questions and not settle for data that is simply available. The countless hours you spent reading, editing, and lending an ear is how this project has finally come to completion. I am thankful for each of you and the hard work you invested in me. Thank you also to Palgrave Macmillan for giving me the opportunity to make this project a reality. I want to especially thank Robyn Curtis and Farideh Koohi Kamali for their support and guidance in keeping things on track. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the University of Tampa. I appreciate the support that you have provided me this last year as this project has finally come to fruition. I appreciate the advice and encouragement you have given me. I personally wish to thank Jim Beckman, your guidance through the book contract process has been very much appreciated. Most of all, I would like to thank my family. To my mom and dad, Ben and Philomena Ruggiero thank you for your unwavering support and encouragement that has allowed us to fulfill this dream. To my brother Neil, thank you for your support via the telephone and email, I feel like this project has been to all parts of the world thanks to you. To my mother-in-law Judy, thank you for all your help and support particularly in helping me find the time to finish this project. Most importantly, thank you to my wonderful husband Keith. This project has been a permanent house guest for way too many years, thank you for your patience, encouragement, and support as we finally bring it to a close. Lastly, thank you to my children Grace, Joe, and Will. It is to you that I dedicate this book. You have taught me so much in the short time you have been a part of my life. Joy and sorrow are a part of life and undoubtedly you will have your share of
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both, though I pray you will have much more joy than sorrow. Yet, no matter what life holds, I hope that I can teach you what you have taught me: never give up, never give up, never give up. Perseverance is everything. You gave me the reason to continue when things seemed bleak. You give me the reason to live each day to its fullest. Thank you.
Chapter 1
Introduction
A long time ago I was in the ancient city of Prague and at the same time Joseph Alsop, the justly famous critic of places and events was there . . . Joe and I flew home to America in the same plane, and on the way he told me about Prague, and his Prague had no relation to the city I had seen and heard. It just wasn’t the same place, and yet each of us was honest, neither one a liar, both pretty good observers by any standard, and we brought home two cities, two truths. John Steinbeck
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ommunity has long been acknowledged to play a vital role in influencing various types of political behaviors and attitudes, especially at the local level. Over the years, political scientists have often noted this fact, however, we know very little as to why or how this pattern emerges. Over the last two decades, research on political participation has made significant advances in examining factors beyond the individual level to look at contextual effects on behavior. Social forces— where and with whom we work, live, socialize, and worship—play a crucial role in determining many of the decisions we make, including our political choices (Huckfeldt, Plutzer and Sprague 1993). Just as Steinbeck and Alsop experienced Prague entirely differently, as the quote at the start of this chapter illustrates, so too do people experience life differently—some people like their jobs more than others, some feel stronger attachments to their neighborhoods or churches, some are deeply involved in their voluntary associations while others are less so—and these differences in social experiences matter for political attitudes and perceptions. The environment in which we operate can influence political behavior and attitudes among individuals, such that experiences resulting from interactions with others can lead some individuals to become more or less politically engaged.
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Most people would agree that community is a critical component for social change. Indeed the results of the 2008 election highlight community as a critical element for change. In 2007, then candidate Barack Obama, was successful largely because his organization recognized the unique power and longing that individuals have for a sense of community, the idea of being a part of something, engaging in social change. Indeed writing even before his candidacy for president, Obama alludes to the value of and the strength of community in fostering social change. In particular, he writes about a sense of community, stating that “despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict” (Obama 2006, p. 356). Hence Obama is suggesting that sense of community is something that can lead to positive empowerment. Sense of community is a critical term firmly grounded in theory and practice in the field of community psychology; however the field of political science has yet to fully explore and utilize this theory in examining the effects of community on political behaviors. Community psychology is a subfield of psychology that emerged out America’s historical Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The political and social changes that materialized as a result of the Civil Rights movement paved a pathway for the exploration of the effects of community on social change (Perkins, Hughey, and Speer 2002). Political Psychology Political psychology is the point at which psychology and politics intersect. While still a relatively young field in comparison to other fields in political science—the professional association, the International Society of Political Science, ratified its constitution in 1985—political psychology has contributed to our understanding of the way in which psychological patterns influence decision making in the political arena. Political psychology is by nature and name interdisciplinary. It includes scholars from political science and psychology to be sure, but it also draws upon scholars from sociology, public administration, criminal justice, and many more. It is an extremely broad area of research and as such has been used to examine all sorts of interesting questions. Why do political leaders make the decisions that they do? What role does personality play in deciding to run for political office? How do groups and group dynamics influence decision making (i.e., the Senate)? What prompts extremists groups to
INTRODUCTION
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action? How do individuals process information from campaigns, from the media, or from other individuals? These are the types of questions political psychologists seek to answer. Yet for all the advances made in political psychology and all the communication that has taken place between psychologists and political scientists and the crossroads between the two, one area that has been largely overlooked has been the relationship between community psychology and political behavior. To be fair community psychology is also a young field within psychology, however the theoretical application of community psychology for the study of politics is significant. Community psychologists (as I will explain more fully later) are interested in similar types of questions as are political scientists. They are concerned with building healthy communities and problem solving through cooperation and trust—clearly the work of government and thus so appropriate for the study of politics. In the pages that follow, I will focus on how community psychology is important to the study of politics and how we can use it to better understand political behavior. Returning to Columbia In recent years, many political scientists have returned to the (Columbia) idea that individuals should not be studied merely in isolation, but that they instead should pay attention to social forces potentially operating on the individual (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944).1 We see numerous examples of this in recent research. One such example is network research. This line of inquiry demonstrates that communication networks expose participants to information and viewpoints that produce numerous important consequences “that are valued in democratic systems” (Mutz 2002, p. 112). These include, for instance, greater interpersonal deliberation, awareness of opposing viewpoints, and greater tolerance. A second area is context research. This research demonstrates that the physical contexts in which we are embedded impose significant parameters in terms of things such as what information we receive (e.g., Huckfledt, Plutzer, and Sprague 1993; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995). Third, social capital research argues that social interaction offers a unique array of resources that can be of benefit at both the individual and collective level (Putnam 1993, 1995). Fourth, group identity research, derived in large part from social identity theory, focuses on the effects of group membership in terms of solving collective action problems and more recently examining inter-group
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conflict (Miller, Gurin, Gurin and Malanchuk, 1981; Gurin, Miller, and Gurin, 1980; Simon and Klandermans 2005 for example). While each of these four approaches have moved the field forward toward a better understanding of the effects of social forces, there remains something missing in the overall analysis. In studies such as these, as Huddy (2003, pp. 514–515) carefully explains “group membership is effectively treated as an objective assignment rather than a subjective identification.” Hence, what still remains a mystery is that “internalized sense of belonging to the group” (Huddy 2003, p. 515). This objective view has led us down a path where we often have sought to measure whether an individual is a part of group or not without any regard whatsoever about the level of attachment the individual has to the group. Thus, this leaves out an important variable which may or may not have significant effects on political behavior. It is my contention that it does indeed hinder our broader understanding of political behavior. I take a related but somewhat different approach to studying the effects of social forces on political behavior and attitudes than the approaches followed in these aforementioned studies. There are two central arguments that provide a foundation for what follows. First, all individuals interact within multiple contexts. Others (e.g., Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995) have noted this point, but most research examines only one context, such as the neighborhood or association. I argue that we need to account for the multiple contexts in which the person operates if we are to fully understand the impact of social forces on political attitudes and behavior. Second, within any given context, one’s level of embeddedness or connectedness can vary. For example, is a neighborhood just a place to live, or is it a neighborhood/ community to which the person is attached, and for which the person feels pride? Is an office just a place for work or does the workplace act more like a family where the worker is a proud and loyal member? We need to take account of this variance in levels of attachment (i.e., sense of community) to improve our understanding of how, why, and when social forces influence individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. Past research, although fruitful, has been limited by its failure to act on these two key points: (1) attention to multiple contexts and (2) attention to variance in level of community connectedness or sense of community. Putnam’s (1995) initial work on voluntary association membership provides a case in point. Putnam first operationalized “social capital” solely in terms of membership in voluntary associations, but this entirely misses the possibility that contexts other than
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voluntary associations matter for social capital (a point he himself recognizes later). For instance, under Putnam’s original approach, someone who belongs to two associations is operationally defined as having more social capital than someone who belongs to zero, although it may well be that the person with zero memberships is highly embedded in various workplace networks and committees and spends a great deal of time socializing informally with friends. While Putnam simply counts association memberships, context research and group identity research simply measures whether you are or are not part of a given context or group. These approaches necessarily treat all memberships as equal. On its face, this is highly unrealistic. There is a clear likelihood that group membership means something very different for the ten-year, highly active member than for the two-year member with sporadic attendance at meetings. Further, by treating all memberships as equal, context becomes something of a black box. There is no modeling of process. People go into a context or belong to a group, and something good (or bad) comes out. But how, why and when this happens is not modeled. We do not know what transpired, only that the context or the group somehow matters. The present approach takes into account multiple contexts and individual attachment within those contexts. Although it is probably impossible to develop an exhaustive list of contexts, we at least can improve upon the single-context approach typically used in the political science literature. Here I will consider the neighborhood, the workplace, church, or place of worship, organization/associations, and informal network such as one’s circle of friends; all contexts that have been examined in numerous political science studies and for which we know have some bearing on political behavior. Community Psychology Broadly speaking, community psychologists seek to examine connections between individuals and the social system to which they belong. It is a field of research that is interdisciplinary drawing heavily from psychology—interest in the individual—and sociology—interest in groups and group dynamics. Community psychologists are concerned with healthy communities made up of well thriving individuals. It simultaneously advances both theoretical and applied approaches to research. As Division 27 of the American Psychological Association, the professional association for community psychology—SCR A— The Society for Community Research and Action—has as its mission
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“the advancement of theory, research and social action to promote positive well being, increase empowerment, and prevent the development of problems of communities, groups and individuals” (http:// www.scra27.org/, accessed June 24, 2009). Theoretically a community psychology is applicable for a wide variety of contexts—such as the workplace, places of worship, neighborhoods, etc.—all of which have been deemed important by political scientists studying political behavior. In 1974, Seymour Sarason published a groundbreaking book titled “The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology.” This work served as a call to his colleagues in psychology to explore what he termed “the destruction of the psychological sense of community that was the central problem in social living” (Sarason 1974, p. viii). He recalls cataloging all the books in which this theme emerged over a two year period beginning in 1972 only to stop when he reached the inevitable conclusion that everything he read suggested that we were becoming a nation of loners— individuals with no sense of belonging. Based largely on his work in the mental health community—he was the director of the Yale Psycho-Educational Clinic—Sarason concluded like many others across multiple disciplines over the years—that healthy communities are essential to a well functioning society. Thus, he called for a greater focus on the interconnectedness of individuals and their communities. Bess et al. (2002) suggest that the goal of Sarason’s work was ultimately to bridge together “three interrelated opinions” (p. 6) that he had developed during his tenure in the profession. First, that a lack of sense of community was something that occurred more often than not. Second, that it was negatively affecting society. And third, that community psychologists should place a greater emphasis on examining it, including its consequences and prevention. In other words, he laid out his vision for the future of the field. The call did not go unnoticed. By 1986, research on sense of community was flourishing, with special editions to the Journal of Community Psychology, dedicated to research in this field. Sense of Community Sarason’s work reflected the belief that individuals who are strongly connected to the community could help build a healthier society. Thus, applying this logic to political science, individuals’ perceptions about their significance in a given community can have meaningful
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effects on the way in which communities influence politics and governing. In general, we tend to think of communities in terms of geography—or what community psychologists term locational communities; however community is not simply a geographic location. There are numerous communities in which individuals are involved. For instance, for the typical academic they may be involved in the city community, the university community, the social science community, the church community, and so on—what community psychologists refer to as relational communities—those based on some shared interest (Bess et al. 2002). Although geography plays an important role in defining a community, it does not alone establish a sense of community—a fact political science scholars are now recognizing. Beyond Sarason’s theory, one of the largest developments in the field of community psychology has been transferring the theory into a quantitative model. Perhaps the greatest contribution in this endeavor has been the development of the sense of community scale lead by McMillan and Chavis (1986).2 According to McMillan and Chavis (1986) a sense of community is defined as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment together” (p. 9). The measure therefore is comprised of four components which can be observed and then applied to different contexts. Although some individuals may be disconnected from their geographic neighborhood—meaning they may not know their neighbors or visit with them regularly—this does not necessarily mean they are disconnected from all communities. It is entirely possible they have a sense of community. However, rather than this feeling coming from their neighborhood it may instead come from some other type of community such as their church, organization, or workplace, or even from multiple contexts. For political scientists, a mystery remains as to why community comes to matter for political behavior. I propose that part of the answer lies in sense of community. McMillian and Chavis (1986) proposed that sense of community is composed of four elements; (1) membership, (2) influence, (3) integration and fulfillment of needs, and (4) shared emotional connection. The first element, membership, creates a sense of belonging and identification, it creates boundaries; there are those who belong and those who do not. For example, individuals who belong to a particular association such as the Rotary Club are known as Rotarians and
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those who do not belong to the group are not Rotarians. The second element, influence, is a sense of mattering. An example would be a member of a group who believes that s/he can make a difference to the group—that s/he matters to the group and that the group matters to the member. The third element is integration and fulfillment of needs. This refers to the feeling that members’ needs will be met by their membership in the group and that there are shared values among group members, for example members of a particular church typically hold similar beliefs and values. The final element is shared emotional connection. This element is based, in part, on a shared history or an identification of shared events; an example would be individuals who belong to a cancer survivors group. In order to measure an individual’s sense of community, McMillian et al. (1986) developed what has come to be referred to as the Sense of Community Index, a 12-item True/False questionnaire that taps into the four elements of sense of community. Support for the reliability and validity of the Sense of Community Index is well documented in the community psychology literature, and the scale has been used to examine a wide variety of communities. Although its most common use has been in the neighborhood context (e.g., Perkins, Florin, Rich, Wandersman, and Chavis, 1990), it has also been employed in studies dealing with workplaces (Pretty and McCarthy 1991), support and demand characteristics of college students’ social environments (Pretty 1990), union participation (Cantano, Pretty, Southwell, and Cole, 1993), and support systems for adolescents (Pretty, Andrews, and Collett, 1994, Pretty, Conroy, Dugay, Fowler, and Williams 1996). Because it can be adapted to different types of communities, it suits the purpose of this research quite well. The index has also been adapted in format to include a 5 point Likert-type response. Using the same statements as the original True/False battery, individuals are asked to respond based on how much they agree or disagree with the statements ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, “a modification that is likely to result in greater sensitivity in representing ‘true’ perceptions of the social connections, mutual concerns and community values” within the respective contexts (Long and Perkins 2003, p. 291). McMillan and Chavis’s (1986) work represents a model in which a sound theory is accompanied by a formal measure. It advances the field in that the approach is based on the scientific method in which hypotheses are deduced and then tested. It provides a means to understanding how varying levels of sense of community can influence individual and group behavior.
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Possible Consequences of Sense of Community Sense of community may have several consequences for various types of political attitudes and behaviors such as political participation and a concern for the collective good, tolerance, community satisfaction, trust, efficacy, and political discussion.3 My objective in this book is to build an analytical case for how and why attention to sense of community may shed light on many questions of political behavior. Although many studies in political science have directly or indirectly implied that community affects political attitudes and behaviors, this research has not studied how sense of community may influence these positions and actions, nor has this research explored the concept of sense of community with a level of depth comparable to that characteristic of research in community psychology (Davidson and Cotter 1989 is the notable exception with relation to political participation). Instead, past research in political science has typically concentrated only on the geographic nature of communities such as the neighborhood or city (i.e., locational communities). A more direct approach which allows for the examination of individuals’ sense of community can help us achieve a better understanding of the process in which sense of community influences political views and behaviors.
Participation Many factors may affect an individual’s level of political participation. The literature has provided numerous examples of the effects of demographics such as education, income, age, and race on political participation. Recent studies have also considered the impact of contextual variables such as organization membership (Putnam 1993, 1995), and interaction within neighborhoods, churches (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995, Wald 1988, 1990), and workplaces (Mondak and Mutz 2002, 2001, Mutz and Mondak 2006) on political participation and decision-making. Collectively, the findings suggest that context matters. These studies demonstrate that the extent of involvement in the workplace, church, neighborhoods, and voluntary associations can all have meaningful effects on levels of political participation (see also Zuckerman 2005). Theoretically then, it is plausible to believe that sense of community can influence political participation (particularly local participation) because “people who are strongly attached, as is the case with sense of community, can be expected to get involved” (Davidson and Cotter 1989, p. 119). In fact, Davidson
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and Cotter (1989) demonstrate that there is a high level of correlation between several types of political participation and sense of community where “city” is the context for sense of community.4 For decades now, Americans have exhibited disturbingly high levels of political cynicism and disturbingly low levels of political participation. One place that we can possibly counter these patterns is at the grass-roots level—getting citizens involved in local governance. Efficacy and Trust Much attention has been paid to the effects of political efficacy and trust on political participation (for a discussion of efficacy see Abramson 1983, Bennett 1986; for a discussion of trust see Uslaner 2002, Hetherington 1998, Brehm and Rahn 1997). Previous research demonstrates a strong correlation between both efficacy and trust and political behavior. However, despite the fact that these variables contribute to explaining things like voting, campaign involvement, and the like, relatively little is known about the social forces that influence them. We know that individual level characteristics such as age, income, and education are key predictors of efficacy and trust, yet excluded from virtually all analyses is the possibility that efficacy and trust may also be influence by social interaction and involvement. Theoretically, however, it is quite reasonable to assume that social forces—such as sense of community—should play a role in influencing levels of efficacy and trust. For example, sense of community at its very core suggests collaboration. Central to the completion of any collective effort—the likes of which church groups, service organizations, workplace environments undertake—is cooperation. One of the cornerstones of building trust is cooperation (Putnam 2000), thus the greater one’s sense of community, the more likely they are to be trusting. Second, sense of community is built on relationships. Those who are successful in building relationships with others and in influencing the opinions of fellow members, co-workers, or neighbors, might lead them to believe they can also be influential in the political arena. In other words, those with higher levels of sense of community may be more likely to have strong feelings of efficacy. This theoretical argument runs parallel to collective efficacy theory, a theoretical perspective which is used widely by scholars who study urban social organization. According to collective efficacy theory, “the prevalence and density of kinship, friendship, and acquaintanceship networks and the level of participation in community based organizations fosters the emergence of collective efficacy, or solidarity
INTRODUCTION
11
and mutual trust (social cohesion) among community residents combined with shared expectations for social control-related action” (Browning, Feinberg, and Dietz 2004). Thus, based on collective efficacy theory the causal relationship posited here is quite logical. Political Discussion The extent to which the social context provides a means for political dialogue has also received considerable attention over the last decade (Cramer-Walsh 2004, Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995, Huckfeldt, Plutzer, and Sprague 1993, Huckfeldt, Johnson and Sprague 2004, Mutz 2006, Mutz and Mondak 2006, McClurg 2006, Wald, Owen, and Hill 1988, 1990 to name a few). The findings collectively suggest that social communication and political discourse play a significant role in American politics; from exposing individuals to opposing viewpoints, to assisting in political decision making and even increasing participation. We know that absent anything else discussion of political events, leaders, and issues disseminates information; this information may be accurate or not, depending on the source, but the key is that the person(s) involved are exposed to some form of political information which may directly or indirectly effect their political decision making. This may occur around the water cooler at the office, on the soccer field between parents, or more formally at meetings or church. A sense of community that is built within these communities (i.e., the workplace, association, and church) can therefore have a significant influence on the extent to which individuals discuss politics and issues facing their communities. Political Knowledge While a great deal of research on political knowledge exists, we know relatively little about the manner in which social contexts may come to affect levels of political knowledge. Few studies have focused on the link between social contexts and political knowledge and a review of the literature on local political knowledge is quite scarce. One notable exception is a 2002 study by Scheufele, Shanahan, and Kim where they suggest that community ties and social networks play a role in acquiring information and becoming informed about local issues. However, knowledge of local issues and local politics are likely two very different things (I will expand upon this difference later in chapter 7). But, like Scheufele, Shanahan, and Kim (2002), I contend that a likely relationship between sense of community and political
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knowledge exists. I suspect that the relationship will be stronger for local political knowledge than general political knowledge—a difference we will explore in the chapter on political knowledge—simply because sense of community in and of itself implies a more localized focus rather than a national one and as such should have implications for levels of local political knowledge more so than general political knowledge which focuses on national politics. Why Community? Above, I lay out a series of expectations about the relationship between sense of community and political behavior. But why should these social interactions matter? Past work in this area such as Coleman’s groundbreaking analysis of social capital suggests at least one simple yet reasonable answer. Social interaction provides information. At the very least people observe one another and they communicate with one another and that these processes disseminate information. In other words, a person’s involvement in the community (i.e., context) may heighten that person’s exposure to political information and spark political discussion and/or action. Cramer-Walsh’s (2004) evidence of social interaction and political talk in Ann Arbor is a case in point. Her observation of people in Ann Arbor suggests that political discussion is a by-product of social interaction. “Much political interaction occurs not among people who make a point to specifically talk about politics but emerges instead from the social processes of people chatting with one another” (Cramer-Walsh 2004, p. 35). Hence, when individuals come together and form a group whether it is a group of individuals who work together, attend the same church, live in the same neighborhood, etc. and engage in interaction with one another, a by-product of this social interaction is political discussion. This interaction may also encourage individuals to become involved in politics in a way they may have not otherwise considered. Theoretically then it is plausible to hypothesize that sense of community will have significant effects on political behavior and/or attitudes. Critical prefatory empirical matters must be addressed before the causal hypotheses I outlined can be considered truly viable. First, the scenarios I have laid out hypothesize that sense of community influences political behavior, however, alternate causal connections are possible. The most likely alternate scenario is that the relationship is spurious. While I do not believe this to be the case, I am aware that such a relationship potentially could exist. Although there is no
INTRODUCTION
13
definitive means in the case of cross-sectional analyses to exclude such a possibility particularly with regard to sense of community, measures can be taken to limit such concerns and I have done so. Throughout this study I have included measures that capture an important array of individual-level traits; personality characteristics. Because personality captures many of the most obvious factors that might incline an individual to develop a strong sense of community and be likely to engage others in political conversation—extroversion, warmth, agreeableness, and conscientiousness—I have included measures of personality as control variables which should allay much of the concern about spuriousness. Personality is important as a control as it is likely to play a role in how an individual views his/her community. There are numerous measures developed in the psychological literature to capture various aspects of personality. I have elected to use the Big Five personality traits. The Big Five personality traits are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, emotional stability, and agreeableness. These are included mainly as control variables to account for personality affects that may be related to various types of political behaviors. It is entirely plausible, even likely that personality plays a large role in many types of political behaviors and attitudes. For a detailed discussion of personality and political behavior see Mondak and Halperin (2008). I have argued that sense of community is best measured in a manner that taps more than sheer membership, and in a manner that captures the multiple contexts within which a given individual interacts. These claims require empirical corroboration. First, do individuals within the same type of context (e.g., church or workplace) exhibit differing levels of sense of community? If not, then there would be nothing to be gained through the introduction of measurement strategies that capture more than sheer membership. Second, do individuals develop a sense of community within multiple contexts? If not, then simultaneous attention to multiple contexts may be unnecessary. The empirical examination carried out in the following chapters address these questions and reveal the potential value to be gained through attention to sense of community in research on political behavior. It is generally agreed that community matters for political behavior, however past research neglects to consider (a) the diversity of communities, and (b) the levels of attachments within communities. Therefore, a central objective here is to address these deficiencies by attempting to measure sense of community as it is operationalized by community psychologists in contexts that political scientists have
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deemed important for politics such as workplaces, neighborhoods, churches, and voluntary organizations. The analyses presented in the following chapters are from original data collected from three separate surveys. The first two surveys provide critical evidence for the existence of sense of community which is discussed in great detail in chapter 3. The third survey is based on a telephone survey of 822 randomly selected individuals and provides the data necessary to conduct empirical tests of the sorts of relationships which I hypothesize exist. These examinations are conducted in chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. The study site for the telephone survey is Tallahassee, FL. It provides an excellent setting in which to implement a community survey of this type for a number of reasons. It possesses diversity of the sort that is essential for pursuit of my central research question. This study site has many different neighborhoods and a varied collection of churches and associations. It is the state capital and home to two universities and one community college, it plays host to a variety of industries ranging from agricultural to manufacturing to technology, and it has a booming professional community. I discuss more on the study site in the next chapter. Summary We know from previous research that the context in which an individual interacts influences his or her political behaviors and attitudes quite widely, from beliefs and attitudes to practices and behavior. Previous research has suggested that community matters, however it has failed to address two critical points (1) the multiple contexts in which individuals interact and (2) the variation of connectedness within any given context. By examining individuals’ perceptions in multiple contexts, we will be able to gain a deeper understanding of how sense of community works to influence different types of political behaviors and attitudes. The social component of political behavior has been re-introduced into models that seek to explain not only what but why different forces matter for politics. If social interaction matters for politics—and previous research is premised on the assumption that it does—then we should broaden our understanding of how and why this interaction matters. Examining sense of community is a step in that direction. The concept that I outline, the hypothetical scenarios I will propose, and the empirical assessment of sense of community suggest that it is not only the membership in a context, but also, and arguably more importantly, the quality of the interactions
INTRODUCTION
15
and attachments within those contexts that truly matter for political behavior. The analytical and empirical examples that will be reported here make the case that too much of interest is overlooked when we focus on only membership, and when we examine only a single context. Research in community psychology has made clear that a broader approach of the sort proposed here can pay substantial dividends in research on human behavior. My purpose in this book is to demonstrate that these dividends also may be accrued when the particular topics in question concern political behavior. We must continue to work to broaden our perspective when examining the social component of political behavior. Just as Steinbeck and Alsop experienced the same city entirely differently so too do people experience life differently. These differences in social experiences influence our political behaviors and attitudes, and therefore deserve to play a central role in our accounts of political behavior. A Brief Overview of the Book Individual perceptions about their significance in a given community can only be known by simply asking individuals about their experiences. We can observe individuals from afar in various social/group settings, however we can only understand their perception of their importance to the group by asking them. Surveying individuals both within groups and across groups provides a method to better our understanding of an individual’s sense of community. Chapter 2 develops the research design for studying sense of community and political behavior. I argue that previous studies, although fruitful, have missed the mark on gaining nuanced information about how community comes to matter for all sorts of political behavior. The chapter provides descriptions of the data collected and the rationale for each different survey instrument. Chapter 3 is the first of six empirical chapters. Utilizing a modified version of the sense of community index (SCI) developed by McMillan and Chavis (1986), I analyze two critical questions in this chapter: (1) how much variance exists between and within contexts? And (2) where does sense of community develop—does it stem from one or multiple contexts? It provides critical descriptive information on sense of community across several types of communities and the variance in sense of community within and across those communities. Through the use of hypothetical scenarios, I demonstrate the reasoning for a multicontext approach to studying sense of community and point out
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where past research has failed to adequately measure this type of concept. Chapter 4 initiates the discussion of the consequences of sense of community for different types of political behaviors and attitudes. Specifically, this chapter’s focus is on political efficacy and trust. The basic hypothesis is that sense of community will influence levels of political efficacy and trust, contributing to the development of both. Past research has highlighted the significant contributions that efficacy and trust have on political participation, but relatively little is known about what impact—if any—social forces exert on the generation of efficacy and trust. Chapter 5 explores the manner in which sense of community can be used to predict various types of political activities such as the likelihood of voting in local elections, signing petitions, attending local meetings, etc. First, I examine how sense of community influences participation in the general sense through attention to a summary indicator that captures multiple forms of participation. I then focus on each activity individually. Chapter 6 examines the role of sense of community in the discussion of local politics and general politics. While scholarly research has been paying greater attention to political discussion, the extent to which sense of community influences general and local discussion is relatively unknown. In addition, I explore the relationship between sense of community and the closeness of discussion partners, whether the most frequent discussion partner is a close friend or family member or someone for which one is more casually acquainted? This follows a stream of research on networks and could contribute to that larger body of research. Chapter 7 explores the relationship between sense of community and political knowledge, particularly local political knowledge. Although research on political knowledge abounds, for multiple reasons which I will discuss in this chapter, relatively scant research exists related to local political knowledge. The last empirical chapter, chapter 8, takes a look at the alternative approach to which this research rallies against. I examine several models where instead of examining political behavior with sense of community as the key independent variable, I model each behavior as a function of simple membership. As will be discussed further and as you have already read, my argument is that we need to move beyond simply examining membership in a community or context and rather look at multiple contexts. Chapter 8 will look back at several key dependent variables and determine what the results would have been
INTRODUCTION
17
had we decided to examine only membership in a context rather than sense of community. Finally, I close in chapter 9 with a reflection about what we have learned by examining a sense of community as it relates to political behavior and attitudes. I sum up by offering some concluding thoughts about the state of this literature in the broader field as well as implications that can be drawn from the research. Finally, I pose questions for future research.
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Chapter 2
A Research Design for Studying Sense of Community and Political Behavior: Methodological Considerations
T
he thesis I have developed thus far suggests that the concept of sense of community is relevant to a great deal of contemporary research on American political behavior. However, a mix of theoretical and methodological limitations has meant that the full value of the sense of community perspective has not yet been realized. Methodological considerations are my concern in the present chapter. Even though political scientists have written implicitly and explicitly about sense of community in terms of context, social influence, social capital, and identity, the measures of sense of community have been blunt and all too often have failed to capture the fine nuances of variation both within and across contexts. In an effort to address this limitation, this study implemented several surveys in a multistage process. This chapter will provide a detailed description of the survey instruments used for this project and highlight how the instruments used here render a better measure for sense of community to be used in studies of political behavior than had been offered in previous research. Ideally it would have been the most cost effective and efficient to use existing data sources in order to examine the influence of sense of community on political behavior. Thus, my first instinct was to turn to the National Election Studies and General Social Survey—both of which are used in numerous studies of political behavior because they ask the sort of questions that are typically of interest to students of political behavior. However, in this case, I found that like others before me, the measures that I could construct for sense of community from the NES and GSS were too vague and failed to live up the
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type of nuanced measure I needed in order to fully explore the connection between community and behavior. Thus, I undertook a year—long process to construct a multisurvey, iterative approach to creating a research design that would allow me to examine these relationships as accurately as I possibly could given certain limitations of time, money, and access to groups. The data used in this study are from three original surveys. The designing of these surveys was an iterative process. The first survey, completed by members of jury pools in several states in the spring of 2003, provided an initial exploration of variance in sense of community across contexts. I refer to this survey throughout the remained of this book as the jury pool survey. After integrating findings from this survey and insights from psychological research on sense of community, a paper-and-pencil survey was administered to members of specific contexts or groups in the Tallahassee area in the spring of 2004. I refer to this survey as the context survey throughout the remainder of the book. This instrument was then replicated, but with several key refinements, via a telephone survey conducted in Tallahassee in the fall of 2004; this survey for future reference is known as the telephone survey. It is generally agreed that community matters for political behavior, however past research neglects to consider (a) the diversity of communities, and (b) the levels of attachments within communities. Therefore, a central objective here is to address these deficiencies by attempting to measure sense of community as it is operationalized by community psychologists in contexts that political scientists have deemed important for politics such as workplaces, neighborhoods, churches, voluntary organizations, and informal settings such as a group of friends.
Three Surveys One Goal Jury Pool Survey Sense of community, a feeling of belonging, community attachment, social connectedness; these are terms that have been used in political science to describe the extent to which an individual is connected to other individuals or a group. Because these terms are often used interchangeably, it is imperative to know whether people understand them to mean the same thing. Further, it is unclear how the level of embeddedness varies within a particular context from one individual to another. For example, does everyone who lives in a neighborhood with an active association feel the same degree of connectedness to that neighborhood and to that association? In an effort to gain insight
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as to whether these terms are tapping a similar connotation and to uncover whether a sense of community exists in multiple contexts, the first of the three surveys used in this study was administered in the spring of 2003 to potential jurors in six counties in four states (Florida, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin). Because potential jurors are selected through a random sampling process, jury pools serve as excellent cost—effective sources for conducting exploratory surveys. The use of jury pools from multiple jurisdictions yields samples with characteristics approximately as diverse as the county populations from which they are drawn. The survey used here yielded nearly 600 observations. Jury coordinators were contacted as a means to obtain potential jurors in which to administer the 2003 survey. Those coordinators who agreed to participate in the survey were mailed packages that included the requested number of self—administered survey forms, along with an instruction sheet.1 Prospective jurors were informed of the opportunity to participate in the survey, and those who agreed to do so obtained instruments from jury staff, completed the instruments as per the instructions, and returned them to the jury coordinator. Participation was voluntary, and participants’ identities were not recorded. The instruments themselves were omnibus forms that bundled items from several research projects, along with a core group of attitudinal and demographic indicators. On average, the forms were four pages in length and included approximately thirty items, five of which focused on sense of community. Using the most common terms which are applied when describing a sense of community, I asked respondents to consider a particular context and to gauge to what extent they (1) had a sense of community, (2) had a sense of belonging, (3) felt connected to everyone, (4) turned to people for support during crises, (4) considered people like family, and (5) had a sense of attachment. Each respondent was asked these items as they pertained to one of five contexts—the workplace, church, neighborhood, associations, city or town, and the person’s circle of friends.2 These data permit a couple of descriptive analyses. First, I am able to determine what variance exists, if any, in the extent to which people feel a sense of connectedness within these various contexts. Second, looking across the contexts, I am able to ascertain whether sense of community is more prevalent in some contexts than others. These analyses are important both because they provide a preliminary look at the potential nuance of sense of community and because the insights gained from these data informed my efforts to develop this project’s second and third survey instruments.
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Context Survey Part two of this multistage survey process involved individuals embedded within various contexts including places of worship, workplaces, and associations. Initially designed as a method of pretesting the telephone survey, this survey ultimately provided an excellent way to measure the variation of sense of community for individuals within similar contexts. The questions relating directly to sense of community are adapted from work in the field of community psychology. Much attention in this field has been paid to measuring sense of community. By building on and adapting the work already completed in community psychology, we can broaden our understanding of how sense of community affects political behavior and attitudes. As discussed in the previous chapter, the key elements for measuring sense of community are (1) membership, (2) influence, (3) integration and fulfillment of needs, and (4) shared emotional connection (McMillian and Chavis 1986). The battery of questions designed to tap these elements comprise the Sense of Community Index (SCI). The context survey contained the SCI along with questions that measure demographic and political characteristics, political knowledge, personality, and attitudes about local issues. The survey was a selfadministered paper-and-pencil instrument, and it was completed by 270 respondents between February 2004 and July 2004. Managers of workplaces, church leaders, and organization presidents in Tallahassee, FL were contacted in an effort to acquire groups to which to administer the 2004 context survey. First, they were sent a letter of introduction with a description of the project. Second, the letter was followed up with a phone call requesting access to their employees or members to use as participants for the survey.3 Those who agreed to assist with the project either a) were hand delivered a package of surveys along with an instruction sheet to pass out to their employees or members or b) permitted me to make a presentation at a meeting of the group and hand out the survey to those who were willing to participate. In all instances, participation was voluntary and identities of respondents remained anonymous. In the cases where the bundle of surveys was dropped off, the participants were asked to return the completed survey to the contact person in their office, church, or organization. This person subsequently contacted me after a period of roughly two weeks at which point I then picked up the package of returned forms. For the meetings in which I was present and personally handed out the survey, participants returned them to me at the close of the event. In one instance an organization
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23
requested their members be mailed the instrument and for these I provided self—addressed return envelopes. Initially, a dozen churches, workplaces, and groups were identified based on a variety of characteristics. I purposely selected groups that varied in size and demographic characteristics. For example, of the workplaces that agreed to participate, there are participants from the medical, agriculture, manufacturing, legal, and nonprofit fields. Likewise, the churches that were selected are mixed in terms of denomination, size, and racial composition of members. Of those groups on the initial list, five churches, two workplaces, and four organizations4 agreed to participate. Because the desired number of returned surveys was not met, another list of potential workplaces, churches, and organizations was generated and initial contact was made via telephone and walk-in visits. This second effort yielded seven additional workplaces and one additional organization for a total of nine workplaces, five places of worship, and three associations. The instrument itself was thirteen pages in length and consisted of fifty—nine items. It included items designed to measure core demographic and political characteristics, tolerance, political knowledge, personality, and of course sense of community.5 They were completed by people embedded within three contexts: (1) the workplace, (2) organizations, and (3) places of worship. The data, therefore, permit several types of analyses both within and across contexts. Previously, I argued that a better measure of sense of community was needed in order to capture the delicate subtleties of variation that exist not only between contexts but within contexts as well. These data will allow such an examination. First, I am able to account for the variance in sense of community that exists within each context. Second, I am able to compare across contexts the extent to which a sense of community exists (if at all). Telephone Survey The final data set examined in this study is drawn from the 2004 telephone survey. The survey instrument is similar in content to the context survey, except that it asks respondents about their sense of community in all five contexts of interest to this study—the workplace, place of worship, associations, neighborhood, and circle of friends. Interviews were conducted by Oppenheim Research in Tallahassee, Florida. Respondents were selected through random digit dial and participation was limited to individuals residing in
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Tallahassee, Florida, and surrounding areas in Leon County. The survey was completed by 822 respondents between October 29, 2004 and November 1, 2004; a completion rate of 58.8%.6 Because this third instrument of the multistage survey process contains items about sense of community in several contexts it will permit both descriptive and causal analyses. Similar to the jury survey, this instrument will allow me to examine what variance exists in the extent to which people feel a sense of connectedness within several different contexts. However, in addition to these descriptive analyses, I will also be able to explore the relationship(s) that may (or may not) exist between sense of community (in any number of contexts) and various types of political behavior and attitudes. It is these two points: (1) attention to multiple contexts and (2) attention to variance in sense of community within a context that have been lacking in past research. This multistage survey process is aimed at addressing this deficiency. In particular, the third survey instrument permits me to account for the multiple contexts in which a person operates and individual attachments within those contexts. Why Tallahassee? The Tallahassee area provides an excellent setting in which to implement a survey of this type for a number of reasons. Although it has some limitations (as does any selection site), the advantages override those concerns and make Tallahassee a study site that is comparable to many other cities in the United States. As with Huckfeldt and Sprague’s (1995) choice of South Bend as the focal point of their study, the fact that I resided in Tallahassee at the time the surveys were administered and know it well were important considerations. But Tallahassee also possesses diversity of the sort essential for pursuit of my central research questions. Tallahassee has many different neighborhoods and a varied collection of churches and associations. It is the state capital and home to two universities and one community college, it plays host to a variety of industries ranging from agricultural to manufacturing to technology, and it has a booming professional community. Like any other city, Tallahassee also has its share of problems. Over the last few decades, the downtown area of Tallahassee has suffered from retail deterioration. Retailers whose customers have been drawn to newer shopping centers elsewhere in the city pulled out of the downtown area. In their place, government center offices now occupy the prime retail space, thus leaving the downtown area a virtual ghost
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town after regular business hours. In addition, since the 1970s Tallahassee’s historic “French Town” district—a predominantly black neighborhood—has experienced high levels of poverty and unemployment. Tallahassee’s South Side has been plagued by similar problems of poverty and low wage jobs. In terms of the area’s demographic characteristics, the Tallahassee MSA which includes Leon and Gadsden counties, has a population of 284,539, 77% reside in urban communities (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). The per capita income is $19,990. Roughly 48% of the population is male and the median age is thirty. The area is also racially diverse, with minorities making up 37% of the population. Of course, comparable claims could be made about virtually all cities in the United States. This is to the good. The diversity present in Tallahassee is of analytical importance, but the fact that similar diversity, albeit of varying levels, can be found elsewhere means that there is no reason whatsoever to expect the general patterns identified in the following chapters are unique to Tallahassee. A Description of the Samples The Jury Pool Sample The jury pool survey instrument was intended to provide a preliminary exploration of sense of community within various contexts. An important element therefore is to have a diverse sample. As an alternate data acquisition strategy, one approach would have been to survey a convenience sample, such as university undergraduates or faculty and staff. The limitation of such an approach is that the multiple forms of homogeneity—age-based, educational, geographic, and so on—might matter for sense of community, and thus the opportunity to derive broader lessons from the data would be constrained. So how diverse is the jury pool sample? On its face, we know that the sample should be relatively diverse in the sense that respondents are drawn from multiple counties in three different regions of the nation, and because virtually all citizens may be called for jury duty. Still, a more specific assessment of the data is possible through examination of the demographic properties of respondents to the jury survey and residents of the surveyed counties. In total, there were 520 respondents from five counties in three states representing the South, New England, and the Midwest: Florida—Indian River County, Charlotte County, and Collier County; Rhode Island—Providence County; and Wisconsin—St. Croix County. Table 2.1 shows the demographic characteristics of the
Table 2.1
Demographic Characteristics of Counties in Jury Pool Sample FLORIDA
Population, 2003 estimate Population, 2000 Population percent change 1990–2000 Persons 65 years and older, percent 2000 Median age Female persons, percent 2000 White persons, percent 2000 Black or African American persons, percent 2000 Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent 2000 High school graduates, percent of persons 25+, 2000 Bachelor’s degree of higher, percent of persons 25+, 2000 Per capita money income, 1999 UnemploymentCivilian Labor Force, percent 2000
RHODE ISLAND
WISCONSIN
Indian River County
Charlotte County
Collier County
Providence County
St. Croix County
120,463
153,392
286,634
639,442
71,155
112,947 25.20%
141,627 27.60%
251,377 65.30%
621,602 4.20%
63,155 25.70%
29.20%
34.70%
24.50%
14.60%
9.90%
47.00 51.60%
54.30 52.20%
44.10 49.90%
35.40 52.10%
35.00 50%
87.40%
92.60%
86.10%
78.40%
97.80%
8.20%
4.40%
4.50%
6.50%
0.30%
6.50%
3.30%
19.60%
13.40%
0.80%
81.60%
82.10%
81.80%
72.50%
91.60%
23.10%
17.60%
27.90%
21.30%
26.30%
$27,227
%21,806
$31,195
$19,255
$23,937
2.30%
1.50%
1.90%
3.90%
2.00%
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counties as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau 2000. Overall, the counties differ on a great number of variables, suggesting that drawing data from these locales is a first step toward ensuring a diverse respondent base. For example, the counties vary dramatically in size; St. Croix County, Wisconsin has just over 71,000 people while Providence County, Rhode Island has roughly nine times as many people at approximately 640,000. The population for the counties in Florida range from 120,000 to nearly 290,000. The counties also vary in the critical areas of age and education; the median age in Providence and St. Croix counties is 35 years while in Charlotte County it is 54 years. There is also a fair amount of variance in economic conditions amongst these counties as is evidenced by per capita income and unemployment; Collier County, Florida has a per capita income of $31,195 while in Providence County, Rhode Island it is over ten thousand less at $19,255. Table 2.2 shows the demographic and political characteristics of the respondents in the jury pool sample as a whole. The average age of respondents is 51.5 years with a Table 2.2
Demographic and Political Characteristics of Jury Pool Sample
Variable age
gender race
education
Scale age in years
Mean SD N
51.5 13.1 507
0=male 1=female
%female N
58.2% 512
1=white 1=black 1=hispanic
%white %black %hispanic N
89.7% 4.9% 3.6% 498
0=high school or less to 8=professional degree
Mean
4.04
SD
1.72
N
512
party ID
1=strong Democrat to 7=strong Republican
Mean SD N
4.35 2.23 505
ideology
1=strong liberal to 7=strong conservative
Mean SD N
4.37 1.34 500
0 to 5, no. of knowledge items answered correctly
Mean SD N
3.36 1.46 520
political knowledge
Table 2.3
Demographic and Political Characteristics of Jury Pool Respondents by County FLORIDA
Variable
RHODE ISLAND
WISCONSIN
Indian River County Charlotte County Collier County Providence County St. Croix County
Scale
age
age in years
Mean SD N
54.07 12.52 86
55.79 10.93 89
52.29 12.3 167
47.61 14.13 122
45.35 13.75 43
gender
0=male 1=female
%female N
65.80% 85
57.30% 89
57.60% 170
57.20% 124
50% 44
race
1=white 1=black 1=hispanic
%white %black %hispanic N
91.70% 0.035% 0.047% 86
91.80% 0.07% 0.01% 86
92.70% 0.02% 0.05% 166
86.30% 10.30% 0.03% 117
87.70% 0% 0.02% 44
education 0=high school or less to 8=professional degree
Mean SD N
4.08 1.78 86
3.72 1.7 88
4.38 1.83 170
3.82 1.53 123
3.91 1.55 45
party ID
1=strong Democrat to 7=strong Republican
Mean SD N
4.5 2.39 86
4.4 2.43 89
5.06 2.12 168
3.34 1.7 120
4.02 2.12 42
ideology
1=strong liberal to 7=strong conservative
Mean SD N
4.4 1.29 85
4.42 1.23 88
4.51 1.54 168
4.17 1.11 116
4.19 1.3 43
Mean
3.5
3.33
3.6
3.05
3.11
SD N
1.32 86
1.47 89
1.47 173
1.48 127
1.51 45
political 0 to 5, no. of knowledge knowledge items answered correctly
A RESEARCH DESIGN
29
standard deviation of 13.1. Of the respondents 58% are women and 8.6% are racial or ethnic minorities (black and Hispanic). The average respondent completed “some college.” As for political characteristics, the average respondent was independent (but leaned slightly Republican) and was moderate (but leaned toward conservative). Finally, respondents answered an average of 3.36 political knowledge questions correctly out of five, suggesting a relatively moderate degree of political knowledge. The standard deviations are high for each of these variables, indicating that respondents are quite diverse on a number of potentially important attributes. So how does this sample look on a county-by-county basis? Table 2.3 depicts demographic and political characteristics of jury pool respondents by county. Again we see a similar pattern in that table 2.3 clearly shows variance in age, gender, race, and education amongst these counties. Acquisition of data from prospective jurors has brought two levels of variation. First, because jury pools are selected from the general population, potential respondents are inherently diverse. Second, by gathering these data in multiple counties, the risk that results are idiosyncratic to a particular state or region is minimized. The demographic information reported here demonstrates that both of these attributes are present in the current data set. As with any survey, the fact that participation is voluntary means respondents are not fully representative of the population at large. Still, drawing samples from jury pools is an effective and highly cost-efficient means of obtaining data from a diverse array of respondents. As such, this technique facilitates initial exploration of patterns in sense of community. The Context Survey Sample The context survey was the second component of this multistage survey design. The intended purpose of the context survey was to collect data from individuals embedded within several contexts. By doing so, it is possible to ascertain whether people in the same type of context, and in some cases the very same contextual unit (e.g., members of a given church or employees at the same workplace), exhibit similarity in their perceptions of sense of community. The contexts included places of worship, workplaces, and associations. Contexts chosen for inclusion in this portion of the project were not selected randomly. Instead, I specifically selected groups based on a number of characteristics in order to maximize diversity within the sample. For example, there are nonprofit organizations, cultural
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organizations, and civic organizations included in this sample; for the workplaces there are respondents from the medical, industrial, and legal fields; finally, several religious groups participated in the survey including members from the Jewish, Catholic, and Methodist faiths. In total, 302 respondents completed the survey. One hundred and forty-four were from workplaces, eighty-five from places of worship, and seventy-three from associations. I had relatively little difficulty identifying a dozen groups in each of the contexts, as Tallahassee certainly has an ample number of churches, workplaces, and associations from which to choose. However, the level of cooperation I received from associations seemed rather low in comparison to the other groups. It could be that these groups have such a full agenda that taking on one more project was simply too taxing, or maybe the associations felt that participating in a project such as this detracted from their respective missions and goals. Although associational activity has been championed by Putnam (2000) and others, one critique of association membership is its potential balkanizing effect, with members possibly taking on an us-versus-them mentality; such a dynamic could fuel reticence on the part of group leaders to permit participation in a study such as this. Whatever the reason may be, as a whole, associations were relatively unaccommodating in their willingness to participate in this project, and thus the number of respondents from associations is low, making analysis of individuals in this context difficult. Table 2.4 depicts some of the demographic and political characteristics of the respondents in the sample. The sample yields a great deal of variation on several key demographic variables such as age, race, and number of years living in Tallahassee. The sample has a slightly higher number of females than males, with 53.3% of the respondents being women. Roughly 77% of the respondents were white, and nearly 25% were minorities. The age of the respondents ranged from 18 to 83, with an average age of 41.5 years. People lived in Tallahassee anywhere from less than a year to 73 years; the average was 14.5 years. Therefore, as a whole, the sample looks relatively as diverse as the area from which it is drawn. However, it is imperative that this point is made clear: the fact that the sample is fairly representative of Tallahassee as a whole does not mean that the context survey sample is representative of workers, church-goers, and group members in Tallahassee. The key point I wish to emphasize about the context survey sample is that there is indeed variance in the sample, which means that many sorts of analyses are possible. Further, the sample not only varies across contexts—such as the workplace, organizations, places or
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A RESEARCH DESIGN
Table 2.4 Demographic and Political Characteristics of Context Survey Sample Variable
Scale
Gender
0=male 1=female N
race
% female
302 % white % black % Hispanic %Asian %other
77.5% 9.3% 2.0% 1.7% 3.0% 302
age in years
Mean SD N
41.5 15.1 287
1=less than $4,999 and 12=over $105,000
Mean SD N
7.8 3.0 282.0
in years
Mean SD N
14.5 12.7 288.0
1=strong Democrat to 7=strong Republican
Mean SD N
3.8 2.4 298.0
0=hs or less to 8=professional degree
Mean SD N
4.9 1.8 297.0
0 to 5 no. of knowledge items answered
Mean SD N
3.8 1.4 302.0
1=stong liberal 7=strong conservative
Mean SD N
4.2 1.8 296.0
N age
income
Years in Tallahassee
party ID
Education
political knowledge
ideology
53.3%
worship—but variance is also evident within specific contexts, for instance, the very same workplace. The Telephone Survey Sample The telephone survey was the third and final component of the data collection effort. This was the largest of the three data sets. The instrument is similar in content to the context survey with one critical
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difference. In the telephone survey respondents were asked to complete the full 11—item sense of community battery for each of five contexts. This is a crucial element of the telephone survey because it allows me to account for the simultaneous effects of an individual’s multiple social attachments. Central to my thesis is that previous research has neglected to account for these multiple attachments, thus a multicontext approach, such as this one, is warranted. Like the jury survey and the context survey the telephone sample is diverse and variance is apparent in the data. For example, 57% of the sample was female, minorities make up 29% of the sample, and the average age is 46 with a standard deviation of 17.2. Table 2.5 depicts some of the demographic and political characteristics of the sample. Not only do we see variance in terms of key demographic characteristic, but variance also exists for political characteristics as Table 2.5 Demographic and Political Characteristics of Telephone Survey Sample Variable
Scale
Gender
0=male 1=female N
race
% female
57.0% 822
% white % black % hispanic % asian N
68.0% 24.0% 2.6% 2.3% 822
age
age in years
mean sd N
45.9 17.2 803
income
1=less than $4,999 and 12=over $105,000
mean sd N
3.6 1.5 715.0
Education
0=hs or less to 8=professional degree
mean sd N
4.6 1.8 820.0
ideology
1=stong liberal 5=strong conservative
party ID
1=strong Democrat to 5=strong Republican
mean sd N mean sd N
2.9 1.0 808.0 2.6 1.3 794.0
A RESEARCH DESIGN
33
well. For example, the mean for party identification—on a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is strong Democrat and 5 is strong Republican—is 2.6 with a standard deviation of 1.3. Ideology has less variance than does the other variables with a mean of 2.9 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is strongly liberal and 5 is strongly conservative. Overall however, like the jury pool data and the context data, variance and diversity within the telephone sample exists, which means that many types of analyses are possible. The subsequent chapters will highlight some of the descriptive and multivariate analyses that these data permit. Summary Much of the research on social capital, social influence, contexts, and identity has been limited, in my view, by at least one of two factors. First, many analysts have studied a single context in isolation, thus ignoring the possibility that individuals may have meaningful experiences in more than one type of context. In fact, by focusing on only one context, it is possible that researchers may entirely miss the context or contexts that matter most for any given individual. Further we ignore the possibility that individuals may have meaningful social attachments in more than one context. The second limitation is insufficient attention to variance in people’s experiences within their social contexts. By failing to account for this variance, we assume (incorrectly) that people have similar types of experiences in the same context. Research that takes account of only group membership, for example, completely misses the possibility that people may have radically different experiences within that group, and it fails to explain how these different experiences come to matter for political behavior. The methodological approach that I advocate, using the three survey instruments described in this chapter, makes corrections for both of these concerns by (1) taking a multicontext approach that measures individuals’ attachments across several contexts and (2) measuring a person’s level of attachment within these various contexts—what is referred to as “a sense of community.” The three surveys are designed to address the deficiencies that exist in previous research and each data set brings a varied means of analyzing the key questions addressed in this book. This study, therefore, offers a unique approach to examining questions of social influence, contexts, and political behavior that until now we have only been able to discuss in very broad terms with little attention to the quality of individuals’ social interactions.
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The data sets described here will be examined in the next several chapters. The analysis begins in chapter 3 at the descriptive level, with a look to how the concept of sense of community is operationalized and to patterns in sense of community exhibited by the respondents on the three surveys. Subsequent chapters introduce multivariate tests designed to explore more fully the possible significance of sense of community for American political behavior.
Chapter 3
Measuring Sense of Community
W
e see numerous examples in political science research that community matters for a host of political behaviors and attitudes. However, previous research has neglected to consider modeling the process of how context matters. Such a black box perspective suggests merely that people enter into a context and something good (or bad) comes out. We do not know how people are affected; only that context somehow matters. Attention to where sense of community develops and how much variation exists within each context are critical to broadening our understanding of how to model the process of how, why, and when social forces influence individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. The present approach takes into account multiple contexts and variance in individual attachments within those contexts. Even though it is impossible to develop an exhaustive list of contexts, we can at least improve upon the single-context approach typically used in the literature. Further, focus on variation in attachments within contexts potentially offers an important step toward understanding why context matters, and especially why multiple members of a given context may experience very different effects. As a first step in deepening our understanding of the impact of sense of community, it is vital that the properties of individuals and their social contexts be understood. Hence, my objective in this chapter is to examine two key questions. First, how much variation in sense of community exists between and within contexts? At question is whether sense of community is more vibrant in some contexts than others, and whether, within a given context, there is consensus or conflict among individuals in the degree of sense of community they experience. Second, which context or contexts seem to matter most for the development of sense of community? Is the neighborhood
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context more important to sense of community than is the workplace or church? The analyses to be reported below unfold in several stages. First we will examine some hypothetical scenarios. The virtue of doing so is that the hypothetical examples can help us to see clearly the potential advantages of the approach I have outlined. I will then move on to an analysis of the jury pool data. Recall that the jury pool data permit an initial exploration of the degree of variation that exists within several contexts. This will be followed by an analysis of the context survey data that consist of individuals embedded within particular contexts. Lastly, I will look at the data from the telephone survey which focuses on attachment in multiple social contexts. Hypothetical Scenarios The hypothetical scenarios we will examine relate to the two key concerns regarding past research (1) focusing on only one context (i.e., the single-context approach) and (2) insufficient attention to variance in people’s experiences within their social contexts. Let us first turn to the choice between a single-context approach and a multi-context approach to studying sense of community. Suppose for the moment that what matters for various politically relevant outcomes—outcomes such as participation, tolerance, and so on—is the person’s total level of sense of community across all subcontexts for that person. This assumption is quite reasonable and very little research in this area assumes the opposite. For example, when researchers focus on a single context such as the workplace or association, there is typically not an assumption that the political impact of social interaction within that context differs in any fundamental way from interaction in other contexts. Consider three hypothetical respondents. For each, I will prescribe true levels of involvement in the neighborhood, church, workplace, and association, but impose the assumption that the researcher in this case possesses data only on the neighborhood. Figure 3.1 displays the scenarios for each of our three individuals. The vertical in each graph marks the level of attachment, or sense of community, and the horizontal marks the four contexts. As the figure demonstrates, Person A has low levels of attachment in every context. Person B has a low level of attachment in the neighborhood, but high levels everywhere else. Person C has a high level of attachment in the neighborhood, but low levels in the church, workplace, and association. If we used a singlecontext approach with focus only on the neighborhood, we would
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Sense of Community Scale
M E A S U R I N G S EN S E O F C O M M U N I T Y
10
Person A
8 6 4 2 0
neighborhood
church
workplace
organization
Sense of Community Scale
Context Person B
10 8 6 4 2 0
neighborhood
church
workplace
organization
Sense of Community Scale
Context 10
Person C
8 6 4 2 0
neighborhood
church
workplace
organization
Context Figure 3.1 Hypothetical Scenario 1
conclude that Person C is the one with the highest level of sense of community and we would conclude that Person A and Person B are indistinguishable. My multi-context approach, however, results in a much more realistic portrayal in this case. With attention to multiple contexts, we would conclude that Person B has the highest level of total sense of community, followed by Person C who at least has some, and then finally by person A. If we are going to use social involvement to help explain matters such as political participation and discussion, then it is clearly vital that social involvement be measured accurately. The single-context approach fails in this hypothetical example to distinguish Person A from B, people who are, in reality, highly distinct, and it gets the
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order backward for Persons B and C. The problem here is one of validity. Armed with data from only one context, it is impossible to derive valid inferences regarding an individual’s broader pattern of social involvement. Individuals who are highly engaged within their neighborhoods may have comparable levels of involvement in other contexts, but they also may have no meaningful attachments whatsoever outside of the neighborhood. The single-context approach simply does not permit accurate differentiation of scenarios such as these. Consequently, if we are to derive valid inferences regarding social attachments as a whole, then it is essential that a multi-context approach be introduced. The second scenario I propose relates to the potential benefits of measuring variance in sense of community rather than measuring only membership. The sense of community scale introduced below captures differences that exist in how attached people are within various contexts.1 If this possible variance does exist (and I believe it is reasonable to hypothesize that it does), and it matters for political behavior, then our analyses fall short when we measure only membership. Consider three hypothetical contexts. Figure 3.2 displays several graphs; each represents a specific context, such as a single church or workplace. The vertical axis is the number of people at any given level of sense of community, and the horizontal axis is the sense of community scale. In context A, all of the people have very similar scores on the sense of community scale and they are at a high value. If this scenario maps to reality, then measuring membership alone is perfectly reasonable in that the correspondence between sheer membership and the occurrence of a high level of sense of community would be quite high. However, in context B, we see substantial variance in sense of community among the context’s members. There is also variance in context C, but in this case, it is bimodal in nature—some people tend to be very attached, others distinctly not. If scenarios such as those in contexts B and C are possible, then we take a clear risk when we chose to consider only membership. By measuring only membership in a context rather than possible variance in people’s experiences within the context, we impose an assumption of homogeneity that may have no empirical foundation whatsoever. With my approach, in contrast, I will represent much more precisely the variance that exists within a given context. This means, first, that we will have an improved understanding of people’s levels of involvement in these contexts, and second that we will be able to determine whether variance such as that seen here in examples B
M E A S U R I N G S EN S E O F C O M M U N I T Y
39
Sense of Community Context A
30
Count
20
10 Std. Dev = 6.14 Mean = 55.5 N = 32.00
0 12.5 17.5 22.5 27.5 32.5 37.5 42.5 47.5 52.5 57.5 Sense of Community Scale
Sense of Community Context C
Sense of Community Context B
12
12
10
10
Count
8 6
Std. Dev = 18.30 Mean = 39.1 N = 31.00
8 Count
Std. Dev = 12.98 Mean = 35.5 N = 32.00
6
4
4
2
2 0
0 10
20
30
40
50
60
Sense of Community Scale
10
20 30 40 50 60 Sense of Community Scale
Figure 3.2 Hypothetical Scenario 2
and C matters for political behavior. Although the examples presented here are hypothetical extremes, it should be clear that variance within a context is at least possible. Therefore, the implicit assumption of past research that all members of a particular workplace, church, organization, or neighborhood have virtually identical experiences should seem implausible on its face. As will be seen in the following sections, variance in sense of community does indeed exist, even for members of the same specific context. The remainder of this chapter will use data from all three surveys to demonstrate the degree to which variance exists in each of several contexts, and to assess which context or contexts matter the most for sense of community
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An Empirical Investigation Jury Pool Data Five hundred and twenty individuals answered the jury pool survey about sense of community. The questionnaire asked people to consider one of six contexts when answering the extent to which they (1) had a sense of community, (2) had a sense of belonging, (3) had feelings of connectedness, (4) leaned on others for support during a crisis, (5) considered people within the context to be like family, and (6) had a sense of attachment. Assignment of context was designed so that individuals were randomly asked about either their (1) workplace, (2) place of worship, (3) neighborhood, (4) group associations, (5) city or town, or (6) circle of friends. As expected given random assignment, the contexts were fairly dispersed with each context garnering approximately 16.5% of the responses. Sense of Community Items The sense of community items are attitudinal measures meant to tap sense of community within various contexts and to reveal whether sense of community (1) exists within these contexts and (2) constitutes one or more than one attitudinal dimension within each context. Each item was based on a 1 to 10 scale on which respondents were asked to indicate to what extent they had feelings about a context; one signifies “none at all” and ten means “very much.” Table 3.1 demonstrates that these items have an overall mean of 6.1, indicating that on average, respondents have some positive feelings regarding community or connectedness in these contexts. However, it is also important to note both that sense of community is far from overwhelming and that consensus on the presence of sense of community is minimal. On only one item, “sense of belonging,” does the mean even eclipse 7.0, and the standard deviations on all items are well above 2.0. These data suggest that sense of community can be a feature of involvement in various contexts, but also that its emergence is far from a certainty. Because I want to create a sense of community scale based on these items to use in subsequent analyses, I conducted a factor analysis to examine how these items fit together. Table 3.2 displays these results. The six items fit nicely together, creating one factor. The factor loadings range from 0.79 to 0.89. I also conducted a reliability analysis on the six items; for the 476 observations, Cronbach’s alpha is 0.92, indicating a highly reliable scale.
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Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for Sense of Community Items (Jury Pool Data) Sense of community items Sense of belonging Feeling connected Lean on others for support during crisis People are like family Sense of attachment Sense of community
N
mean
sd
494 492 489 485 491 488
6.74 7.04 6.42 5.28 5.35 5.8
2.37 2.4 2.37 2.8 2.67 2.68
Table 3.2 Factor Loadings for Sense of Community Items (Jury Pool Data) Sense of community Sense of belonging Feeling connected Lean on others for support during times of crisis People are like family Sense of attachment
0.836 0.870 0.886 0.794 0.865 0.873
Sense of Community Scale Now that there is confidence that the sense of community items can indeed be combined to produce a single reliable scale, the data will be examined in several ways. First, I will consider the scale as an additive measure, where the range of the scale is from six to sixty. Second, I will create a categorical scale from the additive measure so that I have sense of community divided into weak, moderate, and strong categories. I created these categories by defining respondents with scale values of 6 to 24 as having a weak sense of community, those with values 25 to 42 as having moderate sense of community, and finally, those with scores of 43 to 60 as having strong sense of community. Third, the data will be examined on a context-by-context basis. Is there variation within the same type of context? The first point to note is that there is a wide range of variation on these scales. For the additive scale, the mean is 36.55 and the standard deviation is 13.02 and for the categorical scale the mean is 2.18 and the standard deviation is 0.71. These data are highly revealing. They suggest that, on balance, people typically do develop a sense of community within
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each of the contexts considered here. However, this typical effect masks an enormous amount of variance. On the full additive scale, for instance, a span of two standard deviations on either side of the mean encompasses nearly the entire 54-point scale. Absent such data, we would know only that individuals belong to a given context, and we would be forced to assume—erroneously—that that context exerts constant effects on all of its members. Table 3.3 depicts the descriptive statistics for the categorical scale and additive scales. Figure 3.3 displays the distribution of responses for the six contexts on the additive scale. On a context-by-context basis table 3.3 and figure 3.3 demonstrate that the means for sense of community are mostly positive, albeit not overwhelmingly so, and that the variance is immense. Place of worship, for example, has a mean of 32.21 and a standard deviation of 16.36 on the full scale. Similar results emerge for the categorical scale. For instance, the mean for neighborhood on the categorical scale is 2.08 with a standard deviation of 0.62. Both of these serve as examples that suggest sense of community does exist within each of these contexts and that its Table 3.3 Descriptive Statistics of Sense of Community Scales (Jury Pool Data) Full Scale mean (sd)
Categorical Scale mean (sd)
36.55 (13.02)
2.18 (.71)
42.01 (11.35)
2.46 (.67)
place of worship N=80
32.21 (16.36)
1.98 (.80)
neighborhood N=84
34.75 (10.83)
2.08 (.62)
associations N=83
35.88 (12.98)
2.09 (.74)
circle of friends N=79
39.44 (11.85)
2.34 (.66)
city or town N=78
35.69 (11.97)
2.17 (.69)
Overall data N=476 By context Workplace N=72
Note: Categorical Scale 1= weak, 2=moderate, 3=strong. Full Scale Range = 6 to 60, where 10 is low and 60 is high.
M E A S U R I N G S EN S E O F C O M M U N I T Y
Count
15
Sense of Community Workplace Std. Dev = 11.35 Mean = 42.0 N = 72.00
10
10
5
0
0
5
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Sense of Community Scale
Sense of Community Place of Worship (Church)
25
Std. Dev = 16.36 Mean = 32.2 N = 80.00
20
10
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Sense of Community Scale
Sense of Community Neighborhood
30
Count
Count
15
Std. Dev = 16.36 Mean = 32.2 N = 80.00
15
5
20
Sense of Community Place of Worship (Church)
20
Count
20
43
Std. Dev = 10.83 Mean = 34.8 N = 84.00
15 10
5 5 0
0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Sense of Community Scale
20
15
5
Sense of Community Circle of Friends Std. Dev = 11.85 Mean = 39.4 N = 79.00
14 12
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Sense of Community Scale Sense of Community City or Town
Std. Dev = 11.97 Mean = 35.7 N = 78.00
Count
Count
10 10
5
8 6 4 2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Sense of Community Scale
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Sense of Community Scale
Figure 3.3 Histogram context by context: Jury Pool Sample
strength varies a great deal. This is important for two reasons. First, it illustrates my point that sense of community originates from multiple contexts and therefore the single context approach that is so prevalent in the literature should be broadened to include multiple sources for sense of community. For a given respondent, for example,
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focus on only a single context might lead us to conclude that the person lacks a sense of community when the reality for that person is that sense of community is high elsewhere—in settings that the singlecontext approach happened to overlook, as the first hypothetical scenario depicted. Second, simply knowing that a person lives in a certain neighborhood or attends a particular church is not sufficient enough to demonstrate that person scores high on sense of community within that context. For places of worship, for instance, data in table 3.3 reveal both a low mean and a high standard deviation, suggesting we would be wrong quite often when inferring the presence of sense of community from data on whether individuals attend places of worship. Is there variation between contexts? In addition to the variation within each context, a couple of points can be made about the variation between contexts. The workplace has the highest average on the categorical scale, where the mean is 2.46; the lowest, by contrast, is for place of worship where the mean is 1.98, a difference of 0.48. On the surface it certainly appears to be a rather large difference given that the scale ranges from one to three, but is it a significant difference? I conducted difference of means tests between the means for the various contexts and the tests demonstrate that significant differences among the means do exist. 2 This suggests that not only does variation of sense of community exist within multiple contexts but also that variation between contexts is present. Thus, for the first phase of the study, these data have provided insight into a) whether sense of community exists within these contexts—and it does and b) the degree to which variation in sense of community is present within and between these contexts—and that variation is substantial. Context Survey Data The context survey was a lengthy paper and pencil self-administered instrument. It took respondents on average 15 minutes to complete the survey. Three hundred and two individuals responded to the survey. Respondents were from one of three contexts in the Tallahassee area: the workplace, place of worship, or organization. The survey included at its core the 12-item sense of community battery developed in the field of community psychology, with items targeted toward the context of focus. So, for example, the workplace respondents were asked the sense of community index with focus on the workplace. The surveys also included single-item measures of sense of
M E A S U R I N G S EN S E O F C O M M U N I T Y
45
community for several other contexts, along with items intended to provide data on a wide array of independent and dependent variables. Data from this survey facilitate numerous descriptive and multivariate analyses. What follows in the subsequent section of this chapter is (1) a description of the sense of community scale and (2) a descriptive analysis of these data. The Sense of Community Index As was pointed out in chapter 1, McMillian and Chavis (1986) define a sense of community as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment together.” They propose that sense of community is composed of four elements; (1) membership (2) influence, (3) integration and fulfillment of needs, and (4) shared emotional connection. In order to measure an individual’s sense of community, McMillian et al. (1986) developed what has come to be referred to in the field of community psychology as the Sense of Community Index, a 12 item True/False questionnaire that taps into the four elements of sense of community.3 The index has also been adapted in format to include a 5 point Likert-type response—the type that was used in the Tallahassee context survey and the Tallahassee telephone survey. Using the same statements as the original True/False battery, individuals are asked to respond based on how much they agree or disagree with the statements ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. On the present study’s context survey, respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with each statement about their particular context (i.e., church, workplace, or organization). The scale values range from 12 to 60, with a midpoint of 36. Appendix G shows the question wording for the sense of community index. A Descriptive Analysis As we saw in the earlier analysis of the jury pool data, people can experience the same sorts of contexts differently. However, it could be that the source of that variance is the context itself. For example, if some workplaces are more collegial than others, then we would see variance across workplaces but we might not see variance within a given workplace. This is precisely the type of issue that can be explored with the context data. Recall that in the context survey there are multiple respondents from each of several specific contexts. That is, these respondents belong to the very same group and church, or work at the very same company. First, however, we will consider basic descriptive
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information about each context. Like the data from the jury pool study, mean values for sense of community among respondents in each of the three contexts fall short of the scale maximum, with an average score of 46 and standard deviations between six and eight. Thus, a similar pattern emerges as did with the jury pool data, namely that variance does indeed exist in each of these contexts and that the experiences people share within similar contexts can be entirely different. Is variation in sense of community the result of a particular context? Now we will return to the question of whether the variance that has been shown to exist is a product of the particular contexts from which the respondents are drawn. For example, do members from the same church experience the same degree of sense of community? Do people who work in the same office share the same level of sense of community? I will examine this question by turning to specific contexts— that is, I will examine cases from the exact same church, workplace, and organization. Figure 3.4 displays the distribution of responses for one workplace, one church, and one organization. Here, we again see a large amount of variance and also mean values well short of the scale’s maximum of 60. The standard deviations are between seven and nine. These results suggest two key points. First, even within the very same context (that is members of the exact same group, church, or workplace), sense of community can differ greatly. While some members of the same church felt a strong sense of community, there were others that did not. The same can be said for employees in the same workplace and members of the same organization. Thus, again, this provides evidence against the use of membership alone as the key indicator. But second, the variance with the context data is a bit less than with the jury data. The scales are not exactly comparable, so it is impossible to offer a definitive interpretation of this difference. However the lower within-context variance is consistent with the idea that there is at least some level of shared experience within a specific context. The data from the jury and context surveys have allowed me to examine the degree to which sense of community varies within each of these key contexts that I have identified and we have learned that a great deal of variation does indeed exist both within and across contexts. However, these data sets are limited in that they do not permit an analysis of an individual’s attachments in multiple contexts because they focus on only one particular context such as the workplace, place of worship, etc. The Tallahassee telephone survey however, is designed to address the simultaneous effects of individual’s
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12
10
Place of Worship A
Workplace A
14
Std. Dev = 7.04 Mean = 46.6 N = 39.00
12
47
Std. Dev = 8.91 Mean = 46.3 N = 48.00
10
Count
Count
8
6
8 6
4 4 2
2
0
0 22.5 27.5 32.5 37.5 42.5 47.5 52.5 57.5 62.5
17.3 21.8 26.4 30.9 35.5 40.0 44.5 49.1 53.6 58.2 62.7
Sense of Community Index
Sense of Community Index Organization A
6
5
Std. Dev = 6.98 Mean = 47.6 N = 17.00
Count
4
3
2
1
0 22.5 27.5 32.5 37.5 42.5 47.5 52.5 57.5 62.5 Sense of Community Index
Figure 3.4 Distribution of Responses: Context Survey Sample
multiple social attachments. This, as I have noted previously, is a key design element of the study because past research in this area has been limited by the inability of researchers to addresses this key point. If we want to understand the broad impact of social contexts on factors such as participation, discussion, etc, then it is critical that we examine multiple contexts. The remainder of this chapter will include an analysis of the telephone survey data. Telephone Survey Data The data from the Tallahassee telephone survey is the largest of the three data sets. It took approximately 25 minutes to complete and was asked to 822 randomly selected Tallahassee residents. The survey
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format is similar to the context survey with one critical difference: on the telephone survey respondents are asked the sense of community battery for five different contexts.4 These data, therefore, permit an analysis of the differences in sense of community across multiple contexts as well as an examination of which context or contexts seem to matter most for sense of community. A Descriptive Analysis The results from the telephone survey data add to the mounting evidence that we have seen from the jury and the context data that a) sense of community does exist and that it varies from one context to the next and b) that there is a wide range of variation within contexts. For instance, the mean values for sense of community in each context fall well short of the scale maximum (the scale ranges from 11 to 55). The average mean value across all contexts is 41.76 and the average standard deviation is 6.19, meaning that a shift of two standard deviations in either direction of the mean encompasses over half of the entire sense of community scale. Table 3.4 displays the results for sense of community in each of the five contexts. All of the respondents answered the sense of community questions about circle of friends and neighborhood but many opted out of the questions that dealt with associations, church, and work. This was certainly expected to occur. It makes complete sense that most people have friends and live in a neighborhood but they may not work, attend a church, or belong to an association. Based on the results shown in table 3.4, circle of friends generates the highest mean value at 43.92 while neighborhood is the lowest with 39.72. The variation within contexts is also large with standard deviations ranging between 5.4 and 6.9. While neighborhood had the lowest mean value for sense of community, it also had the highest standard deviation at 6.9, suggesting that people do indeed
Table 3.4 Descriptive Statistics for Sense of Community by Context: Telephone Survey Data Context Church Neighborhood Association Circle of Friends Work
N
Mean
Standard Deviation
531 822 182 822 763
42.65 39.72 41.93 43.92 40.59
6.33 6.91 5.39 5.51 6.83
Note: Scale values range from 11 to 55, with a midpoint of 33.
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Neighborhood A Std. Dev = 5.64 Mean = 41.6 N = 134.00
Count
20
10
0 20.0 22.5 25.0 27.5 30.0 32.5 35.0 37.5 40.0 42.5 45.0 47.5 50.0 52.5 55.0 Sense of Community Scale Nieghborhood B
30 Std. Dev = 6.72 Mean = 38.4 N = 132.00
Count
20
10
0 17.5 20.0 22.5 25.0 27.5 30.0 32.5 35.0 37.5 40.0 42.5 45.0 47.5 50.0 52.5 55.0 Sense of Community Scale
Figure 3.5 Sample
Distribution of Responses for two Neighborhoods: Telephone Survey
experience similar contexts differently. Figure 3.5 displays the distribution of responses for sense of community in two Tallahassee neighborhoods.5 The horizontal is the sense of community scale and the vertical is the number of respondents. As the figures show, by simply assuming someone has a particular level of sense of community based
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on where they live may be entirely incorrect and thus yield misleading results about the effects of sense of community. What context seems to matter most for sense of community? In addition to examining the extent to which sense of community varies across contexts, using the Tallahassee telephone survey data, we can also explore which context seems to matter most for sense of community. Recall that telephone survey asked respondents about five different contexts, therefore giving us the ability to look at which context among the five, is most important for sense of community. Here we are looking for which context respondents had the highest value for sense of community. Table 3.5 displays these results. A few points are worth noting about these results. Most striking is that the means are very similar, in all five contexts there were people who had the “highest” level of sense of community, suggesting that people develop a strong sense of community in all the contexts examined in this study. This is important because it further corroborates my claim that it is critical to take a multi-context approach to sense of community. By examining only one context at a time, we could potentially miss the context that matters most for any given individual. For example, if we chose to examine only place of worship and not workplace, then we would have missed the context that mattered most for 199 individuals! Second informal contexts, such as socializing with friends, appears to have the largest impact on sense of community. However, of actual formal contexts, people develop sense of community in large numbers in each of work, place of worship and neighborhood. We can also examine this data in terms of the context with the “lowest” sense of community. The average mean across all contexts is 37.41 and the standard deviations are between 5.1 and 6.6. The context in which sense of community is the “lowest” is neighborhood, but similar to the results for “highest” sense of community, the means are relatively similar. These results are also displayed in table 3.5.
Table 3.5 Highest and Lowest values for Sense of Community by context: Telephone Survey Context Work Neighborhood Association Church Circle of Friends
Highest Mean (sd) 46.2 (4.59) 45.4 (4.56) 45.02 (6.69) 46.93 (4.95) 46.01 (4.46)
N
Lowest Mean (sd)
N
199 144 36 171 361
36.24 (6.12) 35.68 (6.65) 39.52 (5.16) 37.07 (5.75) 38.57 (6.12)
283 332 48 115 95
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Finally, we can look at the average standard deviation across all contexts. Here, if we see a high mean we can conclude that people have a lot of variance in the level of sense of community across contexts, in other words, they have high sense of community in some contexts but not others. If we see a low mean, then we could assume that people are generalists with sense of community developing at the same rate across contexts. In fact, what the data reveal is that the standard deviation across contexts ranges from 0 to 17.79, with a mean of 4.79 and standard deviation of 3.0. Summary Several conclusions about this chapter can be noted here. First, using three data sets, I have provided evidence that supports my claim that sense of community exists, that it varies across contexts and within contexts. People experience similar contexts differently and thus, we should be guarded against using mere membership as the sole indicator of how attached people are within various contexts. Second, attention to multiple-contexts is critical if we want to be able to identify from where people get their sense of community. If we choose to examine only one context in isolation, then we run the risk of missing the context or contexts that are most important for any given individual. In the next couple of chapters we will be able to assess empirically the effect of sense of community on different types of political activities and behaviors such as voting, contacting local officials, attending local meetings of city/county government, and political discussion. We will be able to examine to what extent having a sense of community in several contexts in comparison to just one, influences different types of behaviors. Recall, at the most basic level, the claim that I advance is that attention to multiple contexts is critical in understanding the social influence of political behavior. The evidence presented in this chapter clearly demonstrates that sense of community does indeed exist, the next crucial step is to determine to what extent sense of community influences political behavior. The point I wish to make clear is that in the analyses that follow we are interested in the impact of individuals’ total sense of community across multiple contexts not which context seems to matter most for political behavior. As is evidenced in this chapter, no one context mattered more than another for sense of community. This is the critical argument of the book, that we need to account for sense of community across multiple contexts not simply one context or another or simply membership in a context, just as hypothetical scenario one demonstrates.
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Chapter 4
Sense of Community, Efficacy, and Trust
P
eople vary on any number of politically relevant factors, including predispositions, attitudes, and behaviors. And, as I have argued, this variance may be influenced by social interaction and sense of community. Two especially important factors will be examined in this chapter. The first is efficacy, or people’s beliefs that they can make a difference in the political world—that they have the capacity to act, and that those who possess political power will listen. The second is trust or confidence in people and/or institutions of government to do what is right. Efficacy and trust have been shown to be important predictors of political participation (Abramson 1983, Bennett 1986, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995, Rosenstone and Hansen 1993, Brehm and Rahn 1997, Hetherington 1998, Uslaner 2002). Most studies tend to use efficacy or trust as an independent variable to explain political actions such as voting, campaign involvement, and the like (for a discussion of efficacy see Abramson 1983, Bennett 1986, for a discussion of trust see Uslaner 2002, Hetherington 1998, Brehm and Rahn 1997). The logic underlying these effects is that individuals are empowered and motivated when they believe that their involvement in politics will be consequential and that they can have confidence that the behavior of others will be honorable. A current theoretical perspective among those who study urban social organization is collective efficacy theory. The theory suggests (and empirical evidence substantiates the claim) that “the prevalence and density of kinship, friendship, and acquaintanceship networks, and the level of participation in community based organizations fosters the emergence of collective efficacy, or solidarity and mutual trust (social cohesion)
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among community residents combined with shared expectations for social control-related action” (Browning, Feinberg, and Dietz 2004). Collective efficacy theory suggests that individuals can be mobilized to action in order to achieve an intended outcome. While these studies have been directed at issues of urban policy (Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush 2001, Rosenfeld, Messner, and Baumer 2001, Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997, Sampson, Morenoff, and Earls 1999) there is no reason to believe that collective efficacy theory would not be applicable to studies of political behavior and hence corroborate my hypothesis that sense of community influences efficacy and trust.1 Despite their importance in explanations of political behavior, relatively little is known regarding mechanisms through which social involvement may influence trust and efficacy. If efficacy and trust are of value, then it is important that we determine how their development can be fostered, and especially whether their development can be promoted through social interaction—such as a sense of community. The goal of this chapter then is to examine to what extent, if any, a sense of community matters for trust and efficacy. Efficacy and Sense of Community Political efficacy has been widely used to explain various types of political activities such as voting, campaign involvement, signing petitions, and the like. To a large extent, much of the recent research on political efficacy itself has focused on how to correctly measure it, most scholars agree that it is a concept with two distinct components (e.g., Craig, Neimi, and Silver 1990, Niemi, Craig, and Mattei 1991). Today, scholars generally agree that political efficacy includes: (1) internal efficacy—beliefs about one’s own ability to influence the political process and (2) external efficacy—beliefs about the responsiveness of government officials to the concerns of the citizenry (Balch 1974, Coleman and Davis 1976, Converse 1972, Craig et al. 1990, Niemi et al. 1991). A great deal of the research on political efficacy has focused on how to measure the concept and its impact on political participation. For example, studies have demonstrated that individual -level determinants such as gender, age, income, and education have some influence on an individual’s level of efficacy and/or interest in community affairs (Verba et al. 1995, Verba, Burns, and Schlozman 1997, Bennett 1986, Abramson 1986). However, little research has considered the impact of social forces on the development of political efficacy.2
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There are several reasons to expect that sense of community will promote feelings of efficacy. First, experience at functioning meaningfully and effectively within a given community may signal to individuals that their capacity to exert influence extends outside of the context at hand, such as to the larger political environment. Even though such activity may not be explicitly political in nature, any success at the group level may engender in individuals the belief that they have the capacity to be influential. Second, sheer strength in numbers—whether because people in a community are genuinely acting in concert or merely because individuals recognize that others share their views—should fuel efficacy. Third, past political activity within many contexts provides empirical evidence of efficacious behavior. For example, members of voluntary associations and neighborhood groups often take on political issues. By doing so, their members may gain confidence that they as individuals can be politically efficacious. Verba et al. (1995) suggest that among the various factors that shape participation, resources such as civic skills—those that make it easier for individuals to become involved, such as communication and organizational skills—are critical. Involvement beyond simply membership in the workplace, organizations, or church—something such as a sense of community—helps to build those skills. Those who take on leadership roles in their church or their workplace for matters such as fundraising or party planning, are cultivating the skills that Verba et al. (1995) argue are important for participation. Therefore, it is entirely logical to hypothesize that sense of community could influence levels of internal efficacy. An individual who has had success in influencing others in his/her workplace, church, neighborhood, etc. is also likely to believe s/he has the power to influence government. Thus, if I want to make a difference in my community, I know that I have to take some sort of action, whether it is something as simple as signing a petition or as involved as planning a protest, the responsibility falls in my own hands to do something. I also expect that a sense of community will come to matter for external efficacy—the belief that government officials actually listen and care about what I have to say. Individuals who are part of a group or context in which they have a high level of sense of community are likely to believe that the government will listen to what they have to say, especially when they present a unified voice to relay their message. Secondly, sense of community should affect external efficacy simply because of the belief that there is strength in numbers, that with more people behind an idea (i.e., a chorus as opposed to a
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soloist), the more likely that idea is to have a positive outcome in their favor.3 Thus, based on previous research that suggests community matters for behaviors such as efficacy, sense of community should be strong predictors of both internal efficacy and external efficacy. Trust and Sense of Community It is generally agreed that when it comes to examining trust as a predictor of political participation, there are two separate concepts: (1) trust in government, often referred to as confidence in government or political trust and (2) trust in others, conveyed a number of different ways such as, interpersonal trust (Brehm and Rahan 1997), social trust (Putnam 2000) or generalized trust (Uslaner 2002). Hetherington (1998, p. 791) defines political trust as “a basic evaluative orientation toward the government founded on how well the government is operating according to people’s normative expectations.” Interpersonal trust on the other hand relies on trusting other people in a way that is very different from trusting government. It requires giving people—even those who we may know very little about—the benefit of the doubt (Uslaner 2002, Putnam 2000). Uslaner (2002) and Putnam (2000) strongly encourage that these concepts be kept distinct from one another because they simply are not the same thing (Putnam’s emphasis [2000, p. 137]). Political trust may be a consequence of interpersonal trust or visa versa, and they may be correlated with one another; however, they capture two very distinct concepts and therefore should be treated as such. Aside from Uslaner (2002) who devotes a great deal of time to examining the roots of trust, little else has focused directly on the social factors that may influence interpersonal trust and political trust.4 Like efficacy, there are multiple reasons to believe that sense of community will matter for trust. First, sense of community builds relationships; those who belong to a workplace, organization, church, and so on will typically build relationships with those around them. Even at the most basic level, that of an acquaintance, a relationship probably exists simply because members share a common interest in their job, faith, or pastime. Relationships at this most basic level involve some sort of trust, even if it simply means that you trust that the other person in your group shares your interest. Second, and most importantly, sense of community should matter for trust because sense of community entails cooperation. Brehm and Rahn (1997) and Putnam (2000) both suggest that cooperation leads to trust. Those individuals who have a greater sense of community are likely to
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be involved in activities that require cooperation. Indeed, collaborative effort is central to the very concept of sense of community. Thus, it is quite reasonable, based both on logic and on previous research, that sense of community should affect trust. Now, as Putman (2000), Uslaner (2002), and others argue, it is important to distinguish between interpersonal trust—trust in others—and political trust— confidence in government. I argue that sense of community is likely to have effects on both personal and political trust, but that the effect will be stronger on personal trust than political trust because of the social nature by which sense of community is developed. Sense of community emerges when the individual has positive bonding experiences within some context. Hence, it is highly plausible that a byproduct of this bond with the context will promote similarly positive feelings toward the other individuals in the context with whom the person interacts. Additionally, sense of community may also have an effect on political trust. When an individual has a sense of community within an organized context such as church, the workplace, or an organization this may also lead him/her to believe that in formal organized structures (the likes of governmental institutions for example) the way in which the system is organized tends to yield the best outcome in the end for its members (i.e., citizens). Therefore, it is reasonable to hypothesize that those who have a greater sense of community are likely to trust both others and trust government to produce the best policies for its citizens. The rationale outlined here provides a strong basis to expect that sense of community will contribute to the development of internal and external efficacy, and trust in others and trust in government. It should also be noted at this time that the analyses which follow assumes the causal arrow flows in one direction from sense of community to trust and/or efficacy, this is based on the rather implicit writing of others who have suggested that community matters for all sorts of political behavior (Schlozman 2002) and collective efficacy theory (Browning, Feinberg, and Dietz 2004).5 Efficacy and trust are important constructs in themselves, and thus evidence that sense of community does indeed play the hypothesized role would be of considerable substantive significance. This significance is magnified, however, when we recall the critical roles efficacy and trust play as forces affecting a broad array of political behaviors. Any impact of sense of community identified here would suggest an indirect effect on the many factors known to be influenced by efficacy and trust. The social factors that potentially contribute to efficacy and trust have been discussed in the literature yet few studies have tested
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empirically to what extent (if any) social forces such as sense of community influence efficacy and trust. As previous scholars have noted, both these concepts contain two very distinct components. In the analyses that follow, I will examine the impact that sense of community has on internal efficacy, external efficacy, personal trust, and political trust. I will discuss how the measures for each of the key variables were constructed and then discuss the results of the analysis. Sense of Community: We can examine sense of community using data from the telephone survey and the context survey. In the analyses that are presented in the following chapters, the key variable of interest is the sense of community variable. This variable is defined as an individual’s total sense of community; using data from the telephone survey, this variable is a summary measure of the respondent’s sense of community scores across all contexts for which they offered answers.6 The data from the context survey provide us with a contextspecific sense of community; that is the individual’s score for a particular context (the one in which they were a part of when they completed the survey). Also, as part of the context survey, respondents were asked one single item about their feeling of connectedness in several other contexts: the sum of these items provides the indicator of the total sense of community. Remember that my main thesis is that it is important to pay attention to multiple contexts. While previous research has examined individual contexts and have concluded that individual contexts matter for political behavior, such as neighborhoods (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995), churches (Wald 1988, 1990), the workplace (Mondak and Mutz 2002, 2001, Mutz and Mondak 2006) I contend that it is important to pay attention to sense of community across multiple contexts. That by examining one context in isolation from another might cause us to miss the context or contexts that matter most for any given individual. Thus, for the purposes of the analysis that follows it is not critical that we know that a particular context matters more than another, such as church over associations, but rather we need to examine what is the impact sense of community across all contexts, hence a summary score. For the telephone survey, total sense of community scores range from 11 to 275; a table containing the descriptive statistics for the SCI and other key variables can be found in appendix F.7 Because an individual’s SCI score is partially determined by the number of contexts in which s/he is involved, I have also included, as a control, a summary context variable which is simply a count of the number of contexts for which an individual has SCI scores. For example, for an individual involved in two contexts, her score can range between 22 and 110, whereas
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someone involved in four contexts could have a score which ranges from 44 to 220. A score of 100 then would have a different meaning for the individual involved in only two contexts compared to the individual involved in four. For the context survey, total sense of community score ranges from 5 to 50; the descriptive statistics can also be found in appendix F. Individual or what I term context specific sense of community score is the total score for the sense of community items for the particular context in which the respondent was embedded is also included; these scores range from 12 to 60. Efficacy: Respondents were asked two efficacy questions on the survey, meant to measure both internal and external efficacy. The first question addressing internal efficacy asked “How much of a difference do you believe you can make in [city name]? Do you believe that you can make a big difference, a moderate difference, a small difference, or no difference at all?” For external efficacy, respondents were asked “How much do you believe your local representative (such as county commissioners and city council members) care about what you think is important for [city name]? Do you think they care very much, somewhat, only a little, or not at all?”8 To explore whether sense of community influences internal and external efficacy, I first model efficacy as a function of a full array of demographic variables and other individual level characteristics such as personality. Personality is important as a control as it is likely to play a role in how an individual views his/her community. I then add measures of sense of community to the mix to determine whether doing so furthers our understanding of the sources of efficacy. Internal Efficacy: The results for the internal efficacy model are displayed in table 4.1. The first two columns depict the results from the paper and pencil context survey. Recall, this is a survey of individuals embedded within particular contexts such as churches, associations, and workplaces. The second two columns show the results from the telephone survey. This survey asked individuals about their sense of community in multiple sets of contexts such as church, workplace, association, neighborhood, and informal networks, such as their circle of friends. Several interesting findings emerge in these models. First, the baseline model displays the results for the key individual-level variables that the literature has suggested influence efficacy—age, party strength, and income. As the results show, age and income are indeed positive predictors of internal efficacy. These results suggest that as we grow older and as our incomes increase we are more likely to believe that we can make a difference in our community. In the full model, what the table
Table 4.1
Internal Efficacy Model—The Effect of Sense of Community on Internal Efficacy Estimated via OLS and Ordered Logit
Variable Constant Context Specific Sense of Community Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts
Context Survey* Coefficient (se)
Context Survey Coefficient (se)
–1.46 (1.617)
–2.75 (1.74) .041 (.022)# .088 (.018)***
Phone Survey Coefficient (se)
Phone Survey Coefficient (se)
.020 (.004)*** –.615 (.228)**
Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Income Marital Status Employment Status
.401 (.305) .092 (.050)# –.001 (.001)# .108 (.085) .086 (.123) .097 (.054)# .242 (.054)
.466 (.318) .031 (.053) –.000 (.001) –.011 (.090) .058 (.123) .125 (.055)* .310 (.227)
–.085 (.159) .095 (.026)*** –.001 (.000)*** .045 (.045) .16 (.083)# –.004 (.059) –.132 (.112) –.072 (.191)
–.032 (.160) .074 (.026)** –.000 (.000)*** .038 (.045) .147 (.083)# –.041 (.059) –.086 (.113) –.002 (.194)
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (df) Adjusted R2 (df) # of observations (pseudo R2)
.002 (.047) –.016 (.036) .093 (.036)** .034 (.032) .066 (.050)
–.029 (.049) .005 (.039) .066 (.037)# –.022 (.034) .039 (.051)
.016 (.022) –.046 (.018)** .013 (.017) .026 (.014)# .030 (.020) 52.31 (13)
.004 (.022) –.038 (.017)* .009 (.017) .017 (.014) .026 (.020) 75.74 (15)
.084 (249)
.233 (205) 641 (.03)
641 (.05)
Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001. *OLS Regression was used ONLY on the context survey for internal and external efficacy (the scale for the dependent variable ranged from 1 to 10). The remaining models constitute Ordered Logit models where the dependent variable ranged from 1 to 4.
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demonstrates is that when a sense of community is taken into account, we see strong, significant effects on internal efficacy.9 As the table depicts, when the sense of community variable is introduced into the models significant results emerge. No matter which model we examine the results are consistent. The introduction of the sense of community variable into the model has strong positive effects on internal efficacy. Substantively speaking, looking at the context survey results, which are estimated via OLS regression, the estimated average level of internal efficacy increases by 0.09 or nearly one-tenth of a point for every one-point increase in total sense of community. Thus, the greater one’s total sense of community or the more s/he feels connected in the community, the more likely s/he is to have increased feelings of efficacy. In the fourth column, sense of community is introduced into the model using the telephone data. As the table depicts, positive results emerge for the sense of community variable, however there is a negative coefficient for the summary variable for the number of contexts. These two variables—total sense of community and the summary variable for number of contexts—must be discussed in tandem because they are interrelated. For instance, it is impossible for an individual to have the maximum sense of community score (which is 275) if s/he has a sense of community score in fewer than five contexts. Recall, individuals were asked about their sense of community in multiple contexts (a total of five) yet a given respondent may not belong to a church or a local organization, and therefore not be eligible to have a sense of community score in those contexts.10 Thus, we need to consider the sense of community and summary context variables together when interpreting the meaning of the results.11 Because the coefficients are derived from ordered logit models for the telephone survey, I have generated a few predicted probabilities to help clarify the substantive meaning of the results in column four. Figure 4.1 is a graphical representation of the predicted probabilities for sense of community by number of contexts. It displays estimates of the joint effects of sense of community and number of contexts on internal efficacy. Similar figures will be presented below for the other three dependent variables. In each figure, all other predictors are held constant at their mean values. The horizontal axis indicates the number of contexts in which a person is involved; as measured on the telephone survey, scale values range from two to five. The vertical axis is the estimated likelihood of high efficacy; that is, this is the estimate that a person will have selected the top response category of the four available. Each graph will include three lines, which capture variance
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Internal Efficacy- Believe I can make a BIG difference
1.0
Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 Sense of Community average max min
0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 2
3 4 Number of Contexts
5
Figure 4.1 Internal Efficacy Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels
in levels of sense of community. Again, the critical point to keep in mind is that minimum and maximum values on the sense of community scale are partly determined by the number of contexts in which the person is involved. Specifically, the minimum value adds eleven points per contexts and the maximum value adds 55 points per context. One line in each figure will reflect effects for respondents with minimum levels of sense of community; i.e., sense of community scores that range from 11 to 55 as we move across the horizontal axis from two contexts to five. A second line will report estimated efficacy for individuals with average levels of sense of community. The third line will reflect effects for maximum sense of community, or values increasing from 55 to 275 across the horizontal axis. Three features of the depicted results will warrant assessment. First, if the three lines slope roughly parallel to one another, this would indicate a general effect of contextual involvement, controlling for sense of community. For example, if all three lines slope upward from left to right, this would suggest that being involved in more contexts generates more efficacy, irrespective of whether the respondent has a high or a low sense of community. Second, the gaps between the three lines will indicate the general effects of sense of community. For example, if there is a large gap between the lines for high and low sense of community, this would mean that sense of community is associated in a positive manner with efficacy. Third, if the slopes of the three lines
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change relative to one another across the horizontal axis (i.e., the lines are distinctly not parallel), this would reflect a unique joint effect of sense of community and number of contexts. For example, if the lines for high and low sense of community intersect where number of contexts equals two, but diverge widely where number of contexts equals five, this would suggest that efficacy is produced primarily where people have high levels of social attachment within multiple contexts. Figure 4.1 highlights two key results. First, the slope of the lines are non-parallel, in fact, they are opposite, suggesting that sense of community affects those who are more and less attached to various contexts differently. Second, there is a large gap between the lines for minimum sense of community and maximum sense of community signaling that sense of community is positively associated with internal efficacy. For instance, for an individual involved in two contexts, and who receives the minimum possible sense of community score, 22, the estimated likelihood of a high level of efficacy is only 0.03. In contrast, were this individual to have the highest possible sense of community score given involvement in two contexts, a score of 110, the estimated likelihood of high efficacy is 0.15.12 The estimated likelihoods of high efficacy for individuals with the lowest and highest possible levels of sense of community are 0.02 and 0.23 given involvement in three contexts, and 0.01 and 0.45 for involvement in five contexts. Regardless of the number of contexts in which an individual is involved, the higher his/her sense of community the greater the probability of having positive feelings of internal efficacy. But what about the average person, the person who has an average sense of community? If we look at the observed mean by the number of contexts to which one is involved, a clear positive pattern emerges for internal efficacy. For an individual with average sense of community, the result of joining multiple contexts results in positive net effects and the predicted probability of high efficacy increases only slightly from 0.07 to 0.08. Thus, sense of community matters most for internal efficacy for those individuals with high levels of attachment. Being involved in more contexts is better only when you are at least moderately to strongly attached in those contexts and best if your level of attachment is high! If you are involved in multiple contexts and have a low sense of community, then the results are actually modestly negative for every context added. These results will be important as we look to the effects of internal efficacy on various types of political behaviors and actions. External Efficacy: Table 4.2 is similar in format to table 4.1, however it displays the results for external efficacy. Respondents were
Table 4.2
External Efficacy Model—The Effect of Sense of Community on External Efficacy Estimated via OLS and Ordered Logit
Variable Constant Context Specific Sense of Community Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts
Context Survey* Coefficient (se) .686 (1.49)
Context Survey Coefficient (se)
Phone Survey Coefficient (se)
.010 (1.69) .022 (.021) .029 (.017)#
Phone Survey Coefficient (se)
.019 (.004)*** –.800 (.228)***
Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Income Marital Status Employment Status
.138 (.278) .083 (.046)# –.000 (.000) .208 (.078)** –.177 (.113) .007 (.049) .289 (.206)
–.025 (.308) .047 (.051) –.000 (.001) .131 (.087) –.138 (.119) –.031 (.053) .255 (.222)
–.242 (.165) .025 (.027) –.000 (.000) .090 (.047)# .059 (.085) .058 (.063) .005 (.117) .185 (.198)
–.21 (.166) .004 (.027) .000 (.000) .082 (.047)# .054 (.086) .037 (.064) .036 (.118) .211 (.202)
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence
–.019 (.043) –.010 (.033) .062 (.033)# .049 (.029)# .055 (.046)
.017 (.048) .031 (.038) .036 (.037) .036 (.033) .053 (.049)
.038 (.022)# –.004 (.018) .026 (.017) .004 (.015) –.049 (.021)*
.027 (.022) .002 (.018) .022 (.017) –.004 (.015) –.052 (.022)*
.064 (247)
.061 (204) 635 (.03)
635 (.04)
Adjusted R2 (df) # of observations (pseudo R2) Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001
* OLS Regression was used ONLY on the context survey for internal and external efficacy (the scale for the dependent variable ranged from 1 to 10). The remaining models constitute Ordered Logit models where the dependent variable ranged from 1 to 4.
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asked “Using your personal experience, how much do you believe your local representatives (such as County Commissioners and City Council members) care about what you think is important for Tallahassee? Do they care very much, somewhat, only a little, or not at all?”13 The focus here is on the local level of government because that is where I believe sense of community is most relevant. As table 4.2 demonstrates, in the baseline models, age and education are significant predictors of external efficacy. Previous research suggested that age and education are positively related to efficacy and the results here support that finding. As age and education increase, the more likely someone is to have stronger feelings of external efficacy. Again, emerging from the results for external efficacy is an interesting pattern. In the full model, the introduction of the summary sense of community variable has similar results on external efficacy as it did on internal efficacy, namely that sense of community has significant effects, giving further credence to the fact that social forces should be considered as explanatory factors for efficacy in addition to individual-level characteristics such as gender, age, income and education. Just as before, the coefficients in columns 3 and 4 are generated using data from the telephone survey and they are based on ordered logit models, thus for ease of substantive interpretation, figure 4.2 displays the predicted probabilities for external efficacy, with focus on the likelihood that respondents believe local officials care “very much” about what they think is important. The figure clearly demonstrates the decreasing shift in external efficacy for those with low and average sense of community scores and the upward trend associated with higher sense of community scores.. This suggests of course a similar story to internal efficacy: that having a higher sense of community matters more than having a low sense of community regardless of how many contexts an individual is involved in. Predicted probabilities decrease from 0.06 to 0.01 when moving from two to five contexts for those with low sense of community scores and increase from 0.28 to 0.49 when moving from two to five contexts for those with high sense of community scores. Simply being involved in more contexts does not necessarily translate into a greater sense of efficaciousness. What seems to matter most is the level of attachment that people have in those contexts. Having a high sense of community in only two contexts is better than having a low sense of community in five contexts. Therefore, what the data suggest is that social forces such as community do indeed positively affect internal and external efficacy, a finding that until now has been implied in the literature but never tested directly.
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External Efficacy “Local Officials Care VERY MUCH” 1.0 Sense of Community average max min
0.9
Predicted Probability
0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 2
3
4
5
Contexts Figure 4.2 External Efficacy Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels
Trust: The second question to be considered is whether sense of community also matters for the development of trust. Following the recommendation of Putnam and others to keep distinct the concepts of interpersonal trust and political trust, we posed questions on the survey to measure both concepts. Recall that political trust entails confidence in government institutions and authorities. Here, political trust is measured by asking respondents the following question: “How much of the time do you think you can trust your local officials (such as the County Commissioners and City Council members) to do what is right? Do you think you can trust them nearly all of the time, most of the time, seldom or never?” Using the GSS (General Social Science Survey) as an example, personal trust was constructed with data from three questions. Respondents were asked: (1) “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” (2) “Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair?” (3) “Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are just looking out for themselves?”14
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Tables 4.3 and 4.4 depict the results for the personal trust and political trust models. The designs of the tables are similar to tables 4.1 and 4.2 with the context survey results displayed in the first two columns, followed by the results for the telephone survey, each of which contain a baseline model where sense of community has been intentionally left out, so that the effects of this variable may be seen in relation to a baseline model where mostly individual-level variables are used. Personal Trust: The personal trust models (table 4.3) demonstrate that the inclusion of the sense of community variables produces significant effects beyond the effects seen in the baseline models.15 In the two context survey models education remains positive and significant across both the baseline and the full model. Thus, those who are more educated tend to have higher levels of personal trust. Further, when the model is expanded to include the sense of community variables, we see positive and significant effects for sense of community on personal trust. When total sense of community is introduced into the model for the phone survey, it emerges as a positive and significant predictor of interpersonal trust suggesting that in addition to education, perceptions of connectedness in the community also contribute to one’s trust in others. Furthermore, these effects are over and above those associated with personality (and especially agreeableness), and therefore, it is not simply the case that some people are likely to develop a strong sense of community and also to be trusting, but it is instead the case that, controlling for the most directly relevant individual-level traits, there remains a noteworthy direct effect of sense of community. Figure 4.3 graphically depicts these results. The slopes of the lines in figure 4.3 are distinctly not parallel and gap between those with high sense of community and low sense of community is huge. This suggests that sense of community is clearly positively associated with personal trust and that personal trust is produced where people have high levels of attachment within multiple contexts. Further, the negative slope for low sense of community indicates that, for the number of contexts with which the person is affiliated, personal trust actually decreases as the number of contexts increases from two to five. For example, for those with low scores and involved in two contexts the predicted probability of trusting others very much is 0.16 but decreases to 0.03 for those with low scores in five contexts. This is an important effect. Where sense of community is absent, heightened social interaction merely provides individuals with a broader base to be suspi-
Table 4.3
Personal Trust Model—The Effect of Sense of Community on Personal Trust Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable
Context Survey—baseline Coefficient (se)
Context Survey Coefficient (se) .036 (.022) .022 (.017)
Context Specific Sense of Community Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Income Marital Status Employment Status
.376 (.277) .108 (.046)* –.000 (.000) .208 (.074)** –.065 (.115) .043 (.049) .311 (.210)
.313 (.315) .066 (.054) –.000 (.000) .232 (.088)** –.155 (.130) .005 (.054) .334 (.238)
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence
.013 (.043) –.016 (.033) .079 (.033)* .094 (.029)** .036 (.044)
No. of observations (pseudo R2) Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001
Phone Survey—baseline Coefficient (se)
245 (.09)
Phone Survey Coefficient (se)
.021 (.004)*** –.905 (.229)*** –.245 (.161) .057 (.025)* –.000 (.000)# .213 (.046)*** –.157 (.083)# .175 (.061)** –.195 (.112)# .308 (.193)
–.214 (.162) .036 (.026) –.000 (.000) .209 (.046)*** –.157 (.083)# .158 (.062)** –.171 (.114) .335 (.197)
.019 (.049) .018 (.040) .049 (.038) .077 (.034)* .057 (.048)
.047 (.021)* –.002 (.017) –.004 (.017) –.000 (.014) –.001 (.020)
.039 (.021)# .005 (.017) –.009 (.017) –.011 (.015) –.004 (.020)
204 (.11)
631 (.06)
631 (.07)
Table 4.4
Political Trust Model—The Effect of Sense of Community on External Efficacy Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable
Context Survey—baseline Coefficient (se)
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence No. of observations (pseudo R2) Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001
Phone Survey—baseline Coefficient (se)
.055 (.025)* .017 (.019)
Context Specific Sense of Community Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Income Marital Status Employment Status
Context Survey Coefficient (se)
Phone Survey Coefficient (se)
.016 (.005)*** –.748 (.245)**
.797 (.313)* .043 (.050) –.000 (.000) .201 (.087)* –.224 (.134)# –.016 (.054) .059 (.234)
.709 (.357)* .050 (.060) –.000 (.000) .141 (.099) –.268 (.147)# –.033 (.061) .030 (.258)
–.170 (.177) .001 (.029) .000 (.000) .195 (.051)*** .125 (.093) .035 (.066) –.022 (.126) .133 (.217)
–.155 (.178) –.016 (.029) .000 (.000) .195 (.051)*** .130 (.092) .025 (.067) .000 (.128) .143 (.219)
.092 (.049)# .031 (.038) .043 (.036) .035 (.032) .046 (.049)
.099 (.055)# .062 (.044) .024 (.042) .032 (.037) .009 (.055)
.070 (.024)** .002 (.019) .021 (.019) .007 (.016) –.074 (.023)**
.062 (.024)** .006 (.019) .017 (.019) –.000 (.016) –.076 (.024)***
249 (.07)
205 (.10)
635 (.04)
635 (.05)
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Personal Trust-Trust VERY MUCH 1.0
Predicted Probability
0.8
0.6 Sense of Community average max min
0.4
0.2
0.0
2
3 4 Number of Contexts
5
Figure 4.3 Personal Trust Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels
cious and distrustful of others. Hence, not only is there no guaranty that social interaction in itself will generate trust, but such interaction actually may erode trust if that interaction is not accompanied by the bonds of sense of community. For those with a high sense of community score in two contexts the predicted probability of trusting others very much is 0.56; for those with the highest sense of community score in five contexts, the predicted probability is 0.74; and for the average person, there is a decrease when moving from two to five contexts: from 0.33 to 0.22. This suggests that social interaction can generate trust, but it does so to a meaningful extent only for those individuals with higher levels of sense of community. We also can assess the effect of movement from low to high sense of community while holding constant the number of contexts in which the person is involved. For instance, an individual with the lowest possible sense of community score in three contexts has a predicted probability of trusting others very much of 0.09, however if that person had the highest possible sense of community score for three contexts, the predicted probability would increase to 0.63. Collectively, results in figure 4.3 provide an important lesson. If the development of trust is viewed as desirable, the optimal approach toward that end is the establishment of sense of community, not sheer
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membership in multiple contexts. It is better in terms of trust, for example, for a person to have a high level of sense and be involved in two contexts than to have a moderate level of sense of community across five contexts. Clearly, these outcomes demonstrate the need to account for not only individual traits such as education and age in explaining levels of personal trust but also social factors such as sense of community and feelings of attachment. Political Trust: In a similar fashion as the preceding tables, table 4.4 likewise shows strong effects for factors such as education in explaining political trust, and the introduction of the sense of community variables again yields positive and significant results. In the context survey, context-specific sense of community produces positive and significant effects on political trust. For the phone survey, total sense of community also has a positive and significant effect. As in the previous models, there is a negative and significant coefficient on the context summary dummy variable. Although the impact of sense of community is weaker for political trust than for the other variables I have considered, the basic pattern is the same. In particular, involvement in multiple contexts erodes trust where sense of community is low, but builds trust where sense of community is high. Figure 4.4 displays these results. An individual with the lowest sense of community score in just two contexts has a predicted probability of trusting local officials nearly all of time of 0.02 while an individual with the lowest sense of community score in five contexts has a predicted probability of trusting local officials nearly all of the time of only 0.01. However, the predicted probability of trusting local officials to make the right decision nearly all of the time is 0.11 for those with the highest sense of community scores in two contexts and increases to 0.17 for those involved in five contexts. Despite the decrease in political trust when considering those with low sense of community scores, for those with high scores, sense of community increases political trust when moving from two or more contexts and when moving from low sense of community scores to high sense of community scores while holding the number of contexts constant.16 And while I am hesitant to make any sweeping claims, it is worthwhile to note that the pattern displayed in figure 4.4 remains very similar to the other dependent variables I have considered. While the lines are slightly flatter and closer together, there remains an upward trend for those with high levels of sense of community. One possible reason for the lessened effect seen here could be due to the nature of the political trust variable. Unlike personal trust, where relationships between individuals and their surroundings are the key elements in
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Political Trust “Trust official to do what is right nearly ALL of the time”
1.0
Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6
Sense of Community average max min
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 2
3
4
5
Number of Contexts Figure 4.4 Political Trust Model—Graphical Representation of the Change in Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts at Three Different Levels
the construct, political trust emphasizes relationships between individuals and government and institutions. Therefore it is not surprising that the effect seen here would be slightly different than the effect for personal trust, hence lines that are closer together and more stable. This is exactly the pattern I predicted earlier, that sense of community would affect both personal and political trust but that the stronger effect would be on personal trust because it is more social in nature. Summary Previous studies have tended to examine efficacy and trust in light of their explanatory power for political participation. Few studies have focused on whether social forces, such as those associated with interaction in the community, have effects on political efficacy and trust. Individual level traits such as education, age and gender and personal life experiences, such as being a victim of a crime have been shown to influence efficacy and trust. And while it is often implied in the literature that social factors, in one way or another, affect efficacy and trust, there has been scarce empirical evidence to support the arguments on either side. This chapter examined the effects sense of com-
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munity in explaining internal efficacy, external efficacy, personal trust, and political trust. Overall, sense of community, or one’s perception of connectedness within the community has positive and significant effects on the dependent variables examined here.17 Three main conclusions regarding the relationship between sense of community and efficacy and trust can be drawn from the general pattern that emerged in all four models and depicted in figures 4.1 to 4.4. First, the slopes of the lines were distinctly not parallel, meaning that sense of community affects those who are more and less attached to various contexts differently. Second, the gaps between the lines for high sense of community and low sense of community were typically large (although some larger than others) suggesting that sense of community is associated in a positive manner with the dependent variables examined here. Third, the slopes of the three lines changed relative to one another across the horizontal axis reflecting a unique joint effect of sense of community and number of contexts. Furthermore, similar patterns emerge for all categories of the dependent variables suggesting that the effects seen here and depicted graphically for the highest category are not mere illusions resulting from my preference to graph only the highest category. Predicted probabilities for all categories are included in tables 4.5 through 4.8.
Table 4.5 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for Internal Efficacy: How much of a difference do you believe you can make in [city name here]? Number of Sense of Community Big Moderate Small No Contexts Value Difference Difference Difference Difference 2
Minimum Average Maximum
.03 .07 .15
.17 .31 .44
.48 .46 .33
.32 .16 .07
3
Minimum Average Maximum
.02 .07 .23
.12 .32 .48
.45 .46 .24
.41 .15 .05
4
Minimum Average Maximum
.01 .08 .33
.09 .33 .47
.39 .45 .17
.50 .15 .03
5
Minimum Average Maximum
.01 .08 .45
.06 .34 .42
.33 .44 .11
.60 .14 .02
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Table 4.6 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for External Efficacy: How much do you think your local representatives care about what you think is important for [city name here]? Number of Sense of Community Contexts Value
Care very much
Care somewhat
Care only a little
Care not at all
2
Minimum Average Maximum
.06 .14 .28
.43 .56 .57
.35 .23 .12
.16 .07 .03
3
Minimum Average Maximum
.04 .13 .35
.32 .55 .54
.40 .25 .09
.25 .08 .02
4
Minimum Average Maximum
.02 .11 .42
.21 .53 .50
.39 .29 .07
.37 .09 .01
5
Minimum Average Maximum
.01 .09 .49
.13 .51 .44
.34 .29 .06
.52 .11 .01
Table 4.7 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for Personal Trust: To what extent do you trust others? Number of Contexts
Sense of Community Value
Trust very much
Trust somewhat
Trust only a little
2
Trust not at all
Minimum Average Maximum
.16 .33 .56
.20 .26 .23
.29 .23 .14
.35 .17 .07
3
Minimum Average Maximum
.09 .29 .63
.13 .25 .20
.26 .25 .11
.51 .20 .06
4
Minimum Average Maximum
.05 .25 .69
.08 .24 .18
.20 .27 .09
.67 .24 .05
5
Minimum Average Maximum
.03 .22 .74
.05 .23 .15
.13 .28 .07
.80 .28 .03
It is not only important to know that efficacy and trust influence political participation, as has been the case for most of the past research using these variables, but also that there are key factors which explain the variation in levels of efficacy and trust. Beyond the individual-level characteristics—most of which are fixed such as age
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Table 4.8 Predicted Probabilities for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts for Political Trust: How much of the time do you trust your local officials to do what is right? Number of Contexts
Sense of Community Value
2
Minimum Average Maximum
3
Trust all of the time
Trust most of the time
Trust seldom
Trust never
.02 .06 .11
.50 .64 .72
.42 .27 .16
.05 .03 .01
Minimum Average Maximum
.02 .05 .13
.37 .61 .72
.52 .31 .14
.09 .03 .01
4
Minimum Average Maximum
.01 .04 .15
.26 .57 .72
.58 .35 .12
.15 .04 .01
5
Minimum Average Maximum
.01 .03 .17
.16 .53 .71
.59 .39 .10
.24 .05 .01
and gender—social forces also contribute to an individual’s sense of efficacy and trust. By understanding that factors such as connectedness in the community can account for some of this variation we further understand ways in which we can foster feelings of efficacy and trust. In the next chapters we will turn our attention to the effects of sense of community on general political participation as well as individual types of political activities such as petition signing, attending local governmental meetings, voting, and political discussion.
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Chapter 5
Political Participation and Sense of Community
A
review of the literature on citizen political participation in the United States reveals a plethora of research that has spanned the last half century.1 Political scientists have sought to answer questions regarding the definition of political participation, why some individuals participate and other do not? Why do people care about politics? What matters for participation? Do those differences vary by type of political activity—for example, does what matters for voting differ from what matters for writing a letter to the editor? Over the years, these questions (and many more like them) have driven the research in the area of political participation. However, over the past 15–20 years, the research in this area has shifted from mainly identifying what explains participation to why and how these variables operate to produce varying levels of effects on participation; in other words, the theoretical discussion surrounding political participation today is not only concerned with what matters for participation but why does it matter. Returning to the ideas of the Columbia School, the social forces that possibly influence participation have received attention over the last decade and a half. Many scholars have suggested that individuals should not be studied simply in isolation, but rather that attention to the social forces operating on the individual should also be considered. Zuckerman (2005) for example points out that the study of the social logic of politics “continues to offer powerful theoretical principals for the analysis of political behavior” (p. 16). Among studies in this vein, for example, are Putnam’s work on social capital (1993, 1995, 2000), Mutz’s work on network research (2002), Huckfeldt and Sprague’s work on context research (1995), and the compilation of work by numerous authors in Zuckerman’s (2005)
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Social Logic of Politics. Although there have been significant strides made in explaining what social forces matter for participation, and why they do so, numerous important questions still remain unanswered. One such area deals with community attachment. Schlozman (2003) points out that research has demonstrated a strong correlation between community attachment and political participation—especially on the local level—yet relatively little is known as to why. We know that community somehow matters, yet we don’t know why that is; there is no modeling of the process. Even further, she explains that this is one such area that has been relatively ignored by scholars. Using sense of community as the key variable of interest for this chapter, I will demonstrate how sense of community influences political participation. I will examine its effect first on participation in general (an additive measure of various types of political activities). Second, I will examine participation by act—in other words I will look at the effect of sense of community on different types of activities, such as whether it has a different effect on voting than it does on signing a petition, or writing a letter to the editor. Hypotheses At the most basic level, the claim I advance is that we all have different sorts of social experiences and that these differences matter for political behavior. Clearly this claim is not novel. The idea that social interaction matters for political behavior enjoys a long and distinguished history. Although collectively this past work has been highly illuminating, I believe that we also have only scratched the surface in our efforts to understand the social component of political behavior. There are a couple of issues to consider when we begin assessing the social component of individual-level political behavior. First, how do social forces affect political behavior? Second, why do we expect that these factors matter for behavior? Consider two people who are each involved to some degree in their community but person A is involved in his neighborhood association, is an active member of a local organization and interacts regularly with others at work. The second person, person B, in contrast, has only a minimal level of such social activity; she is simply involved in her church and even that involvement constitutes little more than sporadic attendance. At question is whether these differences in level of social activity matter for political behavior. The general expectation in the literature is that they do. We should see differences in politically relevant variables such as information exposure, political attitudes, and participation.
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But why should social interaction matter for politics? Past work in this area such as Coleman’s groundbreaking analysis of social capital suggests several answers. One, social interaction provides information. Absent any other effect, we know that at the very least people observe one another and they communicate with one another and that these processes disseminate information. Second, social attachments possibly magnify the importance of politics. When people are connected to one another, these ties may produce something of a shared fate. The individual is not only concerned about his or her own interest, but also about the collective. Finally, social attachments provide direct channels toward political persuasion and mobilization. In other words, a person’s involvement in a given context may heighten that person’s exposure to efforts by others to influence the person’s opinion and to spark specific participatory acts. None of these claims is controversial; to the contrary, research in political science on social capital, social influence and so on, is premised on the assumption that these sorts of effects do occur. This leads, therefore, to a couple of hypotheses. One, people with high levels of sense of community would be most likely to participate in local politics. Two, sense of community should affect various types of political acts differently depending on the social component of the participatory act. For example, sense of community should have a different effect on voting—a highly individualized act of participation—than it would on attending a meeting of the local city council—a more social type of political activity. These hypotheses will be tested using data from the telephone survey, from here on referred to as the Tallahassee Community Survey. The Sense of Community Model Community attachment is often measured using indicators such as length of residence and home ownership; however as argued in previous chapters, these are rather crude and coarse measures of attachment because they fail to capture an individual’s psychological attachment to the community. Sense of community entails a person’s perception of belonging to a particular community. Fortunately, as we have seen, scholars in the field of community psychology have created a way to measure this concept, known as the sense of community index. The sense of community model demonstrates how community attachment influences participation. In the analyses that follow, the models are similar in design to the efficacy and trust models of the previous chapter. To determine the extent to which sense of community affects participation, I first model the activities as a function of
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demographic variables such as education, gender, age, and the Big Five personality traits. I then add sense of community to the models to see what types of effects occur. Several interesting results regarding the effect of sense of community emerge. Recall that the sense of community variable is an indicator of the summation of the individual’s score for sense of community across five contexts (workplace, association, neighborhood, church, and circle of friends). The summary context variable is a summary indicator of the number of contexts in which the individual actually had a sense of community score. For example, individuals were asked about five different contexts but it is entirely possible that they only belong to two or three of the contexts and therefore are only able to have a sense of community score for those contexts. In the sections that follow I will turn to a discussion of the analysis and results for several different dependent variables. Analysis and Results General Participation The analysis begins at a broad level, with attention to general political participation. It is a summary indicator of several types of political activities. General participation in this case is an additive variable composed of respondents’ scores for how likely they consider themselves to participate in five types of local political activities. Note that they are asked about their likelihood of participating in these activities, not whether they have actually done so. The questions were purposely designed in this way so as to gain leverage on the causality issue that often plagues research of this type. Two hypothetical scenarios were presented to the respondents about a local issue which may be of concern to them; subsequently they were asked how likely they would be to participate in various activities given that situation. For example, the first hypothetical scenario read as follows: “If the city of Tallahassee was about to do something you did NOT approve of, such as building a waste facility near your home, how likely would you be to attend a meeting about the proposal? Speak at a meeting about the proposal? Sign a petition? Contact your local representative? Write a letter to the editor? Would you say very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely, or note at all likely?”2 Thus, by posing a hypothetical scenario to the respondents instead of asking them have they ever participated in these types of activities we know that these specific activities could not influence sense of community—because something they have yet to do could
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not influence their level of sense of community today. Therefore, with this design we can have a better handle of the direction of causality.3 The score for general participation ranges from ten to forty; it is an additive score for both scenarios.4 Later we will examine the activities separately but for now we will look at participation in general. As the OLS results demonstrate in table 5.1, the key variables contributing to general participation in the baseline model are internal efficacy, personal trust, political trust, and extroversion. Internal efficacy has a coefficient over 1.00 confirming what has been discussed frequently in the literature—the idea that people can make a difference in their community is a very strong indicator of participating in local political activities. However, we know from the previous chapter that sense of community is a strong and significant indicator of internal efficacy; therefore sense of community is influencing this baseline model of general participation indirectly (see figure 5.1). Similarly, personal trust is also a strong predictor of general participation (and sense of community is also a strong indicator of personal trust), except that it
Table 5.1 General Participation Model—The Effect of Sense of Community on General Participation Estimated via OLS
Variable
Baseline Coefficient (se)
Full Model Coefficient (se)
Constant
22.07 (2.23)
19.95 (2.46)
Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence Adjusted R2 (df) Observations
–.012 (.013) 1.03 (.253)*** .317 (.312) –.525 (.196)** –.750 (.393)# –.546 (.427) .397 (.063)*** –.004 (.011)*** –.023 (.115) –.178 (.235) .009 (.058) –.025 (.045) .020 (.045) .135 (.039)*** .055 (.055) .130 (632)
Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
1.01 (.599)# 1.01 (.254)** .338 (.312) –.521 (.197)** –.706 (.393)# –.569 (.427) .396 (.064)*** –.004 (.001)*** –.056 (.116) –.198 (.235) .102 (.058)# –.026 (.045) .023 (.045) .135 (.040)*** .061 (.055) .133 (632)
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Internal Efficacy Sense of community
Participation* Personal Trust
Figure 5.1
Path Model of Participation
* Participation here denotes all types: general and by individual act.
has the opposite effect of internal efficacy. While internal efficacy is positive, personal trust is negative. Research in the field of trust has indicated that trust and participation are in constant tension. Taking part in the system is in itself an act of trust but politics is inherently confrontational, people are more likely to become involved in politics when they get upset and believe their leaders can’t be trusted (Uslaner 2002). Table 5.1 demonstrates that the less trusting people are the more likely they are to participate in local political activities. Also quite interesting are the results regarding personality characteristics. I have included in the model several variables that capture the Big Five personality traits often used in the field of psychology as a control for individual characteristics that could also influence the likelihood of participation. As the results show (and it should come as no surprise), the more extroverted someone is the more likely s/he is to participate. Political scientists have been discussing the idea that personality characteristics have a strong role in political behavior. These data demonstrate that the more outgoing an individual, the more likely s/he is to take part in politics. The addition of sense of community into the models yields some very intriguing findings. In column two, while the introduction of the total sense of community variable results in a negative (and insignificant) coefficient, the summary variable for sense of community is positive and significant. An individual with the highest sense of community score in just one context has a predicted value of participation of 0.32 while an individual with the lowest score in five contexts has a predicted value of participating of 0.36, suggesting that the more contexts in which you have a sense of community—even if it is a low sense of community score—the more likely you are to participate in local politics—although the difference is substantively modest. In other words, if you feel a sense of community in four rather than two contexts, for example work, neighborhood, associations, and church as opposed to just work and church, you are more likely to engage in the types of activities discussed here.5 Furthermore, of the other factors effecting participation,
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internal efficacy and personal trust are also significant. Therefore we can conclude that in terms of participation, sense of community has both direct and indirect effects on general participation. What do these effects suggest when viewed collectively? If political participation is valued, then it would be of noteworthy significance were it the case that sense of community functions as a resource that consistently contributes to participation. However, this does not appear to be the case. First, although social interaction does produce direct positive effects on participation, these effects are best characterized as substantively moderate. Second, sense of community affects participation indirectly through both internal efficacy and interpersonal trust. However, these two indirect effects run in opposite directions, and thus largely offset one another. Sense of community generates efficacy, and this fuels participation. But sense of community also produces trust, and trust, in turn, dampens the desire to participate. At a broad level, then, sense of community could only function as a resource that promotes participation if something first were done to counter the tendency of individuals with high levels of trust to opt out of politics. The effects described here reflect the general influence of sense of community on participation, with no regard to whether this same pattern holds when we narrow our scope to consider specific participatory acts. As is seen below, important differences do emerge when the analysis centers on individual forms of participation. Participation by Act The factors that affect different types of political activities vary. Some acts are more individualistic in nature such as voting, whereas others are inherently social, such as attending a meeting or participating in a protest. Here I examine five types of political activities: (1) attending a meeting of local government, such as city council, county commission, or school board, (2) speaking at a local meeting, (3) signing a petition, (4) contacting a local official, and (5) writing a letter to an editor of a newspaper. The expectation is that the effect of sense of community will vary depending on the type of political activity. In some instances sense of community should have a stronger effect; for example, for those activities that one would consider social in nature. Conversely, sense of community should have less influence on more individualistic participatory acts. The results for participation by act are shown in table 5.2. The models are estimated using ordered logit. The scales for the dependent variables range from two to eight, where
Table 5.2
The Effect of Sense of Community on Participation by Political Act Estimated via Ordered Logit Models
Variable
Attend MeetingBaseline Coeff (se)
Attend MeetingFull Coeff (se)
Speak at Meeting Baseline Coeff (se)
Speak at MeetingFull Coeff (se)
.373 (.089)*** .129 (.105) –.176 (.070)* –.117 (.134)
.004 (.004) .184 (.217) .336 (.090)*** .115 (.105) –.189 (.070)** –.098 (.134)
.389 (.094)*** –.151 (.113) –.239 (.073)*** –.009 (.142)
.001 (.005) .092 (.226) .374 (.095) –.157 (.114) –.247 (.073) –.005 (.142)
–.234 (.148) .105 (.021)*** –.000 (.000)***
–.245 (.148)# .095 (.021)*** –.000 (.000)***
.337 (.157)* .121 (.023)*** –.001 (.000)***
.335 (.157) .115 (.023) –.001 (.000)
Total Sense of Community No of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust
Gender Age Age Squared
Sign PetitionBaseline Coeff (se)
Sign PetitionFull Coeff (se)
.239 (.097)* .027 (.115) –.056 (.075) –.121 (.143)
.011 (.005)* –.265 (.237) .198 (.098)* .008 (.115) –.086 (.076) –.115 (.143)
–.402 (.163)* .114 (.022)*** –.001 (.000)***
–.410 (.163)* .101 (.022)*** –.000 (.000)***
Contact OfficialBaseline Coeff (se)
Contact OfficialFull Coeff (se)
Write LetterBaseline Coeff (se)
Write LetterFull Coeff (se)
.292 (.087)*** .275 (.106)** –.057 (.068) –.149 (.133)
.007 (.004) –.074 (.220) .257 (.088)** .257 (.106)* –.075 (.069) –.145 (.132)
–.008 (.004)# .396 (.206)# .420 (.085)*** .129 (.100)
.402 (.084)*** .112 (.100) –.211 (.065)*** –.157 (.124)
–.195 (.066)** –.152 (.124)
–.287 (.150)# .152 (.021)*** –.001 (.000)***
–.277 (.150)# .140 (.021)*** –.001 (.000)***
–.309 (.141)** .086 (.020)*** –.000 (.000)***
–.317 (.141)* .091 (.020)*** –.000 (.000)***
Education Strength of Party
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence
Pseudo R2 (obs)
.018 (.040) –.023 (.079)
–.003 (.040) –.042 (.080)
–.027 (.042) –.049 (.084)
–.037 (.042) –.053 (.085)
.028 (.044) .105 (.085)
.017 (.045) .097 (.085)
.011 (.041) .014 (.080)
.001 (.041) .008 (.081)
–.022 (.038) .020 (.077)
–.024 (.038) –.024 (.077)
.041 (.019)* .009 (.015) .049 (.015)** .023 (.013)# –.017 (.019)
.042 (.019)* .011 (.015) .050 (.015) .018 (.013) –.017 (.019)
.011 (.021) .001 (.016) .022 (.016) .066 (.014)*** .048 (.020)*
.011 (.021) .002 (.016) .023 (.016) .064 (.014) .048 (.020)
.040 (.021)# –.018 (.017) –.005 (.017) .024 (.015) .012 (.021)
.037 (.021)# –.016 (.017) –.005 (.017) .019 (.015) .009 (.021)
.042 (.019)* –.010 (.016) .028 (.015)# .022 (.013) .000 (.019)
.042 (.019)* –.010 (.016) .029 (.015)# .018 (.014) –.001 (.019)
.033 (.019)# .001 (.014) .018 (.015) .011 (.013) .016 (.018)
.036 (.019)# .000 (.015) .019 (.015) .014 (.013) .018 (.018)
.05 (744)
.05 (744)
Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
.05 (644)
.05 (644)
.04 (743)
.05 (743)
.06 (742)
.06 (742)
.03 (735)
.03(735)
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two is not at all likely (to do the activity) and eight is very likely.6 I ran the models just as I did for the general participation model, where first I modeled each dependent variable as a function of an array of demographic, personality and political variables (such as efficacy, trust, and party strength). Then, I added sense of community to the mix to see what types of effects develop. Sense of community on its own has direct effects for two of the five activities. However, what is interesting is the activities that sense of community actually influenced, and the degree to which internal efficacy and personal trust are significant in nearly every model. We learned in the previous chapter that sense of community has strong and significant effects on both internal efficacy and personal trust; therefore the results of the model depicted in table 5.2 suggest that sense of community affects some types of political activity directly, but also affects virtually all forms of participation indirectly due to the impact of internal efficacy and personal trust.7 Next, I will discuss in greater detail the effects for the activities in which sense of community had its greatest impact. Writing a Letter to the Editor When we think about writing a letter to the editor of the newspaper, most people would conclude that that type of activity is inherently an individual activity and thus we would not expect social forces such as sense of community to have as large an impact on this type of activity as we might for others such as attending a meeting. However, the results in table 5.2 portray a different picture, one in which sense of community does influence letter writing but by how much? Let us examine the results in table 5.2 more closely. First, the coefficient for sense of community is negative, albeit substantively small. Second, because the total sense of community variable for the Tallahassee Community Survey is an indicator of the summation of the individual’s score across several contexts, is it important to take into account how many contexts in which individuals actually have sense of community scores. Just as in the previous chapter, when generating the predicted probabilities, I included the summary context variable which indicates to how many contexts the respondent belongs. An example may provide some further clarification. It would be quite silly to discuss a minimum to maximum shift in the sense of community score if there is no possible way for an individual to have the maximum sense of community score—which is 275—because s/he only has a sense of community score for three contexts, meaning her maximum score could only be as high as 165.8 Thus, it is critical that these two are taken into account simultaneously.9 For instance, for an
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individual involved in two contexts with a total sense of community score of 22 (the lowest possible), the estimated likelihood of being very likely to write a letter to the editor is 0.36. In contrast, if that individual were to have the maximum sense of community score for two contexts (a score of 110) that probability drops to 0.21. A similar outcome occurs when we examine an individual who has a sense of community score in three contexts; the corresponding numbers for those with minimum and maximum scores are 0.43 to 0.20 and for five contexts, 0.58 to 0.18. Thus, for those with high sense of community scores, we could conclude that sense of community does not encourage individuals to write letters to the editor. But let us examine the case of the average individual—someone with average sense of community scores—a picture probably more realistic than someone with maximum or minimum scores. For the average individual, the estimated likelihood of being very likely to write a letter is actually positive although quite small. As the number of contexts increases, an individual with average sense of community scores actually has an increased probability of being very likely to write a letter to the editor; the estimated likelihood increases from 0.25 for two contexts to 0.27 for five contexts. Thus, overall, we see a small but significant positive effect for writing a letter to the editor but only for the average person and even in that case the net effect is marginal Figure 5.2 shows a graphical depiction of predicted probabilities for letter writing,10 we
VERY LIKELY to write a letter
1.0
Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 Sense of Community average max min
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 2
3 4 Number of Contexts
5
Figure 5.2 Letter Writing Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts
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see opposing slopes for those with minimum and maximum sense of community scores and a rather large gap between the lines. One explanation for the negative slope for high sense of community might be that letter writing is inherently a very personal and individualized activity; therefore we would expect sense of community to matter less for an activity of this type. Overall, figure 5.2 tells us some very interesting things about writing a letter to the editor. First, being involved in more contexts actually decreases the likelihood of letter writing for those with high sense of community scores. Second, only for the average person does sense of community seem to have a positive effect for letter writing. Thus, sense of community works both to the advantage and disadvantage for this type of activity. Signing a Petition Sense of community also has positive and direct effects on signing a petition. While signing a petition might seem at first to be an individual type of activity, when considered more fully, one might possibly conclude that signing a petition is indeed a social activity because for some it could be a result of the peer-pressure effect. That when someone arrives at your door-step or approaches you at an event asking you to sign a petition, it becomes more of a social type of activity rather than an individual one. Also, being involved in multiple contexts likely brings a greater opportunity for the individual to encounter petitioners. Thus, we might hypothesize that a positive effect would emerge from sense of community. Again, because the coefficients are based on ordered-logit models, I will discuss the substantive meaning of the results in terms of predicted probabilities. For the individual involved in two contexts, the probability of being very likely to signing a petition, moving from the minimum score to the maximum score increases from 0.37 to 0.62; for three contexts it shifts from 0.34 to 0.70. For five contexts we see a huge shift, the estimated likelihood for signing a petition increases from 0.28 when the sense of community score is at its lowest (55) to 0.83 when it is at its highest (275), a difference of over 0.50! Further, what we see in figure 5.3 is that having a high sense of community in only two contexts produces a greater probability for signing a petition than having a low score in several contexts. An individual with the highest sense of community score in just two contexts has a predicted probability of being very likely to sign a petition of 0.62 while someone with the lowest score in five contexts has a probability of 0.28; the difference is more than double. Thus, it is not necessarily the case that broader involvement is better when we speak in terms of low and high scores.
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“Very Likely to Sign a Petition”
1.0
Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6
Sense of Community average max min
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 2
3 4 Number of Contexts
5
Figure 5.3 Petition Signing Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts
What about the individual with average sense of community? For someone with average sense of community scores we again see positive net effects. The result of adding a context increases the probability of being very likely to sign a petition from 0.54 (for two contexts) to 0.70 (for five contexts), affirming the hypothesis that sense of community positively affects political activities that are social in nature. In the next section we will turn our attention to voting in local elections. Voting is perhaps the most individual type of activity one can undertake, thus we might expect that sense of community would have minimal effects for this type of activity. Voting in Local Elections When asked about the regularity of voting in local elections most people indicated that they voted “always.” Of those interviewed 59% responded that they “always” voted in local elections. Table 5.3 depicts the results for the ordered logit models. The dependent variable local vote is a four category variable. The categories include “never,” “rarely,” “somewhat often,” and “always.” Column 1 is the baseline model, where local vote is modeled as a function of various demographic and political variables. Like the previous models, I then introduce sense of community to determine what type of effect—if any—sense of community has on voting in local elections. The results in column 2 of table 5.3 demonstrate that sense of community has positive and significant effects on voting in local elections. A few
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Table 5.3 Local Vote Model—The Effect of Sense of Community on Local Voting Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable
Baseline Coefficient (se)
Full Survey Coefficient (se)
Total Sense of Community Context Dummy-Number of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust
.252 (.097)** .190 (.116)# .110 (.075) –.171 (.143)
.197 (.099)* .169 (.117) .081 (.076) –.180 (.143)
Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party
–.106 (.165) .063 (.026)** –.000 (.000) .087 (.046)# .361 (.088)
–.109 (.166) .043 (.026) .000 (.000) .068 (.047) .353 (.089)***
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 Pseudo R2 (obs)
.015 (.005)** –.266 (.242)
.009 (.022) –.012 (.017) .002 (.018) .011 (.015) .001 (.021) 161.55 (14) .104 (747)
.008 (.022) –.009 (.018) .001 (.018) .002 (.015) –.003 (.021) 182.15 (16) .117 (747)
Notes: # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
predicted probabilities may help clarify the substantive meaning of the coefficients depicted in the table (also refer to figure 5.4). When an individual has a sense of community score in two contexts, the probability of always voting in local elections is 0.25 when the sense of community score is at its minimum, however when it is at its maximum, the probability increases to 0.56—double the effect! For three contexts, the estimated likelihood of always voting shifts substantially from 0.23 to 0.69 when moving from the lowest to highest score and for five contexts, the probability increases from 0.20 when sense of community is at its minimum score to 0.88 at its highest score, a change of 0.68! Yet, unlike the general participation model, where having a score in several contexts yielded greater probabilities of participation than did having a score in one context, for voting in local elections the opposite appears to be true. The predicted probability of always voting in local elections is 0.56 for someone with the maximum score in two contexts, but it is only 0.20 for someone with the minimum score in five contexts—a change nearly double. This suggests
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“Vote ALWAYS in Local Elections”
1.0
Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6
Sense of Community average max min
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 2
3 4 Number of Contexts
5
Figure 5.4 Local Vote Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts
that having a greater sense of community in two contexts, such as church and the workplace for example, is more influential for voting in local elections than is having a low sense of community in several contexts. This of course is quite logical. If individuals have a high sense of community in church and work it is certainly plausible to assume they are more likely to be influenced or encouraged by the group to engage in political activity than would be individuals who are simply members of a church, a local organization, and neighborhood but do not really have any strong feelings of attachment in any of the contexts. What is surprising is that the results are so strong for an activity that many consider to be highly individualized. One possible explanation for this finding is that the effect of sense of community is important to local elections but not necessarily important for national elections because national elections draw greater turnout than local elections regardless of the efforts of the community.11 All of the hypothesized paths by which sense of community potentially influences participation—by providing information, by producing a sense of strength in numbers, and by exposing individuals to politically relevant persuasive efforts—may operate to encourage voting in local elections but is not a necessary condition for greater turnout in national elections. While low sense of community scores decrease the probability of voting in local elections, we see positive results for those with high sense of community scores and those with average
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sense of community scores. The net result for individuals with average sense of community scores 0.28—a shift from 0.45 for those with average scores in two contexts to 0.73 for five contexts. Overall, figure 5.4 leads us to some important conclusions about the effect of sense of community on local voting. First, the large gap between high and low sense of community suggests that sense of community is positively and quite strongly associated with local voting. Second, the parallel lines for high sense of community and average sense of community reveal that sense of community has its greatest effect on local voting for those individuals with average to high levels of attachment. This means that it is not necessarily the case that sense of community must be particular strong to have positive effects on voting but that it does need to be at least average to have positive effects. When we consider how to foster civic activities such as voting in local elections, one place to start might be to encourage individuals to develop stronger attachments to the contexts in which they belong. If they belong to two, we want them to have a moderate to strong sense of community in those two contexts, if they belong to multiple contexts but have minimal levels of attachment, then we should encourage them to possibly reduce the number of contexts in which they are involved and focus on just a few. Sense of community has strong direct positive effects on voting, but what about indirect effects? After all, we saw in the preceding sections that sense of community produced offsetting indirect effects on other forms of participation, with positive effects operating via efficacy counterbalanced by negative effects occurring through personal trust. In table 5.3, the results are much more consistent. First, personal trust yields no significant effects, positive or negative, on voting in local elections. Second, internal efficacy produces positive effects on voting. Hence, the direct and indirect effects for voting are mutually reinforcing. Sense of community directly increases the likelihood of voting in local elections, and also may produce an additional indirect positive effect due to the influence of internal efficacy on turnout. Summary Across the several dependent variables examined in this chapter, one finding remains constant; sense of community has direct effects on various types of political activities from broad participation, to individual acts of letter writing or signing a petition, and local voting. Further, indirect effects are also present in terms of internal efficacy
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and personal trust, although in some cases positive effects for efficacy are to some extent offset by negative effects for trust. The story that emerges from these models is an intriguing one. In one respect, for general participation as an example, belonging to multiple contexts has increased advantages for participation rather than belonging to—or having a sense of community score –for just two contexts (even if it is a high score), in other words, belonging to three rather than two contexts seems to be more influential for general participation—a finding that supports Putnam’s conclusions about community involvement. Yet, for local voting a very different effect emerges. In this case, having strong sense of community levels in two contexts is more meaningful than a low score across several contexts, suggesting of course that the mere counting of the number of contexts to which one belongs could render erroneous results when discussing the effects of community involvement on local voting. Clearly, all participatory acts are not alike. There are instances where sense of community is more or less meaningful to the outcome. However, these results highlight the importance of taking a multicontext approach to studying sense of community. First, by merely counting the number of contexts—measuring membership— important information could be missed, such as the level of attachment within those contexts. This point is demonstrated clearly in figures 5.2 through 5.4. If all that matters were the number of contexts in which a person is embedded, with levels of attachment within those contexts producing no additional effects, then we would have seen (a) parallel slopes for the three lines in each figure, and (b) trivial gaps between the lines. Neither of these results was obtained. Most impressive, of course, are the large gaps between the three lines in these figures, as these gaps reflect the substantial influence of sense of community on participation while holding number of contexts constant. Second, by simply asking about one context—the single context approach to studying community—the context that matters most for an individual could be left out, thereby leading the analyst to conclude (erroneously) that that person has low or worse yet, no sense of community. If, as I have argued throughout this book, social interaction matters for political participation, then it is critical that we understand when and how that interaction matters. The results presented in this chapter clearly point out when it matters most in terms of political activities—general participation, local voting, signing petitions— and how it matters: the idea that in some instances having sense of community in one context is more meaningful than having it in
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several and visa-versa. Improved understanding of the antecedents of political participation is possible with attention to the significance of social factors. More importantly, when we attend to social factors it is vital that we account for the nature of the individual’s experiences and levels of attachment across multiple social contexts. So far focus on sense of community in several contexts has provided strong evidence of the virtue of such an approach. A much richer depiction of the social component of political behavior emerges when we recognize both that people interact in several different contexts and that their levels of attachment within those contexts vary widely. In the next chapter we will empirically examine the extent to which sense of community and political discussion are associated with one another.
Chapter 6
The Interplay between Sense of Community and Political Discussion
T
he extent to which the social context provides a means for political dialogue has received considerable attention over the last decade (Cramer-Walsh 2004, Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995, Huckfeldt, Plutzer, and Sprague 1993, Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague 2004, Mutz 2006, Mutz and Mondak 2006, McClurg 2006, Wald, Owen, and Hill 1988, 1990 to name a few). The findings collectively suggest that social communication and political discourse play a significant role in American politics; from exposing individuals to opposing viewpoints, to assisting in political decision making and even increasing participation. One area not yet fully explored in this line of research is the relationship between an individual’s sense of community and political discussion.1 In which social contexts do we see the greatest frequency of political discussion? To what extent does sense of community influence political discussion? How does variation in sense of community affect the likelihood that individuals will discuss politics with individuals for whom they have weak versus strong social ties? How does sense of community influence exposure to dissimilar political views? It has been suggested and implicitly stated in the literature that community affects all sorts of political behaviors (Putnam 1993, 1995, 2000, Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995, Schlozman 2002). The extent to which this occurs, however, has remained largely a mystery due in part to rather coarse measures of community. Previous studies have tended to use length of residence or home ownership as proxy measures for community connectedness but these measures typically fall short in broadening our understanding of how community comes to matter. We know that someone has lived in a home for 2, 5, or 10
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years but we have no idea of what that means in terms of how connected that individual is to the neighborhood. Furthermore, most studies tend to focus on one context such as the neighborhood (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995), church (Wald et al. 1988, 1990), voluntary associations (Putnam 1993, 1994, 2000), or the workplace (Mutz and Mondak 2006) in isolation of other contexts. Of course this is perfectly acceptable if the intent is to determine the effect of the given context on political behavior. Yet, it is important to consider that most individuals operate in multiple contexts not simply one context independent of another. Others have noted this point (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995) yet few studies have paid attention to multiple contexts. If we are interested in the effect of social influence more broadly, then we stand to broaden our understanding of the social component of political behavior if we pay greater attention to the influence of multiple contexts. In this chapter we examine the interplay between sense of community and political discussion. Social Interaction and Political Discussion At the most basic level, the claim I advance is that we all have different sorts of social experiences and that these differences matter for political discussion. Clearly this claim is not novel. The idea that social interaction matters for political discussion has received a great deal of attention in recent years (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995, Huckfeldt et al. 1993, Huckfeldt et al. 2004, Mutz 2006, Mutz and Mondak 2006, McClurg 2006). However, further study is critical to broadening our understanding of the social component of political discussion. There are a couple of issues to consider when we begin assessing the social factors that influence political discussion. First, how do social forces, particularly the community, affect political discussion? Second, why do we expect that community will matter for discussion? Recall from chapter 3 the following two hypothetical people who are each involved to some degree in their community: person A is involved in his neighborhood association, is an active member of the local Italian-American club and interacts regularly with others at work; person B, in contrast, has only a minimal level of such social activity; she is simply involved in her church and even that involvement constitutes less than frequent attendance. At question is whether these differences in level of social activity matter for political discussion. The general expectation is that they do. The literature on social interaction suggests that we should see differences in politically relevant
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variables such as information exposure, political attitudes, and the depth and breadth of discussion. But why should social interaction matter for political discussion? Past work in this area such as Coleman’s groundbreaking analysis of social capital suggests at least one simple yet reasonable answer. Social interaction provides information. At a minimum people observe one another, they often exchange a few words, and these interactions transmit information. In other words, political discussion may be initiated and information disseminated by a person’s involvement in the community (i.e., context). Debate on this claim is virtually nonexistent; in fact research in political science on social capital, social influence and so on, is premised on the assumption that this sort of effect does occur. Cramer-Walsh’s (2004) evidence of social interaction and political talk in Ann Arbor is a case in point. Her observation of people in Ann Arbor suggests that political discussion is a by-product of social interaction. “Much political interaction occurs not among people who make a point to specifically talk about politics but emerges instead from the social processes of people chatting with one another” (Cramer-Walsh 2004, p. 35). Hence, when individuals come together and form a group whether it is a group of individuals who work together, attend the same church, live in the same neighborhood, etc. and engage in interaction with one another, a by-product of this social interaction is political discussion. This leads, therefore, to several hypotheses about sense of community and political discussion. One, there exists some sort of relationship between sense of community and political discussion. The greater the extent of involvement the more likely political discussion will occur. Two, variation in levels of sense of community should affect the frequency of political discussion differently depending on the depth and breadth of the social interaction within various contexts. Those who are highly involved should have greater opportunity for discussion. Three, sense of community should affect with whom political discussion takes place (i.e., the closeness of the main discussion partner). Four, sense of community should affect the level of exposure to dissimilar political views depending on the depth and breadth of social interaction within various contexts such that those who have the greatest opportunity for discussion (either because the depth or breadth of involvement) would be most likely to be exposed to dissimilar views. Most critical for the purposes of this chapter is that respondents were asked about their perception of their sense of community in multiple contexts and their level of political discussion within those contexts. As previously discussed, the survey included items in which
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respondents were asked about their level of connectedness in five types of contexts including: the workplace, place of worship, neighborhood, organizations and associations, and their friendship network. Political discussion networks are examined by asking respondents the extent to which they discussed local politics with members of each of the contexts listed above. We focus on local political discussion for the simple reason that it is a community based study and hence issues related to the community and local politics seemed to make the most sense as a basis for political discussion. For the primary discussion partner, the person with whom the respondent discussed local issues with the most, we asked them to provide for us some information about their discussion partner including the similarity or dissimilarity of their discussion partner’s political views in relationship to the respondent, partisan identification of their discussion partner, their discussion partner’s views of the president, and the level of agreement or disagreement on political issues between themselves and their discussion partner. In the analyses that follow, two models will be shown for each of the dependent variables discussed; these models are similar in format to the models in previous chapters. To determine the extent to which sense of community influences discussion, I first model it as a function of demographic variables such as education, gender, age, and political characteristics such as political knowledge, interest, trust and efficacy, party strength, and personality traits. I then add sense of community to the models to see what types of effects occur. The assessment of the influence of sense of community is simple, if the model changes when sense of community is added, then we know that sense of community contributes to further explaining political discussion. Measurement Before we proceed with the analysis it is worthwhile to give a brief description of the construction of the key variables of interest for this chapter. Total Sense of Community. Recall that the sense of community battery was asked to respondents for five types of contexts. Earlier I argued that it is important that we take a multicontext approach to studying sense of community. Thus, I advocate looking at individuals’ total sense of community across all contexts for which involvement takes place. Therefore, the variable total sense of community is
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a summary variable that captures an individual’s total sense of community score across all sub-contexts. It is an interval level variable that ranges from 46 to 263; it captures the depth of involvement. Number of Contexts. As described previously, individuals were asked about their sense of community in multiple contexts. This variable is simply a count of the number of contexts for which an individual is involved. It ranges from 2 to 5; it captures the breadth of involvement. Political Discussion. Individuals were asked how often they have discussions with other people (general discussion) and discussions about local politics (local discussion). Responses ranged from 1 “never discuss” to 4 “discuss very often.” As a follow up, they were asked “How often do you discuss these issues with: members of your family, people in your neighborhood, your friends, people in you clubs and associations, people at your work, people at your church or place of worship.” Again responses range from 1 “never discuss” to 4 “discuss very often.” Discussion Partner. Respondents were asked to describe the relationship between themselves and the person with whom they discussed local issues with the most. Responses range from 0 to 3, where 0= “just someone I come in contact with,” 1=“just a friend,” 2=“close friend,” and 3=“family member.” These responses were recoded into a dichotomous variable to indicate the strength of the tie between the respondent and the discussion partner, coded 0 (for just someone I come in contact with or just a friend) and 1 (close friend or family member). Exposure to Dissimilar Political Views. This variable is intended to capture the extent to which individuals are exposed to political viewpoints that are different than their own. Respondents were asked four items that indicate their level of exposure to dissimilar view points. The items are standardized and then combined into an index indicating the extent to which the respondent holds differing viewpoints than their discussion partner. The items include: 1. Compared with your discussion partner, would you say that your political views are much the same, somewhat different, or very different? 2. Do you think your discussion partner normally favors Republicans, Democrats, both or neither? 3. Does your discussion partner have a favorable or unfavorable view of George W. Bush? 4. When you discuss politics with your discussion partner, do you disagree very often, somewhat often, not very often, or never?. Controls. Several other variables are included in the different models as control variables. These include political variables such as internal
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efficacy, external efficacy, political trust, personal trust, partisanship, party strength, political interest, and political knowledge. Demographic indicators are also included such as education, gender, and age. Finally, I have included controls for personality characteristics. It is reasonable to assume (and it is often implied) that personality plays a role in political behavior. Even more so than for other types of behavior, it is highly plausible that personality would play an even larger role in discussion and social interaction and thus I have included these measures as controls. They are self described indicators of warmth, emotionality, conscientiousness, extroversion, and intelligence. Analysis and Results How does the frequency of local discussion vary by context? Table 6.1 depicts the results for the average frequency of local discussion by contexts. All significant contrasts are paired between the family and other contexts. The results in the table demonstrate that discussion of local politics occurs in all the contexts examined and the frequency of discussion does indeed vary by context. Specifically, there is a significant difference in average frequency between family and all other contexts, except for friends. The church context has the lowest mean value for discussion of local issues at 1.28 on a scale of 0 to 3. As one would expect, friends and family provide the greatest contexts for the frequency of discussion of local issues (both have means of 2.10). This is important because it corroborates my claim that it is important to take account of multiple contexts. The fact that discussion occurs here in every context provides evidence that merely focusing on one
Table 6.1 Average Frequency of Local Discussion by Context Variable Family Neighbor Friends Co-workers Church Associations
Mean (sd)
N
2.10 (.96) 1.35 (.97)*** 2.10 (.80) 1.72 (1.05)*** 1.28 (1.02)*** 1.60 (.98)***
727 727 726 645 643 631
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001. All significant contrasts are paired between family and other contexts.
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context in isolation of other contexts may cause us to miss the context that matters most for political discussion for a given individual. What is the effect of sense of community on local discussion and general discussion? Table 6.2 displays the ordered logit coefficient estimates for the general discussion and local discussion models. As discussed previously, the analysis unfolds in two stages. First, I estimate a baseline model and then add sense of community to the mix to see what effect, if any, it has on explaining general and local discussion. The dependent variables are 4 category variables ranging from 1 “never discuss” to 4 “discuss very often.” Columns 1 and 2 display the results for the general discussion model. As Column 2 demonstrates the addition of sense of community to the model results in positive and significant effects on general political discussion. The likelihood of discussing politics “very often” increases from .27 for those who have the lowest sense of community scores in 2 contexts but shifts to .46 for those who have the highest scores. This pattern persists as the number of contexts increases. The largest shift occurs for those involved in 5 contexts where the probability of discussing general politics “very often” increases from .18 for those with the lowest sense of community scores to .62 for those with the highest scores—an increase more than three times as much. This is not a trivial increase. Columns 3 and 4 display the results for the local discussion models. The addition of total sense of community to the model in Column 4 demonstrates that total sense of community has a significant and positive effect on local discussion. This suggests that sense of community influences general discussion as well as discussion of local issues—issues such as those affecting the community. This makes sense in light of the fact that sense of community is meant to capture levels of connectedness in the community, therefore the stronger the sense of community the more likely someone will be to discuss issues affecting the community. As is customary for the interpretation of ordered logit coefficients, I have generated a few predicted probabilities to help provide some substantive meaning to these results. Take for example an individual involved in 2 contexts, the predicted probability of discussing local politics very often is only .09 when sense of community is at the minimum, but it increases to .18 when sense of community is at the maximum, double the effect. For someone involved in five contexts we see an even greater shift, the probability of discussing local politics “very often” increases from .09 at its minimum to .40 at its maximum for someone with a sense of community score in five contexts, that is a shift of .31! When sense of community
Table 6.2
The Effect of Sense of Community on Local Discussion and General Discussion Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Political Knowledge Political Interest Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust Gender Age Age squared Education Strength of Party Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence Pseudo R2 (obs) LR Chi2
Baseline General Discussion Model
General Discussion Model
Baseline Local Discussion Model
Local Discussion Model
Coefficient (SE)
Coefficient (SE)
Coefficient (SE)
Coefficient (SE)
.17 (.06)** .36 (.08)*** .19 (.09) –.06 (.11) .13(.07)# –.13 (.13) .09 (.15) .02 (.02) –.00 (.00) .14 (.04)*** .24 (.08)** .00 (.02) .03 (.02)# .02 (.02) .04 (.01)** .06 (.02)** .07 (748) 120.4
.01 (.00)* –.28 (.21) .16 (.06)** .34 (.08)*** .06 (.09) –.07 (.11) .11 (.07)* –.14 (.13) .11 (.15) .01 (.02) –.00 (.00) .14 (.04)*** .23 (.08)** .00 (.02) .03 (.02)** .02 (.02) .03 (.01)* .05 (.02)** .07 (748) 125.5
.09 (.05) .48 (.08)*** .54 (.09)*** –.06 (.10) .07 (.07) –.43 (.13)*** –.11 (.14) .02 (.02) –.00 (.00) .09 (.04)** .03 (.08) –.02 (.02) .00 (.02) .04 (.02)** .03 (.01)# .01 (.02) .07 (748) 144.8
.01 (.00)# –.11 (.20) .08 (.06) .47 (.08)*** .49 (.09)*** –.07 (.10) .05 (.07) –.43 (.13)*** –.11 (.15) .00 (.02) .00 (.00) .08 (.04)# .02 (.08) –.02 (.02) .00 (.02) .03 (.02)* .02 (.01) .01 (.02) .08 (748) 155.3
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
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is at the higher rather than lower levels we see a tremendous effect on the probability of discussing local issues “very often.” A graphical representation of the predicted probabilities for the various combinations of values for sense of community and number of contexts provides further illustration of these effects. Figures 6.1 and 6.2 displays the predicted probabilities of discussing general and “Discuss Politics Very Much” (general)
1.0
Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6
Sense of Community average max min
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1
2
3 4 Number of Contexts
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Figure 6.1 General Political Discussion Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts Discuss LOCAL politics Very Much 1.0 0.9 0.8
Mean PP
0.7 0.6 Sense of Community average max min
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0
2
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Number of Contexts Figure 6.2 Local Political Discussion Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts
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local issues “very often” when sense of community is at three levels: minimum, average, and maximum. Just as in earlier chapters, the vertical axis is the predicted probability and the horizontal axis is the number of contexts for which the individual has a sense of community score. The graph set up in this manner accounts for the breadth (number of contexts) and depth (total sense of community score) of sense of community. This graphical depiction leads us to a couple of interesting conclusions. First, the large gap which exists between minimum and average sense of community suggests that sense of community is positively and strongly associated with discussion of local issues. Second, the roughly parallel lines for sense of community suggest that sense of community has its greatest effect for those with average to strong sense of community. And the least effect for those with low sense of community. Therefore, it is not necessarily the case that sense of community must be strong to have positive effects on the frequency of local discussion but it does at least have to be average What is the relationship between sense of community and the closeness of the respondent’s discussion partner? Table 6.3 provides logit coefficient estimates for the effect of sense of community on the closeness of the discussion partner. The dependent variable is closeness of the discussion partner. It has been recoded to indicate whether the discussion partner is a weak (coded as 0) or strong tie (coded as
Table 6.3 Effect of Sense of Community on Discussion Partner (Strong v. Weak Tie) Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Party Strength Political Interest Political Knowledge Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence Constant Pseudo R2 (obs)
Baseline Model Coefficient (SE)
.14 (.10) .03 (.10) .16 (.07)** .04 (.02) .05 (.02)* .03 (.02) .03 (.02) –.03 (.025) –1.23 (.719) .026 (697)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
Full Model Coefficient (SE) .017 (.006)** –.69 (.26)** .14 (.10) .002 (.10) .134 (.068)* .027 (.024) .054 (.022)* .029 (.020) .018 (.018) –.032 (.025) –.748 (.857) .039 (697)
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1). The hypothesis here is that sense of community will influence the likelihood that a discussion partner will be a weak tie (rather than a family member or close friend). If someone is involved in contexts beyond their family members or close circle of friends, the opportunity of finding a discussion partner who is not a strong tie may be increased. The results suggest that sense of community is positively and significantly related to the closeness of the respondent’s discussion partner. The predicted probabilities provide an interesting story. Figure 6.3 illustrates the predicted probabilities when the discussion partner is a weak tie. Again, we have 3 lines depicting sense of community at 3 levels: maximum, average, and minimum. The vertical axis the predicted probability of a discussion partner that is a weak tie and the horizontal axis is the number of contexts. Here a fascinating picture emerges. Those who have the lowest sense of community and are involved in the most contexts—four or five—are the most likely to have discussion partners who are a weak tie. The probabilities are .70 and .80 respectively. This corroborates existing research on the nature of contexts and weak ties. For someone with an average sense of community, the predicted probability that their discussion partner is someone with whom they have a weak tie, ranges from .26 to .38 depending on the number of contexts s/he is involved. This suggests
1.0
Discussion Partner is a WEAK TIE
Predicted Probability
0.8
0.6 Sense of Community average max min
0.4
0.2
0.0
2
3
4
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Contexts Figure 6.3 Discussion Partner Model—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts
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that average levels of connectedness can have at least a moderate influence on the probability that the main discussion partner is not a close friend or family member. This is important because it relates to research on cross-cutting information exposure and provides evidence that sense of community can in fact influence the likelihood (although negatively) that a discussion partner will be a weak tie (and hence has implications for exposure to dissimilar political viewpoints). In other words, those with the strongest sense of community are the least likely to have a discussion partner who is a weak tie and thus potentially the least likely to be exposed to dissimilar political views. Table 6.4 provides the final analysis for this chapter. It presents the results for the effect of sense of community on exposure to dissimilar political views. The hypothesis here is that sense of community influences exposure to different political views depending on the depth and breadth of involvement. We might expect that those who are more broadly involved (i.e., involved in multiple contexts) may be more likely to be exposed to dissimilar view points compared to those more deeply involved in only one or two contexts. Unfortunately, the results in presented in table 6.4 fail to indicate any significant results for the effect of sense of community on exposure to dissimilar viewpoints. The only significant effect here is the Table 6.4 Effect of Sense of Community on Exposure to Dissimilar Political Views Estimated via OLS Regression Variable Sense of Community Number of Contexts Education Interest Political Knowledge Party Strength Strength of Tie Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence Constant Adjusted R2 (obs)
Coefficient (SE) .008 (.007) –.347 (.315) .014 (.063) .06 (.121) .015 (.09) –.19 (.12) –.38 (.107)** –.038 (.029) –.032 (.025) .03 (.025) –.025 (.021) –.05 (.030) 2.42 (1.04) .035 (693)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
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discussion partner. In accord with previous research in this area, the results here provide corroborating evidence that weaker ties have the greatest effect on exposure to dissimilar political views. The depth (level of connectedness) and the breadth (number of contexts) fail to provide anything further to explaining exposure to dissimilar political viewpoints. Summary The purpose of this chapter was to examine the interplay between sense of community and political discussion. Few studies in political science take a multicontext approach to studying the influence of social interaction on political discussion and none that I am aware of examine the relationship between political discussion and sense of community. I have argued that if we want to understand the implication of social interaction more broadly then we must examine the simultaneous effects of multiple contexts rather than focusing on contexts in isolation of one another. Here I examined the effect of an individual’s total sense of community across multiple contexts on political discussion. The results demonstrate that sense of community is positively and quite strongly associated with political discussion of both general issues and local issues. This makes sense since sense of community implies connectedness which is unlikely to occur if people do not converse with one another. When individuals are more attached to their community they are more likely to engage in conversation about all sorts of issues both local issues and general issues. Where the discussion takes place is also of importance. The results reported here makes it clear that people are discussing politics in all of the contexts examined here although it is highest amongst family and friends. Sense of community also has a significant effect on whether the respondent’s most frequent discussion partner is someone who is a weak or strong tie. The data demonstrate that it is those who are the least attached that are more likely to develop contacts that they consider weak ties. However, despite this, sense of community fails to have any significant effect on exposure to dissimilar political views. This is in my opinion a bit perplexing and thus warrants closer examination. Political discourse is an important element in the American political system. Discussion takes place in all sorts of contexts and provides individuals with information. This information is typically a by product of social interaction but can be critical to the choices people make
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and the opinions people hold about politics. Understanding how and where people receive their information and how different factors contribute to the dissemination of that information is important for students of politics. The findings here suggest that a multicontext approach and attention to levels of connectedness (i.e., sense of community) are important considerations in that quest to broaden our understanding of how social involvement affects political discussion.
Chapter 7
The Relationship between Political Knowledge and Sense of Community
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hus far we have explored the extent to which sense of community influences various types of political behaviors such as trust, efficacy, participation, and discussion. The evidence from the preceding chapters indicates that sense of community has much to offer in terms of adding to the discussion of what factors influence political behavior. Aside from individual level factors such as age, gender, income, education, partisanship, and personality, which are often fixed or slow changing (i.e., income and education), we know that other factors are also important to consider. As we have discussed throughout this book, over the last decade or so, political scientists have returned to the Columbia idea that social environments influence behaviors and attitudes and as such also warrant attention. Research on political behavior has long implied that attachment to the community should be a consideration but measuring it has been somewhat obscure, often taking the form of proxy variables such as home ownership and length of residence to account for community connectedness. However, as has been discussed previously, these provide at best a rather coarse measure of connectedness. Rather, sense of community as defined by community psychologists offers us a more nuanced measure of community attachment and has been shown throughout this book to be an important factor for all sorts of political behaviors. Along with trust, efficacy, participation, and discussion, another factor that may also be influenced by sense of community is political knowledge, particularly local political knowledge. Over the past 20 years, much attention has been paid to political knowledge. In fact a quick search in JSTOR reveals over 200 articles since 1989 in which “political knowledge” appears in the abstract.
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Research on the topic has represented defining, measuring, and explaining differences in political knowledge. Studies have taken the form of examining political knowledge as an intervening variable to explain different sorts of political behaviors such as participation (e.g., Verba, Scholzman, and Brady 1995). It has also been widely studied in terms of its construct and measurement (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1993, 1996, Mondak 2000, 2001, Mondak and Davis 2001). Research has also explored what factors contribute to explaining political knowledge in its own right, considering for example why gaps exist between men and women and between those with greater socioeconomic status compared to lesser (Dow 2009, Jerit, Barabas, and Bolsen 2006, Mondak and Anderson 2004, Verba, Burns, and Scholzman 1997). Collectively, the research has demonstrated that political knowledge plays a critical role in explaining behavior and thus warrants further study to better understand what accounts for differences in levels of political knowledge. In other words, greater attention ought to be paid to political knowledge as a dependent variable. We know from previous research that individual level factors particularly education and age are important determinants of political knowledge. But what we also know is that these are slow changing variables. Recent research has therefore begun to consider the information environment as a source for accounting for differences in political knowledge. Attention recently has been paid to the influence of the mass media on political knowledge. Jerit et al. (2006) for example demonstrate that variation in media coverage has important consequences for political knowledge particularly for those who are the least educated. Beyond the media, however, other outlets could serve to increase political knowledge; I contend that one such outlet is the community. First, we will examine the effect of sense of community on national political knowledge and then we will turn to local political knowledge. Although research on political knowledge abounds, relatively little is known about the manner in which social contexts may come to influence knowledge; and even less is known about what citizens know (or do not know) about local political knowledge. The lack of research on local political knowledge is not at all surprising because unlike general political knowledge it is locale-specific and typically does not lend itself to items that can be asked on large national surveys such as the General Social Survey or American National Election Study, thus it is subject to small community based surveys such as the one used in this study. While there have been few studies that have examined social networks Scheufele, Shanahan, and Kim (2002) is
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one notable exception. Research conducted by Scheufele et al. (2002) suggests that community ties and social networks play a role in acquiring information and becoming informed about local issues. However, I depart from the work of Scheufele et al. (2002) in two ways. First, like previous studies which have been highlighted thus far, their measure of community consists of length of residence and home ownership which I have argued throughout this book are at best proxy measures for community attachment. Second, there is a discernable difference between being informed about local issues and having knowledge of local politics. Being informed about a local issue implies awareness of an issue, in fact they operationalize issue awareness as “a dichotomous measure of previous awareness of the issue” (p. 433) prior to the interview. Knowledge of local politics on the other hand, as I define it, is factual knowledge about local government. The focus of Scheufele et al. (2002) is on the former, our focus here is on the latter. In the section that follows I will explain how I believe political knowledge and local political knowledge can be measured. Measuring Political Knowledge There are a couple of ways in which political knowledge can be measured. Some studies treat political knowledge as a culmination of factual knowledge about government, while others elect to treat political knowledge as knowledge about particular government policies or programs. Both provide a researcher with information about levels of political knowledge, however, which type is used is largely determined by the type(s) of questions the researcher is seeking to answer. For the purposes of this study we will be using the former. We are interested in learning to what extent sense of community influences levels of political knowledge. We will be examining two types of knowledge: general political knowledge—knowledge about national politics and government—and local political knowledge—knowledge about local government and politics. General Political Knowledge. Generally speaking, the ability of researchers to formulate relatively reliable political knowledge scales using just a few items drawn from surveys has been quite successful. Furthermore, these types of questions take but a few seconds for respondents to answer and can be asked year after year providing researchers the ability to track knowledge levels over time. For the analyses that follow, general political knowledge is a count of correct answers given to a 5 item battery of questions about national politics
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and government. The questions include which branch has the authority to decide if a law is constitutional or not, who nominates federal judges, which party is more conservative than the other, what percentage of the House and Senate is needed to override a presidential veto, and what is the main duty of Congress. All items were presented in a multiple choice format and don’t knows were discouraged, on average 1.8% don’t knows were offered per question. Scores ranged from 0 to 5 with a mean of 3.7 questions answered correctly and a standard deviation of 1.39. Local Political Knowledge. Local political knowledge is knowledge of local government and politics. It is more difficult to measure than general political knowledge for a couple of reasons. First, unlike general political knowledge scant research exists on local political knowledge. Thus, it makes it difficult to determine what types of questions should be asked of respondents in order to ascertain local political knowledge levels. After numerous discussions with colleagues and pretesting several items early in the process of this research we settled on 5 items. Like general political knowledge, local political knowledge is a count of correct answers given to a 5 item battery about local politics and government. The questions include which type of government governs the city, what is the party affiliation of the superintendent of schools, whether the county commission elections were partisan or nonpartisan, who was the chairman of the county commission, and when the next mayoral election was to take place. Because respondents were drawn from both the county and city we wanted an equal balance of questions representing city and county governance; all the schools in the area are under control of the county, therefore the superintendent question was applicable to all Table 7.1 Frequency Distribution of General Political Knowledge and Local Political Knowledge
Number of Questions Answered Correctly 0 1 2 3 4 5 Total N
General Political Knowledge Frequency (percent) 18 (2.19) 60 (7.3) 97 (11.8) 111 (13.5) 202 (24.57) 334 (40.63) 822 (100)
Local Political Knowledge Frequency (percent) 10 (1.22) 40 (4.87) 140 (17.03) 235 (28.59) 261 (31.75) 136 (16.55) 822 (100)
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respondents. Similar to the general political knowledge questions, all items were presented in a multiple choice format and don’t knows were discouraged. Overall, don’t knows were offered at a rate 4 times higher than that of the general political knowledge questions (8.6% per question) suggesting respondents are far more uncertain about questions regarding local politics than national politics. Scores ranged from 0 to 5 with a mean of 3.34 questions and a standard deviation of 1.16. Table 7.1 provides the frequency distributions for general and local political knowledge. Social Interaction and Political Knowledge To what extent does sense of community matter for general political knowledge? To what extent does it matter for local political knowledge? Is there reason to believe that sense of community might be more important for local political knowledge rather than general political knowledge? Research on social influence suggests that individuals embedded within social contexts are at the very least likely to observe one another and at some point disseminate information between one another. This could occur around the water cooler at the office, at the YMCA, at a youth baseball field, at church, or a local event such as a city parade. The dissemination of information could at some point also contain content related to politics, thus the exchange of knowledge would occur as a by-product of interpersonal communication. It is important to note, however, that such knowledge can take on various forms ranging from factually inaccurate, to partially accurate, to fully accurate. What is important for the purpose of the present study is that interaction between people is occurring and that knowledge (in some form) has the potential to be exchanged. However, because the examination of sense of community is by definition local, it is my contention that sense of community will be more important for local political knowledge rather than general political knowledge. It is likely that if politics is discussed at all in these contexts it will be about the community, particularly by those who are most strongly connected. Furthermore, the results from chapter 6 on political discussion demonstrated that sense of community influences the discussion of local politics rather than national politics. Thus, it is unlikely that sense of community will play a role in general political knowledge. The type of information that is expected to be exchanged regarding national politics in the contexts examined here is unlikely to be the factual information the likes of which we measure with the general political knowledge questions; rather it is likely to be about
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national current events and issues. Our measure of local political knowledge on the other hand deals with matters such as when the next mayoral election will be, who the chairman of the county commissioners is, etc.—the type of knowledge that is more likely to be exchanged in such local settings as the workplace, church, soccer field, etc.—because it relates to something the members have in common—the local community. General Political Knowledge. Although I do not suspect sense of community to be a strong predictor of general political knowledge, it is none-the-less important that we examine it here. The test here, like in the preceding chapters is quite straightforward, I will first model political knowledge as a function of the “usual suspects” which include age, education, gender, income, interest, and discussion along with the Big Five personality traits and then add the sense of Table 7.2 The Effect of Sense of Community on General Political Knowledge Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable
Baseline General Political Knowledge
Full General Political Knowledge Model
Coefficient (SE)
Coefficient (SE)
Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Political Interest Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust Frequency of local discussion Frequency of general discussion Gender Age Age squared Education Strength of Party Home ownership Income Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2(df) (obs)
.006 (.15) –.27 (.21) .326 (.09)*** –.15 (.09) –.08 (.11) .26 (.08)*** .11 (.13) –.00 (.09) –.11 (.10) .53 (.16)*** .013 (.024) –.00 (.00) .29 (.05)*** –.11 (.08) –.231 (.19) .20 (.06)*** .01 (.02) .04 (.01)* –.04 (.01)** .00 (.01) .04 (.02)* 237.56 (19) (666)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
.32 (.08)*** –.16 (.09)# –.09 (.11) .25 (.07)*** .10 (.13) –.00 (.09) –.10 (.10) .54 (.16)*** .00 (.02) .00 (.00) .30 (.04)*** –.11 (.08) –.21 (.19) .19 (.06)** .01 (.02) .04 (.01)* –.04 (.01) –.00 (.01) .04 (.02)* 239.58 (21) (666)
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community variables to the mix to see if the model changes at all with the inclusion of those variables. Because political knowledge is a 6 category variable, the models will be estimated via ordered logit and if any significant results emerge, predicted probabilities will be plotted to provide some substantive meaning to the ordered logit coefficients. Table 7.2 displays the results of the baseline model and the full model with the sense of community variables. As the baseline model demonstrates many of the usual suspects are significant predictors of political knowledge along with personal trust and several personality characteristics such as emotional stability, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Column 2 displays the results for the full model where we introduce the sense of community items to the mix. As the table demonstrates, the sense of community variables fail to add to the model in any meaningful way. The variables that were significant in the baseline model hold steady in the full model adding only internal efficacy (which just misses significance in the baseline model with a p=.106). Therefore, we can conclude that sense of community does not bear influence in any significant manner on general political knowledge as we suspected it would not. Next, let’s turn to local political knowledge. Local Political Knowledge. Based on the findings in chapter 6 concerning political discussion and for the reasons presented above, I contend that sense of community is likely to be associated with local political knowledge. Once again, the test is a simple one. I will first take account of the typical factors established in the literature and then add the sense of community variables to the model to see if the model changes in any significant manner. The results of the ordered logit regression models are presented in Table 7.3. Column 1 displays the results of the baseline model. As in the baseline model for general political knowledge, many of the usual suspects are indeed significant: age, education, gender, home ownership, and interest. Unlike the general political knowledge model, the personality characteristics fail to emerge as significant predictors of local political knowledge, this is indeed interesting. When we add the sense of community variables to the model a different picture emerges than the one we saw with the general political knowledge model. Sense of community materializes to be a significant predictor local political knowledge, along with the typical factors known to influence political knowledge. This is an important finding. The factors
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Table 7.3 The Effect of Sense of Community on Local Political Knowledge Estimated via Ordered Logit
Variable
Baseline Local Political Knowledge
Full Local Political Knowledge Model
Coefficient (SE)
Coefficient (SE)
Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Political Interest Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust Frequency of local discussion Frequency of general discussion Gender Age Age squared Education Strength of Party Home ownership Income Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (obs)
.01 (.02)* .19 (.08)* .03 (.09) .15 (.10) .04 (.07) –.17 (.13) –.26 (.09)** –.01 (.09) .27 (.15)# .05 (.02)* –.00 (.00)* .14 (.04)*** .05 (.08) –.47 (.19)* –.01 (.05) –.01 (.02) .01 (.01) –.02 (.01) .00 (.01) .01 (.02) 108.74 (666)
–.33 (.21) .19 (.08)* .00 (.09) .12 (.10) .02 (.07) –.18 (.13) –.24 (.09)* –.00 (.09) .29 (.15)# .05 (.02)* –.00 (.00)* .14 (.04)*** .04 (.08) –.42 (.19)* –.02 (.05) –.01 (.02) .01 (.01) –.02 (.01) .00 (.01) .01 (.02) 115.11 (666)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
we know to influence general political knowledge retain their significance for local political knowledge. Furtherer, beyond those usual suspects, sense of community has emerged as a significant factor. Because ordered logit regression coefficients are often difficult to interpret substantively, I have generated a few predicted probabilities to provide some substantive meaning to the results. Let’s look for example at a person with low sense of community in two contexts, for this person the probability of answering 4 of the 5 local political knowledge questions correctly is .23, if this same person were to have high sense of community and still belong to 2 contexts, the probability of answering 4 questions correctly jumps to .36. The largest difference however comes when we look at five contexts, the person with low sense of community has a probability of answering 4 questions correctly of .14 but that increases to .30—double the likelihood—when
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we look at someone with high sense of community. A few plotted predicted probabilities can further demonstrate these effects. Like the figures from the previous chapters, in Figure 7.1 we can see the effects on local political knowledge for individuals with low, average, and high sense of community. The horizontal axis represents the number of contexts to which an individual belongs and the vertical axis represents the predicted probability. The lines in the graph represent individuals with sense of community scores at three different levels. Note that these predicted probabilities are plotted for those who answered 4 knowledge questions correctly, which was the modal category. Similar graphs were constructed for the other categories and the pattern remains the same. Several conclusions can be drawn from this figure. First, the large gap between high and low sense of community indicates that sense of community is positively and strongly associated with local political knowledge. Second, the seemingly parallel lines for average and high sense of community illustrate that sense of community has its greatest effect for those with average to high levels of attachment, meaning that sense of community need not be high but at least average to reach the level of effect seen here. The results displayed here in Table 7.3 and illustrated in Figure 7.1 corroborates my claim and the implied assertion of many other scholars that social contexts, particularly community, ought to be considered when examining various types of political behaviors and attitudes. Local Political Knowledge 4 questions answered correctly 1.0 Predicted Probability
0.9 0.8 0.7
Sense of Community average max min
0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 2
3
4
5
Number of Contexts Figure 7.1 Local Political Knowledge—Graphical Representation of Predicted Probability for Sense of Community by Number of Contexts
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The role of the social context—here the level of connectedness to the community—ought not to be discarded as something meaningless. In fact, quite the opposite, the results shown here demonstrate that sense of community plays a significant role in explaining local political knowledge. Summary The evidence from the previous chapters supports my claim that further attention ought to be paid to the influence of community on political behavior. For decades scholars have suggested that the community plays a vital role for all sorts of political behaviors and attitudes. The evidence presented thus far empirically substantiates that claim. In this chapter we examined the influence of community on political knowledge. While sense of community fails to significantly impact general political knowledge, the data presented here demonstrate that sense of community is a significant factor in local political knowledge. The idea that attachment to one’s community can yield greater political learning about local politics is an important finding. As former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once stated “All politics is local.” Decisions that affect individual daily activity the most occur at the local level of government—the decision to build a waste facility plant, widen a road, install a traffic signal, alter waste management services, approve rate hikes in water bills, build a new school to alleviate overcrowding—these are the types of decisions that are made at the local level of government. If we can find avenues to broaden knowledge of local politics and government people may be better equipped to make informed decisions about such choices. The evidence presented here suggests that beyond those fixed or slow changing factors such as gender, age, education, and income, one manner in which we can cultivate local knowledge is by building and strengthening sense of community.
Chapter 8
An Alternate Approach: Simple Membership versus Sense of Community
A
t the most basic level the argument I put forward throughout this book is that it is important that we consider the effect of multiple contexts rather than taking a single-context approach or simply taking account of membership in a context. The evidence presented thus far in the preceding chapters corroborates my claims that individuals vary in their levels of attachments to particular contexts and that in each of the five contexts examined here, there were those who had a strong sense of community. This suggests, therefore, that measuring only one context, i.e, the neighborhood, the church, or the workplace, could possibly yield misleading results or miss the context(s) that matter most for any given individual. More importantly, by measuring only membership in a context we assume that all individuals in that context have the same level of attachment to that context. On its face, this is highly unrealistic. Earlier results demonstrate that individuals have varying levels of attachments in the different contexts examined here (see chapter 3 results). Thus, while we know that variance in level of sense of community exists across the different contexts it remains a matter of empirical investigation whether or not accounting for sense of community bears more meaningful results than had we simply taken account of membership in a context. Therefore, a fuller empirical investigation is warranted to demonstrate whether measuring sense of community in multiple contexts furthers our understanding more than if we had just measured membership alone. Previous research has demonstrated the importance of context for all sorts of political behaviors, however, measurement of involvement in those particular contexts has typically
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included whether the respondent was part of a context or not. This might be perfectly acceptable if the intention is to understand the influence of a particular context, for example the church or neighborhood. But my contention is that taking account of membership in this manner leaves out the critical element of strength of attachment to that context and the variance that inherently exists in such settings. For example, it is very likely that membership in an association, has a different meaning for the 3 year highly involved member who holds a leadership position and attends regularly than for the first year member who simply shows up from time to time and is less involved. It makes sense that these varying levels of involvement might influence the degree to which sense of community will come to influence political behavior. We can test this claim—the simple membership thesis—by analyzing data from the telephone survey. For the remainder of this chapter we will turn our attention to whether examining membership alone leads us to the same conclusion as examining sense of community (i.e., level of attachment in the context) in terms of its influence of political behavior. We will take a sampling of several dependent variables that we have examined in the preceding chapters. If we find that accounting for sense of community provides us with the same results as if we had simply taken account of whether someone belonged to a context or not, then we will have gained relatively little by paying closer attention to sense of community and measuring it in the more nuanced fashion that I have proposed. In other words we will have determined that simply taking account of membership in a context is a perfectly acceptable manner in which to examine the influence on context on political behavior. On the other hand, if we find different results, it would suggest that simply taking account of membership is not sufficient and that the more nuanced approach that I have proposed here marks an improvement toward a broader understanding of the influence of community on political behavior. Measurement Data for the analyses that follow come from the telephone survey of Tallahassee residents in which they were asked about their level of sense of community in five different contexts. Simple Membership. Simple membership in the analyses that follow is a simple count of the number of contexts to which the respondent
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belongs. You will recall that respondents were asked about their level of sense of community in the following contexts: the workplace, neighborhood, association, place of worship, and an informal context which I have termed circle of friends throughout this book. If the respondent did not belong to one of those contexts, they were not asked the battery of sense of community items. Every respondent was involved in at least two contexts (circle of friends and neighborhood), however there was a great deal of variation for membership in the remaining three contexts: workplace, place of worship, and associations. The scale then, for simple membership ranges from 2 to 5 with a mean of 3.79 and a standard deviation of .74. Table 8.1 provides the frequency distribution for simple membership. Of those sampled 66% of the sample belonged to 4 or 5 contexts while only 30% belonged to 2 or 3. Sense of Community. Sense of community continues to be measured in the same manner in which it has been throughout this book. It is defined as an individual’s total sense of community. This variable is a summary measure of the respondent’s sense of community scores across all contexts for which they offered answers. Theoretically scores can range from 11 to 275, the true range from our sample is 46–263 with a mean of 158.14 and a standard deviation of 36.8. Dependent Variables While it would be redundant to examine every individual dependent variable that we have discussed in the preceding chapters, a more parsimonious approach would be to take a sampling of some of the behaviors we have studied and conduct a test of the simple membership thesis. Trust. In the chapter 4 we examined the influence of sense of community on trust. Here we explored both personal and political trust and found that sense of community exerted significant and positive effects on both. For the purposes of comparing the effect of simple membership versus sense of community we will focus on political trust. The choice of political trust as opposed to personal trust stems from two points. First, at least from my viewpoint political trust is a more central component to political behavior than personal trust. Political trust deals with trusting our elected representatives while personal trust deals more with generalized trust in others. Second, the effect of sense of community on political trust was weaker than its
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effect on personal trust. Therefore, it sets up a more stringent test of our hypothesis. Any effect found for political trust is likely to be found for personal trust as well, provided the results already demonstrated in chapter 4. Efficacy. Also in chapter 4 we examined two forms of efficacy, internal efficacy and external efficacy. As you will call to mind, internal efficacy is the belief that an individual can influence government in some way, a belief about one’s own ability to influence the political process. External efficacy on the other hand, is the belief about the responsiveness of government officials to the concern of citizens. While both are important to examine in terms of political behavior (indeed I make the case for both in chapter 4 and provide the relevant literature for the examination of both), for the purposes here, we are going to focus on internal efficacy, as I believe it is the one that is the most integral to political behavior. Participation. Chapter 5 examined the role of sense of community as a factor on political participation. Here we examined several different behaviors. First we took an assessment of the influence of sense of community on general participation. This you will recall was a summary variables of five different activities including speaking at a local meeting, attending a local meeting, signing a petition, writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper about a concern, and contacting a local representative. We also looked at voting in local elections. For the purposes of our simple membership test, we will focus on voting in local elections as it is the most common form of participation. Political Discussion. In chapter 6 we explored the interplay between sense of community and political discussion. Research on political discussion has been resurrected over the last ten years or so and has been shown to play a key role in various types of political behavior. Many studies in examining political discussion take account of membership in a context but fail to explore the depth of the connectedness individuals have in the context. Studies have paid attention to whether the respondent’s main discussion partner is a strong tie or weak tie but beyond that there is relatively little that exists about the depth of connectedness to the context beyond the examination of the main discussion partner. Here we will test the simple membership thesis for general discussion of political issues as well as local discussion of issues. Political Knowledge. Finally, in chapter 7 we examined political knowledge. Political knowledge has recently gained attention over the last decade and a half as both a variable that helps explain different
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types of behavior and one that stands alone as its own dependent variable. We have analyzed it as the latter here and hypothesized that sense of community influences levels of political knowledge. We took the additional step of focusing on local political knowledge— something that has remained largely unexplored. For the purpose of the simple membership thesis we will focus on this rather new territory of local political knowledge. Analysis of the Simple Membership Thesis Although the results conducted so far support the claim that a multicontext approach to examining political behavior is warranted and that variance exists in levels of connectedness across these different contexts, I recognize that a competing perspective is that the traditional manner of accounting for membership in a context provides sufficient information for which to conduct analyses. This of course, assumes that we gain no leverage whatsoever in measuring community in a more nuanced manner the likes of which I have proposed. If however, I can demonstrate that the more nuanced measure provides information we might have otherwise failed to account for, then measuring sense of community beyond simply membership is clearly a worthwhile endeavor. The data from the telephone survey allows us to test the simple membership thesis. This direct test is quite straightforward. First I will model the sampling of political behaviors as they are in the preceding chapters with the sense of community variable included in the model. Second, I will model each of them with the simple membership variable. If we find that the results from each model are similar then the competing view that accounting for membership alone is sufficient will be substantiated. If however we find different results then the claim that I have advanced throughout this book will be corroborated. We will take each type of behavior in the order in which they appear in the chapters throughout the book. The regression results can be found in appendix H. For the sake of parsimony the results I will present in the following sections will be based on predicted probabilities. Political Trust In chapter 4 we found that sense of community exerted significant yet modest effects on political trust. However, when we examine the simple membership thesis and merely account for membership in
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the contexts without any attention whatsoever to connectedness in those contexts we find that membership fails to demonstrate any significant results at all on political trust (see appendix H, table H.1). As a result I can not generate predicted probabilities on an insignificant variable because doing so violates the assumptions of statistical inference. Nevertheless, what this model tells us then is that had we elected to use the traditional perspective of simply counting whether someone was part of a context or not, we would have determined that community had no influence on political trust whatsoever. Yet, the evidence presented in chapter 4 clearly demonstrates that contexts do matter and that it is the level of connectedness within those contexts that have the greatest effect on political trust. Hence, we would have missed this effect entirely had we proceeded with the traditional view and neglected to move beyond membership. Internal Efficacy Earlier we also explored the extent to which sense of community influenced internal and external efficacy. As I explained in the preceding pages we can only take a sampling of all the behaviors we examined throughout this book. Therefore, we will focus our attention on internal efficacy—the belief in one’s ability to influence government. In chapter 4 we found that sense of community positively and significantly effected internal efficacy. In fact, predicted probabilities for the likelihood of having strong feelings of efficacy ranged anywhere from .03 to .15 for those involved in two contexts to .01 to .45 for those involved in five contexts. For the simple membership thesis what we find is that measuring simple membership does result in positive and significant effects for internal efficacy (table H.2). Thus, upon first glance we might suspect that the traditional view works just as well in this case. However, upon closer examination of the predicted probabilities what we find is a rather different picture. Table 8.1 depicts the predicted probabilities for the sense of community model and the simple membership model for internal efficacy— believing that you can make a big difference. What you can clearly see from the table is that in every instance the predicted probability for the simple membership model is off by at least .05. And at the most extreme it is off by .26. In the instance of the person who is strongly attached in 5 contexts the probability of having strong feelings of internal efficacy—of believing they can make a
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Table 8.1 Internal Efficacy: Predicted Probabilities Comparing Membership Alone to Sense of Community at Three Levels Predicted Probability of believing you can make a “BIG difference” Number of Contexts
Membership Alone
Sense of Community
2
.10
Low .03 Average .07 High .15
3
.12
Low .02 Average .07 High .23
4
.15
Low .01 Average .08 High .33
5
.18
Low .01 Average .08 High .44
big difference—is .44. If we had simply taken account of membership we would have concluded that the likelihood of believing you can make a big difference is .18. The conclusion would have been distorted dramatically. In other words, we would have considered the effect of membership on internal efficacy as being modest when in fact it is quite the opposite. Clearly taking account of the level of attachment has rather important implications here. Participation Next we will turn our attention to participation. Maybe no other topic in political science literature has received as much attention over the years as political participation. Various forms of activity can be considered participation ranging from writing a letter to the editor about a particular concern, to contacting your local representative, to attending town hall meetings, and of course that which most often comes to mind—voting. Recently political scientists have been turning their attention to the potential impact of the social environment on participation. Along those same lines, we explored the influence of sense of community on political participation generally and in terms of local voting.
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Table 8.2 Local Vote: Predicted Probabilities Comparing Membership Alone to Sense of Community at Three Levels Predicted Probability of voting in local elections “always” Number of Contexts
Membership Alone
Sense of Community
2
.46
Low .25 Average .39 High .56
3
.55
Low .23 Average .45 High .69
4
.64
Low .21 Average .51 High .80
5
.72
Low .20 Average .57 High .88
For our test of the simple membership thesis we again run the two forms of the models—one where we include sense of community and one where we include simply membership. In the sense of community model we see positive and significant effects for sense of community on local voting (see chapter 5 results). In the simple membership model we also see strong, significant effects (table H.3). But, like in the previous model for internal efficacy, it is when we look at the predicted probability of voting that we see the important differences. Table 8.2 depicts the predicted probabilities of voting “always” in local elections. The results in chapter 5 demonstrated that predicted probabilities ranged from a low of .21 for those involved in four contexts but who were the least attached to .88 for those involved in 5 contexts and who were among the most attached. Yet, as we have seen for the previous tests we have conducted on the simple membership thesis, once we dive deeper in the substantive meaning of the results a more precise meaning comes to fruition. Once again, in every instance, the predicted probabilities are either greatly exaggerated or understated depending on the level of connectedness. Take for example the person involved in two contexts who is minimally attached. If we had taken account of simple membership we would have concluded the probability of voting always in local elections is .46, however that would have been an exaggeration by about .21. On
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the other hand if we had been looking at the person who is strongly attached in 4 contexts we have predicted the likelihood of voting always would be .64 using the simple membership model when in fact that underestimates it by .16. The advocate of the traditional perspective however might suggest that while I can find examples at the extremes, the simple membership model does a decent job for those who are average, who have an average sense of community. Yet, the predicted probabilities tell a different story. Again, in every instance, even for those with average levels of attachment, the predicted probability for the simple membership thesis overstates the likelihood of voting by as much as .15 for those involved in 5 contexts and .07 for those involved in 2 contexts. So, we can conclude again that level of connectedness matters and the more nuanced measure I propose provides us with a more accurate assessment of the influence of sense of community on local voting. Political Discussion In chapter 6 we took a look at the influence of sense of community on political discussion. We looked at two forms of discussion, general discussion of issues in the broad sense of national politics and discussion of issues with a more local focus. What we found was that sense of community influenced both general and local discussion. Here again, we can test the simple membership thesis and determine whether estimating the model with membership alone yields different results than including sense of community (table H.4). What we find is quite interesting. Simple membership has no significant effect on general discussion but does have a significant effect on local discussion. We can examine this even more closely by discussing a few predicted probabilities—table 8.3 displays the predicted probabilities for discussing local issues “often.” The likelihood that someone will discuss politics “often” varies between .10 for those who are the least attached or have the lowest sense of community to .38 for those who are the most attached. For someone with a low level of attachment in three contexts the likelihood of discussing local politics “often” is .11, however it can increase to .23 if that person is strongly attached. Yet, if we only account for membership we would predict the likelihood of discussing politics “often” is .19: this overestimates the likelihood by .08 for those with low levels of sense of community and underestimates by .04 for those with high levels of sense of community. Thus, here we have another instance where simply accounting for membership masks
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Table 8.3 Local Discussion: Predicted Probabilities Comparing Membership Alone to Sense of Community at Three Levels Predicted Probability of discussing local issues “often” Number of Contexts
Membership Alone
Sense of Community
2
.15
Low .10 Average .14 High .18
3
.19
Low .11 Average .16 High .23
4
.23
Low .11 Average .19 High .30
5
.27
Low .11 Average .22 High .38
the real substantive impact of community membership on discussion of local issues. Local Political Knowledge The final behavior we analyzed was political knowledge. Few, if any, studies examine local political knowledge. In chapter 7 we examined the influence of community on general political knowledge and local political knowledge. While our efforts revealed no significant impact of sense of community on general political knowledge, we did find positive and significant (albeit modest) effects of sense of community on local political knowledge. Thus, while we can not make direct comparisons for the effect of the simple membership thesis on general political knowledge we can explore whether simple membership bears any significant effect on general political knowledge. It has already been established that sense of community has no effect but quite possibly simple membership does. Unfortunately the simple membership model demonstrates that membership also fails to have any significant influence on general political knowledge as well. However, we can look at local political knowledge more closely. We already know that sense of community influences political knowledge and we can test whether simple membership does as well. When we account for simple
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membership in a context what we find is that it does not significantly affect local political knowledge (table H.5). What this means then, is if we had taken the traditional view and just examined membership alone without any regard whatsoever about the level of connectedness within those contexts we would have concluded that membership does not matter when in fact it does. Here again is another instance of how moving beyond simply membership yields substantively different results. Summary The evidence presented here suggests that there is much to gain by moving beyond membership and instead focusing our attention on the level of connectedness within contexts. The test here was quite straightforward. First, we ran each model of political behavior with the sense of community variables (as we did in each of the previous chapters) and then reran the models with a simple count of membership to determine whether we would have arrived at the same conclusions. If similar results emerged, then the traditional perspective would prevail. If different results materialized then it would corroborate my call for a new approach to studying community and its influence on political behavior. The analyses presented here support the claim that a multicontext view with attention to variation within contexts is an important one to examine. The traditional perspective of simply accounting for whether someone is involved in a context or not without any regard for the level of connectedness in that context yields misleading results at best and inaccurate results in the worse case scenarios as we saw here. If we had simply examined membership we would have concluded that community does not matter for political trust, general discussion, and local political knowledge when in fact we know that it does. Deepening our understanding of the way in which community comes to matter for political behavior is important. The methods that I advance here take a step closer to furthering our understanding of how community comes to matter beyond simply membership.
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Chapter 9
Broadening Our Perspective
Along time ago I was in the ancient city of Prague and at the same time Joseph Alsop, the justly famous critic of places and events was there . . . Joe and I flew home to America in the same plane, and on the way he told me about Prague, and his Prague had no relation to the city I had seen and heard. It just wasn’t the same place, and yet each of us was honest, neither one a liar, both pretty good observers by any standard, and we brought home two cities, two truths. John Steinbeck
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he research I have presented examines the social component of political behavior. The study has advanced from the basic model of explaining political behavior based largely on models of slow changing individual-level characteristics. Over the past decade or so, political scientists have paid great attention to examining not only what matters for various types of political activities and attitudes but also to why such factors matter. The idea that social interaction matters for political behavior has been widely accepted. Scholars such as Coleman, Putnam, Huckfeldt and Sprague, Mutz and Mondak, and Cramer-Walsh to name a few, have highlighted the importance of studying social interaction. Just as Steinbeck and Alsop experienced Prague entirely differently, so do people experience life differently—some people like their jobs more than others, some feel stronger attachments to their neighborhoods or churches—and these differences in social experiences matter for political behavior. We expect social factors to affect political behavior. Past research has shown that differences in social experiences matter for politics. First, social interaction provides information. People interact with one another leading, at the very least, to the dissemination of information. Second, social attachments possibly magnify the importance of politics. A shared fate may develop when people
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are connected to one another, causing them to be concerned not only about themselves but also about the collective. Finally, social attachments provide direct channels toward political persuasion and mobilization. A person’s involvement in a given context may heighten that person’s exposure to efforts by others to influence the person’s opinion and generate interest in political activity. Although past research in this area has been highly revealing, there is still much work to be done. We have only begun to understand the broader significance of social interaction in terms of political behavior. As I have discussed, limitations in terms of theory and method have left us with only coarse depictions of an individual’s degree of social connectedness. The research I have conducted for this study has been fairly expansive. Using data from three original surveys, I have examined multiple contexts and multiple dependent variables. As I stated previously, past work in the area of social interaction has received heightened attention over the past few years. And while this work has provided greater insight into the social forces that influence political behavior, we have only begun to scratch the surface. Absent from virtually all studies of social contexts is a modeling of process—of the black box if you will. We know that people go into a context and something good—or bad—comes out. We know that context somehow matters but we don’t know how, why, or what transpired. As I have argued, much of the research in this area has been limited by at least one of two factors. First, many analysts have studied a single type of context in isolation—the single context approach. This approach is perfectly acceptable if the goal is to solely understand how the given context—the neighborhood, workplace, or church— affects political behavior. However, if we want to understand more generally the political significance of social interaction, then we must broaden our perspective of contexts and social interaction. Second, the research in this area has been plagued by insufficient attention to variance in people’s experiences within their social contexts. People in the very same context can have radically different experiences. This was John Steinbeck’s point about Prague. Unfortunately, a great deal of research on politics and social influence measures only membership in a given context, and nothing at all about the nature of the person’s experience or sense of attachment. The analysis I conducted is aimed at improving our understanding of the social component of political behavior. First, I advocate a multicontext approach. If we are to understand the broad impact of social involvement, a single context approach is clearly too simplistic. My data measure the person’s level of attachment within multiple
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contexts such as the neighborhood, workplace, association, church, community, and informal contexts such as a person’s circle of friends. I make no claim to capture all possible contexts, however these are the contexts in which much focus in political science has been aimed. Second, rather than measuring mere membership, I account for what is referred to as a person’s sense of community within each context. Drawing from the field of community psychology, I measure sense of community in terms of membership, influence, integration, fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional concern, using a multi-item index to capture these dimensions. If social interaction matters for politics, then the nature and quality of the interaction should also matter. We completely miss this if we choose to measure only membership, but the sense of community index provides a means to address this deficiency. Using three original surveys, I considered two central questions: (1) to what extent does sense of community vary within contexts—if at all? And (2) if variance does exist—does it matter for political behavior and attitudes? Key Findings This research project has paid particular attention to how and to what extent sense of community affects political attitudes—such as efficacy and trust—and political behavior—such as participation, voting, political discussion, and political knowledge. The results of the analyses clearly demonstrated that sense of community has direct and mostly positive effects on many of these types of political behaviors and attitudes. We know that sense of community varies widely both within and across contexts and that this variation affects levels of efficacy, trust, participation, discussion, and knowledge. Sense of Community and the Social Component of Politics Past research has implied that community—or community attachment—is a strong predictor of all sorts of political behaviors and attitudes, yet relatively little is known as to how community operates to produce these effects. The research design I have proposed for studying community and political behavior strives to improve the manner in which we study the social component of politics by broadening the way in which look at community. A sense of community is a psychological attachment to a particular place or group. Previous studies have used rather coarse measures to capture this concept such as
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length of residence and home ownership for example. However, these measures completely miss the psychological aspect associated with a sense of community. As the analyses demonstrate, it is not merely belonging to a particular group or a specific number of groups that influences behavior and attitudes, but rather the level of attachment within those groups. In chapter 3, I examined the extent to which variance within contexts exists. Data from all three surveys clearly demonstrates that variance in sense of community is present in every context examined in this study. Starting with the jury survey, the distribution of responses for the six contexts examined—the workplace, associations, neighborhood, place of worship, city/town, and circle of friends—plainly showed that variance across all six contexts is evident. People had dramatically differently levels of attachments within these contexts, suggesting that people experienced the same sorts of contexts differently. Further, the data from the context and telephone surveys provided similar sorts of conclusions. For the context survey, I had multiple respondents from each of several specific contexts. Meaning these respondents belonged to the very same groups, churches, and workplaces. One might suspect that the variance across workplaces that was seen in the jury survey could be the result of the context itself, however, using the context data I demonstrate that this is not the case. Even within a given context, there was a large amount of variance. Demonstrating that variance exists, however, is only the first step in improving our understanding of the social component of politics. This variance in sense of community is ultimately most important if I can show that it matters for political behavior and attitudes, my assumption was that it did and the analyses demonstrated in this study clearly shows that that is in fact the case. Sense of Community and Political Attitudes Over the years, much attention has been paid to the role that political efficacy and trust has played in influencing politics. However, relatively little is known about the antecedents of trust and efficacy. It is quite logical to consider that social forces, such as community—could influence levels of efficacy and trust. This study demonstrated that social attachments have a strong impact on efficacy and trust. More specifically, efficacy and trust are strengthened when individuals have higher levels of sense of community. Another key finding that the results of chapter 4 demonstrate is that we should take account of people’s experiences within contexts
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and not rely on merely counting membership. Take for example, personal trust; more membership can mean more or less personal trust depending on sense of community. For those with high sense of community scores, more membership (an increase in the number of contexts) leads to greater personal trust, but for those with low sense of community scores, more membership leads to less personal trust. Thus, we have opposite effects for trust depending on the level of sense of community and the number of contexts. This is a critical result highlighting the importance of accounting for differences in experiences—or variance—among individuals within contexts. Sense of community also had direct effects on efficacy. Feelings of efficacy (both internal and external) were heightened for those with greater sense of community scores. As the number of contexts in which people are involved increases, the greater the likelihood they are to feel efficacious—for those with higher sense of community scores. Thus, the lesson learned is that social forces—such as sense of community—ought to be considered when examining the antecedents of political attitudes because they can contribute significantly to explaining levels of trust and efficacy. As I have stated throughout this book, people do not operate in isolation, their daily lives are filled with interactions with others and clearly those transactions influence the manner in which people perceive their role in politics—their attitudes and their actions. Sense of Community and Political Behavior At the heart of political science is the study of political participation; why do some people participate and others do not? For decades, Americans have been plagued by high levels of cynicism and low levels of participation. One place we can potentially stamp out these trends is at the grassroots level—getting citizens involved in local politics. Throughout this book we have focused on sense of community and attachments to contexts such as community organizations, churches, neighborhoods, and the like. It is entirely plausible to hypothesize and I lay out the rationale for such hypotheses in chapter 5, that social attachments will have positive effects on local political participation. I examined the relationship between sense of community and several types of local political activities. Not all political activities are the same; for example, many would consider voting a very individualized activity and attending a meeting of the local city council a more social type of activity, therefore, we would suspect that sense of community would affect these types of activities differently and this is precisely
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what occurs. The results demonstrated in chapter 5 show that sense of community had positive effects on local voting, signing petitions, and political discussion. Those with higher levels of sense of community were more likely to engage in activities of the types just mentioned. The story that emerges from this chapter on political behavior is an interesting one. On one hand, the findings support Putman’s conclusion about community involvement—that more involvement is better for overall participation. The results demonstrated that belonging to multiple contexts has increased advantages for general participation—a summary variable of the number of activities in which one was likely to participate. Yet, a very different effect emerged for the results for local voting. In this case, having strong sense of community levels in two contexts is more meaningful than a low score across several contexts, suggesting of course that the mere counting of the number of contexts to which one belongs could render erroneous results when discussing the effects of community involvement on local voting. Explaining political behavior has been a core question of scholars for decades. We know that individual characteristics play a significant role in explaining why some people participate and others do not. However, social factors also contribute to this explanation. As the analyses demonstrated in chapter 5, political behavior can be explained partly by social factors—specifically sense of community. Social attachments within contexts can enhance the extent to which people engage in a variety of political activities. Sense of Community and Political Discussion Political discourse has been the subject of a great deal of recent scholarly work. In this study I also examined the relationship between sense of community and political discussion. The analyses in chapter 6 demonstrate that influence of sense of community on political discussion is positive and significant (albeit modest). The results of the models presented in chapter 6 indicate that sense of community has a positive influence on both local discussion and general political discussion (i.e., discussion about national issues). This corroborates the findings of existing research, for example Cramer-Walsh’s study of Ann-Arbor, Michigan, where she eloquently captured the nuances of political talk amongst a group of ordinary people. The results also demonstrated that sense of community has significant effects on the closeness of the respondent’s discussion partner, for example whether the respondent’s most frequent discussion partner is someone who is a weak or strong
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tie—or in other words, a family member or close friend versus someone they casually know. The findings suggest that sense of community is most significant for those discussion partners who are weak ties. Put another way, having a strong sense of community may actually hinder discussion with people who are not a close friend or family member. Those with lower levels of sense of community are more likely to engage in discussion with people who they know casually. This conclusion, then, might lead us to consider that this weak tie relationship would have an effect on the cross cutting information and hence sense of community might also influence exposure to differing viewpoints. However, the results fail to demonstrate any significant effect of sense of community on exposure to dissimilar political views. Sense of Community and Political Knowledge We ventured into a relatively new area of research with the examination of political knowledge. Previous studies have focused on political knowledge as an independent variable, as a key factor which contributes to explaining a number of different types of behaviors and as a dependent variable, worthy of examination in its own right. Most studies have focused on the measurement of political knowledge and the gaps that seemingly persist between the sexes and classes. However, given the growing interest in political knowledge, we still know very little about local political knowledge. In chapter 7 we examine the relationship between sense of community and political knowledge, both general and local knowledge. Here political knowledge is examined as a dependent variable and the hypothesis is that sense of community influences levels of political knowledge such that those who have higher levels of sense of community are more likely to be knowledgeable about local and general political knowledge. We find support for the hypothesized relationship between sense of community and local political knowledge but not for general political knowledge. This of course is not surprising; it is in fact, a seemingly logical conclusion. Individuals know more about what is happening in their local community and about local politicians than they do about the national political scene. Hence, those who are the most strongly attached are more likely to be knowledgeable about local politics than those who are less attached. Implications and Future Directions Our understanding of the social component of political behavior has really just begun. Over the past decade and a half we have started to
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examine how our social interactions come to matter for politics. Although individual level characteristics can never be discounted, we must remain open to the idea that social forces also influence how and why people participate in politics. Their perception of the world around them is not only influenced by factors such as their background—age, gender, occupation, etc.—but also by the people with whom they interact. This interaction with others can come to matter for all sorts of political behavior and activities. In this project, I examined various forms of local political participation and attitudes such as efficacy and trust. But certainly there is so much more that deserves attention. Attitudes such as tolerance and community satisfaction may also be influenced by sense of community. Looking toward the future, we ought to consider what we have learned about how sense of community comes to influence the types of behaviors examined here and use it to explore additional relationships such as that between community and tolerance or community and satisfaction. Sense of Community We can learn many lessons by drawing upon research in other fields. Community psychologists have examined community attachments in great detail. I borrowed from that work and used the methods that they advocate and have tested to deepen our understanding of how community attachment influences political behaviors and attitudes. This is significant for two reasons. First, it introduces political scientists to a new framework in which to study politics and allows us to use community attachment to explain various types of political behavior and attitudes. This is something that is new and exciting. It has been pointed out time and again that community matters but it has largely remained a mystery as to why these sorts of effects emerge. Using a method that allows us to capture the degree of attachment within communities helps us to understand how community comes to matter. The findings here suggest that community matters because not everyone feels the same about their particular community; not everyone shares the same type(s) of experiences within these communities, thus that variance helps explain differences in political behaviors and attitudes. Second, it demonstrates that the work done in community psychology can be used to explain behaviors beyond what community psychologists have explored. The field of community psychology can widen its reach to a great many disciplines. This study demonstrates how community psychologists can use their own research and methods to expand the arenas in which they apply their studies.
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American Political Behavior The results presented in this study reveal the importance of what I have been arguing throughout the book that (1) we must account for variance within contexts and (2) we ought to take a multicontext approach to studying sense of community. First, by merely counting the number of contexts—measuring membership—important information could be missed, such as the level of attachment within those contexts. If all that mattered were the number of contexts in which a person is embedded, with levels of attachment within those contexts producing no additional effects, then we would have seen quite different figures than were shown in chapters 4 through 7 for various types of political attitudes and activities. For example, in the chapter that deals with participation (chapter 5) we would have seen parallel slopes for the three lines in each figure and trivial gaps between the lines. Neither of these results was obtained. Instead, what we saw were large gaps between the three lines in these figures, as these gaps reflect the substantial influence of sense of community on participation while holding number of contexts constant. Second, by simply asking about one context—the single context approach to studying community—the most meaningful context for any given individual could be excluded, thereby leading the analyst to conclude (erroneously) that that person has low or worse yet, no sense of community. This is precisely what the results in chapter 8 reveal. The possibility that results such as those discussed in chapter 8 are present in the real world has driven the arguments in this project. The evidence presented in this book clearly makes the case that utilizing the sense of community model for other types of political behavior and attitudes is indeed warranted. The empirical evidence presented in chapters 5 through 8 support the claim that we can no longer simply ignore that variance in levels of attachments in various contexts exist and that we must account for that variance if we are to make accurate assessments about the extent to which community comes to matter for political behavior. We can use the lessons learned thus far regarding the effects of sense of community and expand them to other dependent variables such as tolerance, community satisfaction, and other similar attitudes. Tolerance In terms of tolerance, network research suggests that heterogeneous viewpoints stemming from social networks may have meaningful consequences for political tolerance (Mutz 2002). To the extent that individuals have a sense of community within a given context (work, organization,
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neighborhood) they may be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and information. Therefore by examining individuals’ sense of community within a given context we may be able to predict to some degree how sense of community affects levels of political tolerance. Tolerance is one area in which it is entirely plausible that the effects of sense of community will vary across the different types of communities under consideration. The key is whether the community is large, open and heterogeneous or small, narrow and homogeneous. While we might expect to see homogenous viewpoints and opinions in some contexts (e.g., church), this may not be the case in all the contexts (e.g., workplace). Thus, it may be hypothesized that sense of community will affect political tolerance differently based on the source(s) of an individual’s sense of community. A further question that begs examination is what will be the effect on tolerance when an individual has a sense of community from both a context with homogenous viewpoints and one in which s/he is exposed to heterogeneous viewpoints? In other words, when individuals are exposed to viewpoints and information, which in some instances may be in conflict with one another, how does their sense of community from each context influence their level of tolerance? Community Satisfaction Another expected consequence of sense of community is that it may influence an individual’s overall level of community satisfaction—the extent to which s/he approves of the job community leaders are doing, feeling safe in the community, and so on. This type of hypothesis suggests that sense of community has even broader implications for elected officials in terms of elections and policy making. However, the direction and extent to which sense of community has an effect, if any, on community satisfaction may vary by context. For example, we are likely to see the most meaningful consequences for those individuals who have a strong sense of community stemming from his/ her neighborhood rather than those whose sense of community comes from informal socializing with friends because the neighborhood provides a context in which members may have a collective interest in a particular policy or proposal, for example the building of a waste facility near their neighborhood. Practical Implications If we want to have a more involved citizenry and our idea of democracy means that everyone can and will participate in governance, then
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our interest in understanding what leads people to become more or less engaged should be broadened to include social forces. The results have demonstrated that social forces do matter for politics. We know that community matters but even more important, we now understand why it is that community plays a significant role. Sense of community—attachment to groups, people and places—can lead to stronger communities and as a result foster all sorts of political behaviors and attitudes such as trust, efficacy, voting, discussion, and the like. If we want to build trust, increase feelings of efficacy, encourage voting and discussion of political issues then one means of accomplishing that goal is to build stronger attachments within communities. Time and again, the results demonstrated that the greater one’s attachment to a particular context or contexts, the more likely s/he is to participate or have stronger feelings of efficacy and trust. We can look to these contexts—churches, organizations, workplaces, etc.—to be the building blocks of democracy especially at the local level. If people can build strong attachments to places, people, and groups of this sort, then we are likely to see an improvement in civic participation. We may see greater numbers voting in local elections, more discussion of local issues, more signing of petitions, greater trust in others and elected officials—many positive influences in the community. Once a part of a group, people may become concerned not only with their own self-interest but the collective good. Beginning at the grassroots level, within our local communities, by encouraging attachment within contexts—not merely belonging to a group—we may be able to begin to reverse the trend of high cynicism and low participation that has plagued American politics for the last thirty or so years. Conclusion In an attempt to model the actions and transactions that go on between people in the real world has been at the heart of this study. We know that people do not live in a bubble; they engage others in a variety of different contexts and their experiences in those contexts vary widely. If we want to broaden our understanding of what influences political behavior and attitudes it is crucial that we consider not only individual-level factors but also social factors. The social component of political behavior has been reintroduced into models that seek to explain not only what but why different forces matter for politics. If social interaction matters for politics and previous research is
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premised on the assumption that it does, then we should broaden our understanding of how and why this interaction matters. This study has taken a step in that direction. In that vein, the research I have presented has demonstrated that it is not only the membership in a context that matters but the quality of the interactions and attachments within those contexts that truly matter and that differences in those interactions need to be accounted for in some fashion. Using an interdisciplinary approach and drawing upon the work in community psychology, I have been able to develop a strategy to better assess levels of attachments in various contexts. We must continue to work to broaden our perspective when examining the social component of political behavior. Just as Steinbeck and Alsop experienced the same city entirely differently so too do people experience life differently. These differences in social experiences influence our political behaviors and attitudes and should be considered when we examine political behavior.
Appendix A
Sample of Request Letter for Jury Coordinator Assistance
January 24, 2003 Dear Ms. XXXX, I am writing to follow up on your recent telephone conversation with Mary R. Anderson. Mary is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at Florida State University, and Mary contacted you regarding the possibility of asking citizens from your jury pool to complete a brief survey as part of a class project. Mary is one of seven students this semester in a graduate course in political science on advanced research in American politics. I am the professor for this course. The advanced research course is taken by students who already have taken most or all of the substantive seminars required for the Ph.D. in political science. These students soon will be writing their dissertations, and, a few years down the road, most will be working as professors of political science. The advanced research course provides students the opportunity to conduct original research on American politics in preparation for work on the dissertation. It is our hope that your jurors will provide some of the data for this research. Let me say a bit regarding what we hope to accomplish with this project, and why it is that we are asking for your assistance. The surveys that we seek to distribute will be brief paper-and-pencil forms. Each survey will be three or four pages in length, and include no more than 25 to 30 questions. Completion of the survey should take about 8 to 10 minutes. Two important points about the survey warrant emphasis. First, participation is entirely voluntary. Some of us know from personal experience that there can be a great deal of
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“down time” when one is called for jury duty, and we’re hopeful that many of the citizens who have been called will be willing to fill out our surveys. Second, participation is entirely anonymous. We will ask demographic questions (year of birth, age, sex, education, etc.), but we will not ask—nor do we need—any identifying information about the people who fill out the surveys. The research questions being examined in this project center on question wording. We know that seemingly minor changes in how survey questions are worded can produce substantial effects on the data. The students will be testing several hypotheses about the effects of changes in question wording. To do this, the surveys actually will be “survey experiments” in that different respondents will answer slightly different items. As one example, one student is interested in the extent to which Americans perceive North Korea to be a threat to the United States, and, more specifically, in whether North Korea’s status as both a Communist state and a nuclear state heighten that perceived threat. To provide data on these issues, each respondent would be asked one of four versions of a question evaluating North Korea: one that makes no mention of Communism or nuclear weapons, one that mentions that North Korea has a Communist government, one that mentions that North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons, and one that mentions both the Communist government and the nuclear arsenal. We expect that the perceived threat will increase with mention of Communism and nuclear weapons, but the key questions are, first, how much of an effect these pieces of information will have, and second, which respondents will be most responsive to these cues (for instance, we might hypothesize that older respondents will react more strongly to reference to North Korea as Communist than would younger respondents). The students in the seminar currently are finalizing the survey instruments. They will be available for you to review by the first week of February. We hope to collect data in March. There will be a lag time of a few weeks between when you receive the draft surveys and when we ask you to distribute them because all survey research conducted by students and faculty at Florida State University is reviewed in advance by a human subjects committee. Because graduate students do not have access to the resources needed to conduct national telephone surveys, research of the sort planned in this project often must make use of undergraduates as respondents. For obvious reasons, that is far less than ideal for scientific purposes. We have found that jury pools are an excellent alter-
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nate because the respondents are so much more diverse than are undergraduates. Mary will contact you a few days after you receive this letter to see if you have any questions or concerns. I also will be more than happy to discuss the project further with you. Again, our plan is to mail drafts of the survey instruments to you within about two weeks, and to conduct actual data collection in March. I very greatly appreciate your assistance with this project. The education of the next generation of college professors is something that we here at Florida State University take extremely seriously. Your cooperation with this study will prove to be enormously valuable to Mary and her fellow students. Sincerely, Professor XXXX
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Appendix B
Jury Pool Questionnaire
Survey Items for Sense of Community Based on your personal experiences please respond to the follow questions about you [context here] by circling ONE of the numbers. Note: Context rotated between the following: Circle of friends Workplace Church/place of worship Neighborhood Association City or town a) to what extent do you have a sense of community? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 None at all Very much b) to what extent do you have a sense of belonging? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 None at all Very much c) to what extent do you feel connected to everyone? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 None at all Very much d) during times of crisis how often do you turn to the people there for support? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 None at all Very much
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e) to what extent do you consider the people there like family? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 None at all Very much f) to what extent do you have a sense of attachment? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 None at all Very much
Appendix C
Context Survey Documents
C.1 Sample Letter of Introduction to Churches, Organizations, and Workplaces Club XXXX President XXXXX Address Tallahassee, FL January 28, 2004 Dear President XXXX, I am graduate student in the Political Science department at Florida State University and I am writing to ask for your assistance with a study I am conducting for my dissertation. For the purposes of completing my research I am surveying individuals who are members of local organizations and associations. The objective of the survey is to gain a better understanding of how people develop a sense of community within an organization. I am looking for a random group of roughly 30–50 people from your association to complete the survey. I will be calling you in the next few weeks so that we can talk in greater detail about the study. I just wanted to take this time to introduce myself and give you some idea about the purpose of my call. I greatly appreciate your help with this endeavor and I am looking forward to speaking with you shortly. Sincerely, Mary R. Anderson Graduate Student Department of Political Science Florida State University (850) 644-8978
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C.2 Instructions to Members Instructions Hello everyone, I really appreciate your participation in this study. My name is Mary Anderson and I am a graduate student at Florida State University. I am working on my dissertation in Political Science and am currently at the stage in my studies where I need to collect survey data in order to move forward with my research agenda. Please remember this survey is anonymous, so your identity will not be known to me or anyone else. Please follow the instructions below for completing the questionnaire. 1. Please read the letter attached to the survey and remove it for your own personal records. 2. Please fill out the ENTIRE questionnaire. 3. Once you have finished, please place the completed survey in the envelope marked “Completed Questionnaires.” Thank you so much for your help and participation, it is greatly appreciated. Mary Anderson Graduate Student Florida State University Department of Political Science C.3 Cover letter to Potential Respondents September 15, 2003 Dear Citizen, I am a graduate student under the direction of Professor Jeffery Mondak in the Department of Political Science at Florida State University. I am conducting a research study on citizen involvement and political attitudes as part of my dissertation research. I am requesting your participation, which will involve answering a questionnaire. Your participation in this study is voluntary. The questionnaire is anonymous. You will be asked to answer questions related to your community. The results of the study may be published, but your name will not be known. If you have any questions concerning the research study, please call me at (850)644-8978 or send me an email message at mra8203@ garnet.acns.fsu.edu. Additionally, if you would like to speak directly
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with Professor Mondak, he can be reached at (850)644–7302 or by email at
[email protected]. Return of the questionnaire will be considered your consent to participate. Thank you. Sincerely, Mary R. Anderson Graduate Student, Florida State University C.4 Context Survey Instrument (Sample for Places of Worship) Please answer every question. Thank you. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 meaning “none at all” and 10 meaning “very much” please answer the following questions based on your personal experience. Please circle one number per question. 1=none at all and 10=very much 1. How much do you believe your local representatives, such as city commissioners, care about what you think is important for Tallahassee? 1 2 3 4 none at all
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10 very much
Now we would like to know about how likely you think you are to take part in local government. Please circle one number per question. 6. If the city of Tallahassee was about to do something you did NOT approve of, such as building a waste facility near your home, how likely would you be to a. Attend a meeting about the proposal? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely b. Speak at the meeting? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely c. Sign a petition? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely d. Contact your local representative? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely e. Write a letter to the editor of the newspaper? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely 7. What if the county wanted to raise the speed limit on your street, how likely would you be to a. Attend a meeting about the proposal? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely b. Speak at the meeting? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely c. Sign a petition? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely d. Contact your local representative? Very likely Somewhat likely Not very likely Not at all likely e. Write a letter to the editor of the newspaper
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Very likely likely
Somewhat likely
Not very likely
Not at all
8. Have you attended a local public meeting in the past 5 years? Yes No 9. If the answer was yes, can you tell us was that meeting about your neighborhood, school, the city, or the county? Circle as many as apply. School City County Neighborhood 10. I have a question about how often you have discussions about politics. a. How often do you discuss politics with members of your family? Very often Somewhat often Not very often Never b. with your neighbors? Very often Somewhat often Not very often Never c. With people from your club(s) or association(s)? Very often Somewhat often Not very often Never d. With people from work? Very often Somewhat often Not very often Never e. With people from your church or place of worship? Very often Somewhat often Not very often Never f. With other friends and acquaintances? Very often Somewhat often Not very often Never 11. The following section contains pairs of words. On a scale from 0 to 10, which word best describes you. For example, suppose that the number zero means “bold” the number 10 means “shy” and the number 5 is exactly the middle—neither shy nor bold. On this scale what number best represents you? You can use ANY NUMBER from 0 to 10, but please circle only one number. 0=efficient and 10=inefficient; 0=kind and 10=unkind, etc. a. efficient/ inefficient 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Efficient inefficient b. kind/ unkind 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Kind unkind c. tense/ calm
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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Tense d. unsympathetic/ sympathetic 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 unsympathetic e. organized/ disorganized 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Organized f. nervous/ relaxed 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Nervous g. reserved/ outgoing 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Reserved
9
10 calm
9
10 sympathetic
9
10 disorganized
9
10 relaxed
9
10 outgoing
h. intelligent/ unintelligent 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Intelligent
9
10 unintelligent
i. neat/ sloppy 0 1 2 3 4 Neat
8
9
10 sloppy
j. introverted/ extroverted 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Introverted
9
10 extroverted
5
6 7
12. Now we would like to ask you about your involvement in the Tallahassee community. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 meaning “not at all” and 10 meaning “very much” please answer the following questions based on you personal experience. Please circle one. To what extent do you feel connected 1=not at all and 10=very much a. in Tallahassee? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not at all very much b. in you neighborhood? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not at all very much c. in your place of worship? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not at all very much d. in your voluntary associations?
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not at all very much e. amongst your circle of friends? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not at all very much f. in your workplace, or if you are recently retired, in the most recent place you’ve worked? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not at all very much 13. As far as you know, are you currently registered to vote? Yes No 14. Did you vote in the 2000 presidential election? Yes No 15. How about local elections, do you always vote in those, sometimes vote, rarely vote, or never vote? Always Sometimes Rarely Never 16. Generally speaking, would you consider yourself to be a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent? Please circle one. 1=democrat 4=independent and 7=republican 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Democrat Independent Republican 17. To what extent do you approve of the job George Bush is doing as president? Strongly approve Approve Disapprove Strongly Disapprove 18. We are going to ask you about the government here in Tallahassee, over the past 5 years do you think the local government has gotten better, stayed about the same, or do you think it is not as good as it used to be? Please circle one. Gotten better Stayed the same Not as good as it used to be 19. Overall, would you rate the way the city is run as excellent, very good, good enough, not so good, or not good at all? Please circle one. Excellent Very good Good enough Not so good Not good at all 20. How much of the time do you think you can trust your local officials (eg. such as the mayor, city commissioners, School Board
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members, etc) to do what is right, nearly all the time, most of the time, seldom or never? Nearly all the time Most of the time Seldom Never 21. How much of an effect do you think your local government (city of Tallahassee) has on your daily life? Would you say it affects you a great deal, somewhat, only a little, or not at all? A great deal Somewhat Only a little Not at all 22. People in Tallahassee pay local taxes, do you generally think they get their monies worth in services? Very much Some A little Not at all 23. If you think people get their monies worth only some of the time, a little or not at all, what do you think is the greatest cause of this? Please circle only one answer. a. Wrong prioritiesb. Unequal service distribution c. Poor administrationd. Political corruption e. Unequal taxationf. Public apathy g. Other 24. How safe do you feel walking around your neighborhood at night, very safe, somewhat safe, somewhat unsafe, or very unsafe? Very safe Somewhat safe Somewhat unsafe Very unsafe 25. We want to ask you where you think increased efforts should be taken in managing Tallahassee. I know there are a lot of things on this list, but I want you to circle up to three areas where you believe increased efforts are warranted. a. Public schools b. Law enforcement c. Flooding d. Housing and welfare e. Drugs f. Recreation g. Public Health services h. Streets and transportation 26. And if some things had to be cut back, which ones would you choose? Again, circle up to three? a. Public schools
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b. Law enforcement c. Flooding d. Housing and welfare e. Drugs f. Recreation g. Public Health services h. Streets and transportation 27. As you know it costs money to keep the city running. If a choice had to be made would you raise taxes or cut some of the services like those on the list we just discussed? Raise taxes Cut services 28. Here are several ways local governments can raise taxes, if more tax money is needed, what do you think the best way to raise it is? Please circle only one. Tax on property Tax on utilities Sales tax 29. The statements below are some things that people might say about their church or place of worship. For each statement, on a scale of 1–5, please tell me how much you agree with the statement. 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree. Please circle only one. a. I think my church is a good place for me to worship. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree b. People in my church do not share the same values. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree c. My fellow church members and I want the same things from the church. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree d. I can recognize most of the people who are members of my church. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree
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e. I feel at home in this church. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree f. Very few church members know me. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree g. I care about what my fellow members think of my actions. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree h. I have no influence over what this church is like. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree i. If there is a problem in this church people who are members here can get it solved. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree j. It is very important to me belong to this particular church. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree k. People in this church generally don’t get along with each other. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree l. I expect to belong to this church for a long time. 1 2 3 4 5 strongly strongly disagree agree m. In general, would you say that people in your church watch after each other and help out when they can, or do they pretty much go their own way? Go their own way A little of both Watch after each other
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n. Would you say that it is very important, somewhat important, or not important to you to feel a sense of community with the people in your church? Very important Somewhat important Not important o. Would you say that you feel a strong sense of community with others in your church, very little sense of community, or something in between? Very little Something in between Strong sense of community 30. Now I would like to ask you some questions about your interest in local issues. How often do you read the local newspaper? Daily About 3–4 days a week Less than 2 days a week Never 31. Earlier we asked you some general questions about political discussion. Now we’d like to know about discussions you have about local politics. How often do you discuss issues affecting Tallahassee with others? Please circle one. Regularly Sometimes Rarely Almost never 32. How often do you discuss these issues with a. members of your family? Very often Somewhat often Not very often b. People in your neighborhood? Very often Somewhat often Not very often c. People at work? Very often Somewhat often Not very often d. People in your church or place of worship? Very often Somewhat often Not very often e. People in you club(s) or association(s) Very often Somewhat often Not very often f. Your friends? Very often Somewhat often Not very often
Never Never Never Never Never Never
33. Think of the one person with whom you’ve discussed these issues the most. Once you have this discussion partner in mind, please write his or initials here: ——— 34. Is your discussion partner a close friend, just a friend, a family member, or just someone that you regularly come in contact with? Please circle one. a. close friend
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b. just a friend c. a family member d. Just someone you come in contact with 35. Compared with your discussion partner would you say that your political views are much the same, somewhat different or very different? Please circle one. Much the same Somewhat different Very different 36. Do you think your discussion partner normally favors Republicans, Democrats or both or neither? Please circle one. Republicans Democrats BothNeither 37. Does your discussion partner have a favorable or unfavorable view of George Bush? Favorable Unfavorable 38. When you discuss politics with your discussion partner do you disagree often, sometimes, rarely, or never? Disagree often Disagree sometimes Disagree rarely Never disagree 39. Please read the following statements, for each one, please tell me how much you agree or disagree. a. No matter what a person’s political beliefs are, he or she is entitled to the same legal rights and protections as anyone else. 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree b. I believe in free speech for all, no matter what their views might be? 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree c. “a group that tolerates too many differences of opinions cannot survive for long.” 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree d. “in the long run, the best way to live is to choose friends and associates have similar tastes and beliefs as your own.” 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree
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40. Here are some values that many people think are important, but sometimes we have to choose one value over another. If you absolutely had to choose between the following two values, which is more important? Please circle one. a. Guaranteeing law and order in society OR b. guaranteeing individual freedom 41. How about these two values? a. Narrowing the gap between the rich and poor OR b. increasing economic growth 42. Here are a few questions about government in Washington. a. Who has the final responsibility to decide if a law is constitutional or not? The president Congress The Supreme Court b. Whose responsibility is it to nominate judges to the Federal Courts? The president Congress The Supreme Court c. Which one of the political parties is more conservative than the other at the national level? Democrats Republicans d. How much of a majority is required for the U.S. Senate and House to override a presidential veto? A bare majority A two-thirds majority A three-fourths majority (50% + 1) e. What is the main duty of the U.S. Congress? To write legislation To administer the President’s policies To supervise states’ governments 43. Generally speaking, would you consider yourself to be a liberal, conservative, or a moderate? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Liberal Moderate Strongly Conservative 44. Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people? Most can be trusted Can’t be too careful 45. Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance or would they try to be fair? Take advantage Try to be fair
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46. Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are just looking out for themselves? Try to be helpful Just looking out for themselves 47. Now you are going to read a list of groups in politics. After you read the list, please circle the group you like the least. If there is some other group you like even less than those on this list, please write it in space. a. The Ku Klux Klane. Christian Fundamentalists b. Nazisf. Atheists c. Gay Rights Activistsg. The ACLU d. Communistsh. Other: ————— Now we have a few questions about the disliked group you have selected. 48. As you read the following statements, please tell me how much you agree or disagree. a. Members of the group should be banned from being president of the United States. 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree b. The group should be outlawed. 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree c. Members of the group should be allowed to make a speech in Tallahassee to protest against the government. 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree d. Members of the group should be allowed to hold public rallies in Tallahassee to protest against the government. 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree e. Members of the group you should be allowed to teach in the public schools. 1 2 3 4 5
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Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree f. Members of the group should have their phones tapped by the government. 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Agree Disagree 49. On a scale from 0–100, suppose the number 0 means that the group you identified is not at all threatening to the country, the number 100 means that the group is extremely threatening to the country and the number 50 means it is somewhat threatening to the country. On this scale between 0 and 100, how threatening do you believe the group is to the country as a whole? Please write in a number between 0 and 100. ———— 50. How threatening do you believe the group is to you personally? Please write in a number between 0 and 100. ———— Thank you so much for taking time to answer these questions. I would like to ask you just a few more questions about your background. 51. What is your year of birth: ———— 52. What is the highest level of formal education you have completed? 0–11 Years College graduate High School graduateSome graduate school Technical/trade school Master’s degree Some collegeProfessional degree (J.D., M.D., Ph.D., etc.) 53. Are you married, single, divorced? Married single divorced 54. How long have you been living in Tallahassee? Please write the number here _________. 55. Do you have children under the age of 18? Yes No 56. Do you own or rent your home? Own Rent
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57. What do you consider your racial background to be? African American Caucasian Hispanic Asian Other ——— 58. Gender Male Female 59. In which of these groups did your total family income, from all sources, fall last year before taxes? Under $4,999 $50,000–$64,999 $5000–$9,999 $65,000–$74,999 $10,000–$14,999 $75,000–$84,999 $15,000–$24,999 $85,000–$94,999 $25,000–$34,999 $95,000–$104,999 $35,000–$49,999 Over $105,000 Thank you so much for your participation in the Tallahassee Community Survey.
Appendix D
Tallahassee Community Survey
Telephone Survey Instrument Hello, my name is ________________, and I am calling on behalf of the Florida State University. We are conducting a Tallahassee community survey for a dissertation, which is being funded in part through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Have I reached ________________ (VERIFY PHONE #) May I speak to the male head of the household? (IF NOT AVAILABLE, TALK TO FEMALE) Are you at least 18 years of age or older? (IF YES, CONTINUE. IF NO, ASK FOR SOMEONE 18 OR OLDER) The purpose of the survey is to get your opinions on how you think the local government is meeting your needs as a citizen of Tallahassee and/or Leon County. The questions will take about 15 to 25 minutes to answer, and there are no right or wrong answers, we just want to know your opinions. Also, let me assure you that we are not selling anything or asking for donations. We will consider your agreement to answer these questions as your consent to participate, and all of your answers will be strictly confidential. (IF NEEDED: All identifying information will be removed from our records.) Let’s begin by talking about your involvement with the Tallahassee/ Leon County community. LOCAL GOVERNMENT—TALLAHASSEE / LEON COUNTY
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Q1. Based on your personal experience, to what extent do you feel connected to Tallahassee/Leon County? Would you say that you feel very much connected, somewhat connected, not too connected or not connected at all? (Choose one) [ ] Very much connected [ ] Somewhat connected [ ] Not too connected [ ] Not connected at all [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q2. Overall, during the past five years, do you think the local government has gotten much better, gotten better, stayed about the same, or do you think it is not as good as it used to be? (Choose one) [ ] Gotten much better [ ] Gotten better [ ] Stayed about the same [ ] Not as good as it used to be [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q3. Overall, how would you rate the way the City is run? (Choose one) [ ] Excellent [ ] Very Good [ ] Good Enough [ ] Not So Good [ ] Not Good At All [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q4. How much of the time do you think you can trust your local officials (such as the County Commissioners and City Council members) to do what is right? (Choose one) [ ] Nearly all of the time [ ] Most of the time [ ] Seldom [ ] Never [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q5. Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people? (Choose one)
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[ ] Most can be trusted [ ] Can’t be too careful [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q6. Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair? (Choose one) [ ] Take advantage [ ] Try to be fair [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q7. Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are just looking out for themselves? (Choose one) [ ] Try to be helpful [ ] Just looking out for themselves [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q8. How safe do you feel in walking around your neighborhood at night? (Choose one) [ ] Very safe [ ] Somewhat safe [ ] Somewhat unsafe [ ] Very unsafe [ ] DK (if volunteered) Q9. Again, using your personal experience, how much do you believe your local representatives (such as County Commissioners and City Council members) care about what you think is important for Tallahassee? Do they care very much, somewhat, only a little, or not at all? (Choose one) [ ] Care very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK Q10. Generally speaking, how much would you say that you care about Tallahassee? Would you say that you care very much, somewhat, only a little, or not at all? (Choose one)
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[ ] Very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK Q11. How much of a difference do you believe you can make in Tallahassee? Do you believe that you can make a big difference, a moderate difference, a small difference, or no difference at all? (Choose one) [ ] Big difference [ ] Moderate difference [ ] Small difference [ ] No difference at all [ ] DK Q12. Have you attended a local public meeting in the past five years, such as a school, neighborhood, County or City meeting? (Choose one) [ ] Yes [ ] No (SKIP TO Q14) Q13. Was that meeting about your neighborhood, the city, the County, or schools? (Choose all that apply) [ ] Neighborhood [ ] City [ ] County [ ] Schools Q14. Now, I want you to think about a hypothetical situation for the next few minutes. We are interested in knowing how likely you think you are to take part in local government. If the City of Tallahassee was about to do something that you did not approve of, such as building a waste facility near your home, how likely would you be to attend a meeting about the proposal? Would you say you are very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely or not at all likely? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely
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[ ] Not at all likely (SKIP TO Q16) [ ] DK Q15. How likely would you be to speak at that meeting? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK How likely would you be to: Q16. Sign a petition? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK Q17. Contact your local Representative? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK Q18. Write a letter to the Editor of a newspaper? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK Q19. What if the County or City wanted to raise the speed limit on your street? How likely would you be to attend a meeting about the proposal? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely
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[ ] Not at all likely (SKIP TO Q21) [ ] DK Q20. How likely would you be to speak at that meeting? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK How likely would you be to: Q21. Sign a petition? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK Q22. Contact your local Representative? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK Q23. Write a letter to the Editor of a newspaper? (Choose one) [ ] Very likely [ ] Somewhat likely [ ] Not very likely [ ] Not at all likely [ ] DK For the next set of questions, many people do not know the answers. But, even if you are not sure, I would like you to give me your best guess. (READ ALL OPTIONS TO RESPONDENT. THESE ARE NOT FILL-IN-THE-BLANK. IF NECESSARY, PROMPT RESPONDENT TO ATTEMPT TO ANSWER INSTEAD OF SAYING DK)
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Q24. Can you tell me whether the City of Tallahassee operates under a Mayoral system or a Council-Manager system? (Choose one) [ ] Mayoral [ ] Council-Manager [ ] DK Q25. What party affiliation does the Superintendent of Schools in Leon County hold? (Choose one) [ ] Republican [ ] Democrat [ ] Independent [ ] DK Q26. Are the offices of the Leon County Commissioner partisan or non-partisan? (Choose one) [ ] Partisan [ ] Non-Partisan [ ] DK Q27. Who is the Chairman of the Leon County Commissioners? (Choose one) [ ] Bill Proctor [ ] Tony Grippa [ ] Bob Rackleff [ ] DK Q28. When is the next election for the Mayor of Tallahassee? (Choose one) [ ] 2004 [ ] 2006 [ ] 2008 [ ] DK For the next few questions, we are interested in finding out how often the citizens of Tallahassee and Leon County think about and discuss civic issues. Q29. How often would you say that you read the local newspaper? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often
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[ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] DK Q30. What about discussions with other people? How often do you have discussions about politics with others? Would you say: (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] DK Q31. Now, we’d like to know about discussions that you have about local politics. How often do you discuss issues affecting Tallahassee/Leon County with others? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never (SKIP TO Q43) [ ] DK How often do you discuss these issues with: Q32. members of your family? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] DK Q33. people in your neighborhood? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] DK Q34. your friends? (Choose one) [ ] Very often
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[ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] DK How often do you discuss these issues with: Q35. people in your club(s) or associations(s)? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] NA Q36. people at your work? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] NA Q37. people at your church or place of worship? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] NA Of all the people you discuss these local issues with, think about the one whom you have discussed these with the most. We are going to refer to this person as your discussion partner for the set of questions that follow. OK? Q38. Is your discussion partner a close friend, just a friend, a family member, or just someone you regularly come in contact with? (Choose one) [ ] Close friend [ ] Just a friend [ ] Family member [ ] Just someone you come in contact with [ ] DK
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Q39. Compared with your discussion partner, would you say that your political views are much the same, somewhat different or very different? (Choose one) [ ] Much the same [ ] Somewhat different [ ] Very different [ ] DK Q40. Do you think your discussion partner normally favors Republicans, Democrats, both or neither? (Choose one) [ ] Republicans [ ] Democrats [ ] Both [ ] Neither Q41. Does your discussion partner have a favorable or unfavorable view of George W. Bush? (Choose one) [ ] Favorable [ ] Unfavorable [ ] DK Q42. When you discuss politics with your discussion partner, do you disagree very often, somewhat often, not very often, or never? (Choose one) [ ] Very often [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Not very often [ ] Never [ ] DK PERSONALITY / CHAR ACTERISTICS Part of the project is aimed at understanding the characteristics of Tallahasseeans who may and may not participate in local government. Therefore, we want to ask you a few questions about yourself. The following section contains pairs of words. On a scale of zero to ten, which word best describes you? For example, the number zero means “confident,” the number 10 means “unconfident,” and the number 5 is exactly the middle—neither confident nor unconfident.
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On this scale, what number best represents you? You can use any number from zero to ten. Q43. Zero is confident. Ten in unconfident. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q44. Zero is kind. Ten is unkind. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q45. Zero is tense. Ten is calm. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4
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[]5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q46. Zero is unsymparthetic. Ten is sympathetic. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q47. Zero is organized. Ten is disorganized. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q48. Zero is nervous. Ten is relaxed. (Choose one)
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[]0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q49. Zero is reserved. Ten is outgoing. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q50. Zero is intelligent. Ten is unintelligent. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9
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[ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q51. Zero is neat. Ten is sloppy. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q52. Zero is introverted. Ten is extroverted. (Choose one) []0 []1 []2 []3 []4 []5 []6 []7 []8 []9 [ ] 10 [ ] DK [ ] RF Q53. Generally speaking, would you consider yourself to be a liberal, conservative or a moderate? (PROBE) Would you say strong liberal/conservative or just liberal/conservative? (Choose one) [ ] Liberal [ ] Strong Liberal
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[ ] Conservative [ ] Strong Conservative [ ] Moderate [ ] DK Q54. To what extent do you approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as a president? (Choose one) [ ] Strongly approve [ ] Approve [ ] Disapprove [ ] Strongly Disapprove [ ] DK Q55. As far as you know, are you currently registered to vote? (Choose one) [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] DK Q56. Are you planning to vote in the upcoming 2004 Presidential election? (Choose one) [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] Maybe [ ] DK Q57. In local elections do you vote always, somewhat often, rarely or never? (Choose one) [ ] Always [ ] Somewhat often [ ] Rarely [ ] Never [ ] DK Q58. Generally speaking, would you consider yourself to be a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent? (PROBE) Would you say strong Democrat/Republican or just Democrat/Republican? (Choose one) [ ] Strong Democrat (SKIP TO Q60)
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[ ] Democrat (SKIP TO Q60) [ ] Strong Republican (SKIP TO Q60) [ ] Republican (SKIP TO Q60) [ ] Independent (GO TO Q59) [ ] DK (SKIP TO Q60) Q59. As an Independent, would you say that you lean towards the Democratic party, the Republican party or neither? (Choose one) [ ] Democratic [ ] Republican [ ] Neither Next, I am going to ask you some questions about government in Washington and national politics. Many people do not know the answers to these questions, but even if you are not sure, I’d like you to give me your best guess. (READ ALL OPTIONS. THESE ARE NOT FILL-IN-THEBLANK. IF NECESSARY, PROMPT RESPONDENT TO ATTEMPT TO ANSWER INSTEAD OF DK) POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE Q60. First, who has the final responsibility to decide if a law is constitutional or not? Would you say: (Choose one) [ ] The President [ ] Congress [ ] Supreme Court [ ] DK Q61. Whose responsibility is it to nominate judges to the Federal Courts? (Choose one) [ ] The President [ ] Congress [ ] Supreme Court [ ] DK Q62. Which of the political parties is more conservative than the other at the national level, Democrats or Republicans? (Choose one) [ ] Democrats
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[ ] Republicans [ ] DK Q63. How much of a majority is required for the U.S. Senate and House to override a presidential veto? (Choose one) [ ] Bare majority (50% +1) [ ] Two-thirds majority [ ] Three-fourths majority [ ] DK Q64. What is the main duty of the U.S. Congress? (Choose one) [ ] To write legislation [ ] To administer the President’s policies [ ] To supervise States’ governments [ ] DK SENSE OF COMMUNITY—NEIGHBORHOODS, CHURCHES, ASSOCIATIONS, WORKPLACES, FRIENDS Now we want you to take a few moments and think about your involvements in Tallahassee, such as your church or synagogue, sports teams, PTO, neighborhood associations, and your place of employment. Q65. Thinking about your life these days, do you ever attend religious services, apart from occasional weddings, baptisms, or funerals? (Choose one) [ ] Yes (GO TO Q66) [ ] No (SKIP TO Q79) [ ] RF (SKIP TO Q79) Q66. Do you go to religious services every week, almost every week, once or twice a month, a few times a year, or never? (Choose one) [ ] Every week [ ] Almost every week [ ] Once or twice a week [ ] A few times a year [ ] Never [ ] DK
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Now, I am going to read you a series of statements that many people may make about their church or place of worship. Please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with each statement. CHURCH/ PLACE OF WORSHIP Q67. I think my church is a good place for me to worship. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q68. People at my church do not share the same values. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q69. My fellow church members and I want the same things from this church. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q70. I can recognize most of the people who belong to my church. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q71. I feel at home in this church. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree
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[ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q72. I care about what my fellow members think of my actions. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q73. I have no influence over what this church is like. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q74. If there is a problem, people who belong to this church can get it solved. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q75. It is very important for me to belong to this particular church. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q76. People in this church generally don’t get along with each other. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree
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[ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q77. I expect to belong to this church for a long time. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q78. Based on your personal experience, to what extent do you feel connected in your place of worship? (Choose one) [ ] Very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK How about your neighborhood? Please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with each statement. Q79. I think my neighborhood is a good place for me to live. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q80. People in my neighborhood do not share the same values. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q81. My neighbors and I want the same things from the neighborhood. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree
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[ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q82. I can recognize most of the people who live in my neighborhood. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q83. I feel at home in this neighborhood. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q84. I care about what my neighbors think of my actions. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q85. I have no influence over what this neighborhood is like. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q86. If there is a problem, people who live here can get it solved. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree
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[ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q87. It is very important for me to live in this particular neighborhood. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q88. People in this neighborhood generally don’t get along with each other. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q89. I expect to live in this neighborhood for a long time. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q90. Based on your personal experience, to what extent do you feel connected in your neighborhood? (Choose one) [ ] Very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK Q91. Do you belong to a club or association such as the Kiwanis, PTO or a sports league? (Choose one) [ ] Yes [ ] No (SKIP TO Q104) [ ] RF (SKIP TO Q104)
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With this association in mind, please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the following statements. Q92. I think my association is a good place for me to spend my time. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q93. People in my association do not share the same values. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q94. My fellow members and I want the same things from this association. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q95. I can recognize most of the people who belong to this association. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q96. I feel at home in this association. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion
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Q97. I care about what my fellow members think of my actions. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q98. I have no influence over what this association is like. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q99. If there is a problem, people who belong to this association can get it solved. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q100. It is very important for me to belong to this particular association. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q101. People in this association generally don’t get along with each other. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion
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Q102. I expect to belong to this association for a long time. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q103. Based on your personal experience, to what extent do you feel connected in your association or club? (Choose one) [ ] Very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK We would also like to know about your circle of friends, people with whom you spend your free time socializing. Please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the following statements. Q104. I think spending time with my friends is a good thing for me to do. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q105. My friends and I do not share the same values. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q106. My friends and I want the same things out of life. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree
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[ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q107. I can lean on my friends during times of crisis. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q108. I feel at home with my friends. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q109. I care about what my friends think of my actions. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q110. I have no influence over what my friends are like. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q111. If there is a problem, my friends and I can get it solved. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion
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Q112. It is very important for me to have these particular friends. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q113. My friends and I generally don’t get along with each other. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q114. I expect to have these friends for a long time. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q115. Based on your personal experience, to what extent do you feel connected with your friends? (Choose one) [ ] Very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK Q116. Have you ever worked? (Choose one) [ ] Have worked [ ] Have not worked (SKIP TO Q129) Please indicate whether you strongly disagree, disagree, agree or strongly agree to the following statements about your workplace. Q117. I think my workplace is a good place for me to work. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree
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[ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q118. People at my workplace do not share the same values. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q119. My co-workers and I want the same things from this office. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q120. I can recognize most of the people who I work with in this office. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q121. I feel at home in this office. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q122. I care about what my co-workers think of my actions. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree
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[ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q123. I have no influence over what this workplace is like. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q124. If there is a problem, people who work here can get it solved. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q125. It is very important for me to work in this particular office. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q126. People in this office generally don’t get along with each other. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q127. I expect to work in this office for a long time. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion
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Q128. Based on your personal experience, to what extent do you feel connected in your workplace? (Choose one) [ ] Very much [ ] Somewhat [ ] Only a little [ ] Not at all [ ] DK VALUES/TOLER ANCE When we talk about political issues and governance, often times values come up in the discussion. If you absolutely had to choose between each of the following two values, which is more important? Q129. Guaranteeing law and order in society OR guaranteeing individual freedom? (Choose one) [ ] Guaranteeing law and order in society [ ] Guaranteeing individual freedom [ ] DK Q130. Narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor OR increasing economic growth? (Choose one) [ ] Narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor [ ] Increasing economic growth [ ] DK Please indicate whether you strongly disagree, disagree, agree or strongly agree to the following statements about values and tolerance. Q131. No matter what a person’s political beliefs, he or she is entitled to the same legal rights and protections as anyone else. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q132. I believe in free speech for all, no matter what their views might be. (Choose one)
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[ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q133. A group that tolerates too many differences of opinion cannot survive for long. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q134. In the long run, the best way to live is to choose friends and associates that have similar tastes and beliefs as your own. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q135. Now, I am going to read you a list of groups in politics. As I read the list, please tell me the group you like the LEAST. If there is some other group you like even less than those on the list, please tell me. (Choose one) [ ] The Ku Klux Klan [ ] Nazis [ ] Gay Rights Activists [ ] Communists [ ] DK [ ] Other [ ] Now, keep in mind the group that you just selected. For each of the following statements I am about to read, please tell me whether you strongly disagree, disagree, agree or strongly agree. Q136. Members of the group should be banned from being President of the U.S. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree
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[ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q137. The group should be outlawed (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q138. Members of the group should be allowed to make a speech in Tallahassee to protest against the government. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q139. Members of the group should be allowed to hold public rallies in Tallahassee to protest against the government. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q140. Members of the group should be allowed to teach in the public schools. (Choose one) [ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q141. Members of the group should have their phones tapped by the government. (Choose one)
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[ ] Strongly Disagree [ ] Disagree [ ] Agree [ ] Strongly Agree [ ] No Opinion Q142. On a scale from 0–100, where zero means that the group you identified is not at all threatening, the number 100 means extremely threatening, and 50 means it is somewhat threatening, how threatening do you believe the group is to the country as a whole? (ENTER 999 FOR DK) (Enter text answer) [] Q143. How threatening do you believe the group is to you personally on a scale of 0–100? (ENTER 999 FOR DK) (Enter text answer) [] DEMOGR APHICS Finally, since this project is being funded partly through a grant from the National Science Foundation, we need to ask a few questions about your background. Q144. In what year were you born? (ENTER 999 FOR RF / DK) (Enter text answer) [] Q145. What is the highest level of formal education that you have completed? (READ LIST) (Choose one) [ ] 0–11 Years [ ] High School Graduate [ ] Technical/Trade School [ ] Some College [ ] College Graduate [ ] Some Graduate School
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[ ] Master’s Degree [ ] Professional Degree (J.D., M.D., Ph.D., etc . . . ) [ ] RF/DK Q146. Are you married, single or divorced? (Choose one) [ ] Married [ ] Single [ ] Divorced [ ] RF [ ] Other [ ] Q147. How long have you been living in Tallahassee? (ENTER 999 FOR DK) (Enter text answer) [] Q148. Are you currently employed in the private sector, by the government, or are you currently unemployed? (Choose one) [ ] Private Sector [ ] Government [ ] Unemployed [ ] DK Q149. Do you have children under the age of 18? (Choose one) [ ] Yes [ ] No [ ] DK/RF Q150. Do you own or rent your home? (Choose one) [ ] Own [ ] Rent [ ] RF Q151. What is your race? (READ OPTIONS) (Choose one) [ ] White [ ] Black [ ] Hispanic [ ] Asian
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[ ] RF [ ] Other [ ] Q152. What is the name of your neighborhood? (DK FOR DON’T KNOW AND 999 FOR RF) (Enter text answer) [] Q152A. May I have your zip code? (DK FOR DON’T KNOW AND 999 FOR RF) (Enter text answer) [] Q153. In which of the following groups did your family’s 2003 income, from all sources, fall into? (READ OPTIONS) (Choose one) [ ] Under $10,000 [ ] $10,000—$25,000 [ ] $25,000—$50,000 [ ] $50,000—$75,000 [ ] $75,000—$100,000 [ ] $100,000—$200,000 [ ] $200,000—$500,000 [ ] Over $500,000 [ ] RF Q153A. May I please have your initials or first name so that my supervisor may verify that I completed this survey? (ENTER 999 FOR RF) (Enter text answer) [] That completes the survey. I would like to thank you very much for your time and participation. Have a nice evening/day. Good bye. Q154. Gender (Choose one) [ ] Male [ ] Female Q155. Date (Enter text answer) []
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Q156. County (from sample) (Choose one) [ ] Leon [ ] Other [ ] Q157. Phone number (from sample) (Enter text answer) [] Q158. Interviewer number (Enter text answer) [] Q159. Page number (from sample) (Enter text answer) []
Appendix E
Telephone Survey Dispositions
FSU Community Survey Sampling Methodology The FSU Community Survey is based on a straight random telephone survey sample of the Tallahassee/Leon County area’s adult population, aged 18 or older. Affordable Samples, Inc., located in Old Greenwich, CT, was contracted to generate the sample. Telephone survey methodology provides a nearly ideal sampling frame since almost the entire population in Florida has access to a phone. The selection of telephone numbers (households with telephones) was based on a simple random sample of all telephone numbers in the Tallahassee/Leon County area. From that list, telephone exchanges exclusively assigned to non-household populations were excluded. Ultimately, a computer randomly generated 11,000 telephone numbers, and interviewers called 8,309 of the numbers to complete the desired number of questionnaires (800). If a final disposition could not be reached on the first call, two follow-up attempts were made. A total of 17,860 telephone calls were attempted, and 822 surveys were completed. All surveys are subject to sampling error, which refers to the extent to which sample results differ from what would be obtained if the entire population had been interviewed. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. If the sampling was repeated in the same time period, results could vary by plus or minus four percentage points 95 percent of the time. Thus, the study’s confidence level is 95 percent.
202 Table E.1
CM CB
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Final Disposition Breakdown and Response Rate
RF
IE
822 210 366 1060
DS (determined Household after first NA/ Contacts call) AM 2458
2675
NonHousehold FX Contacts TOTAL
2724 452
IE = households never reached after initial contact Eligible Respondents = Household contacts—ineligible = 1398 Response Rate = Completed Interviews / eligible respondents = 58.8%
5851
8309
Appendix F
Table F.1
Descriptive Statistics of Key Variables Telephone Survey Number of Observations
Mean (SD)
Range
Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Personal Trust Political Trust Participation Attend a Meeting Speak at a Meeting Sign a Petition Contact an Official Write a Letter Local Vote Local Discussion General Discussion Age Education Gender
822 822 819 813 801 807 684 816 696 811 810 804 818 822 822 803 820 822
158 (36.8) 3.79 (.744) 2.62 (.87) 2.93 (.78) 4.92 (1.12) 2.77 (.63) 33.82 (5.31) 6.76 (1.51) 6.48 (1.61) 7.21 (1.28) 6.63 (1.67) 5.53 (2.11) 3.32 (.979) 2.74 (.95) 3.16 (.91) 45.9 (17.2) 4.7 (1.88) .43 (.494)
Party Strength Income Marital Status Employment Status Agreeableness (warm) Emotional Stability (emotional) Conscientiousness (conscientious) Extroversion (extroverted) Openness to Experience (intelligence)
794 715 762 807 822 822
3.06 (.894) 3.67 (1.51) 1.54 (.716) 1.32 (.469) 16 (3.97) 6.2 (4.62)
46–263 2–5 1–4 1–4 3–6 1–4 19–40 2–8 2–8 2–8 2–8 2–8 1–4 1–4 1–4 18–94 1–8 0=male 1=female 1–4 1–8 1–3 1–2 0–20 0–20
822
13.9 (4.74)
0–20
822
12.63 (5.22)
0–20
822
15.3 (4.11)
0–20
Variable Name
Continued
204 Table F.1
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Continued
Variable Name Home Ownership Political Knowledge Local Political Knowledge Read Newspaper Frequency of Local Discussion Frequency of General Discussion Closeness of Discussion Partner Discussion Partner Agreement SOC X No. of Contexts
Table F.2
Number of Observations
Mean (SD)
Range
817 822 822 821 822 822
1.3 (.46) 3.78 (1.4) 3.34 (1.2) 3.19 (.94) 1.25 (.95) .83 (.91)
1–2 0–5 0–5 1–4 0–3 0–3
722
2.08 (1.03)
0–3
724 822
1.43 (.78) 624(251)
0–3 92–1315
Descriptive Statistics of Key Variables Context Survey
Variable Name Total Sense of Community Context Specific Sense of Community Age Education Gender Party Strength Income Marital Status Agreeableness (warm) Emotional Stability (emotional) Conscientiousness (conscientious) Extroversion (extroverted) Openness to Experience (intelligence)
Number of Observations
Mean (SD)
Range
253 285
31.8 (9.5) 46.1 (7.7)
5–50 12–60
287 297 284
41.4 (15.05) 4.94 (1.75) 1.56 (.49)
298 282 295 291 296 299
3.09 (1.14) 7.68 (3.02) 1.5 (.7) 15.0 (3.5) 8.2 (4.20) 13.2 (4.2)
18–83 1–8 1=male 2=female 1–4 1–12 1–3 0–20 0–20 0–20
296
12.4 (4.7)
0–20
298
14.52 (3.4)
0–20
Appendix G
Adapted Sense of Community Index based on McMillan et al (1986)
Instructions: I am going to read you a series of statements that many people may make about their (type of context inserted here). Please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with each statement (no opinion was coded also when offered by the respondent). 1. I think my (neighborhood) is a good place for me to live. 2. People on this (neighborhood) do not share the same values. 3. My (neighbors) and I want the same things from the (neighborhood). 4. I can recognize most of the people who live in my (neighborhood). 5. I feel at home in this (neighborhood). 6. I care about what my (neighbors) think of my actions. 7. I have no influence over what this (neighborhood) is like. 8. If there is a problem in this (neighborhood) people who live here can get it solved. 9. It is very important to me to live in this particular (neighborhood). 10. People in this (neighborhood) generally don’t get along with each other. 11. I expect to live in this (neighborhood) for a long time. Total Sense of Community Index= Q1 through Q11 The questions in Table I were altered for the various contexts by replacing the word(s) in parentheses with another context. For example, for the church context, item would read as follows: “I think my (church or synagogue) is a good place for me to worship.” Note: Question left out from original SCI: “Very few of my (neighbors) know me”.
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Appendix H
Simple Membership Models
Table H.1 Ordered Logit Regression Estimates of Political Trust for the Simple Membership Model
Variable Total Sense of Community Number of Contexts
Political Trust Simple Membership Model Coefficient (se)
–.056 (.116)
Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Income Marital Status Employment Status
–.17 (.177) .002 (.03) .00 (.00) .19 (.05)*** .13 (.09) .04 (.07) –.03 (.13) .12 (.22)
Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (df) No. of observations (pseudo R2)
.07 (.02)** .00 (.02) .02 (.02) .00 (.02) –.07 (.02)** 43.5 (14) 635 (.04)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
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Table H.2 Ordered Logit Regression Estimates of Internal Efficacy for the Simple Membership Model
Variable Number of Contexts Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Income Marital Status Employment Status Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (df) No. of observations (pseudo R2) Notes:
Internal Efficacy Simple Membership Model Coefficient (se) .24 (.10)* –.06 (.16) .09 (.03)*** –.00 (.00)*** .04 (.05) .15 (.08)# –.02 (.06) –.11 (.11) –.01 (.19) .01 (.02) –.04 (.02)* .01 (.02) .03 (.02)# .03 (.02) 57.91 (14) 641 (04)
# p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
Table H.3 Ordered Logit Regression Estimates of Local Voting for the Simple Membership Model
Variable Number of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Political Trust Personal Trust Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Warm Emotional Conscientious
Local Vote Simple Membership Model Coefficient (se) .37 (.11)*** .23 (.10)* .19 (.12)* –.19 (.14) .11 (.08) –.11 (.17) .05 (.03)* –.00 (.00) .07 (.05) .35 (.09)*** .01 (.02) –.01 (.02) .00 (.02) Continued
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Table H.3
Continued
Variable Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (df) No. of observations (pseudo R2)
Local Vote Simple Membership Model Coefficient (se) .01 (.02) .00 (.02) 173.41 (15) 747 (.11)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
Table H.4 Ordered Logit Regression Estimates of Local Political Discussion for the Simple Membership Model
Variable Number of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Political Trust Personal Trust Read Newspaper Political Knowledge Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (df)
Local Political Discussion Simple Membership Model Coefficient (se) .24 (.10)** .52 (.09)*** –.07 (.10) –.42 (.13)*** .07 (.07) .48 (.08)*** .09 (.06) –.13 (.14) .01 (.02) –.00 (.00) .07 (.04)# .02 (.08) –.02 (.02) .00 (.02) .04 (.02)* .02 (.01)# .01 (.02) 151.47 (17)
No. of observations (pseudo R2) Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
748 (.08)
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Table H.5 Ordered Logit Regression Estimates of Local Political Knowledge for the Simple Membership Model
Variable Number of Contexts Internal Efficacy External Efficacy Political Trust Personal Trust Read Newspaper Frequency of local discussion Frequency of general discussion Gender Age Age Squared Education Strength of Party Home ownership Income Warm Emotional Conscientious Extroverted Intelligence LR Chi2 (df) No. of observations (pseudo R2)
Local Political Knowledge Simple Membership Model Coefficient (se) .11 (.10) .02 (.10) .15 (.11) –.17 (.13) .04 (.07) .19 (.09)* –.25 (.10)** –.02 (.10) .27 (.15)# .06 (.02)* –.00 (.00)* .14 (.04)*** .35 (.09) –.46 (.19)* –.02 (.06) –.02 (.02) .01 (.02) –.02 (.02) .01 (.01) .02 (.02) 109.83 (20) 666 (.05)
Notes: # p<=.10, * p<=.05, ** p<=.01, *** p<=.001.
Notes
1 Introduction 1. For a full review of this literature see Zuckerman (2005). 2. There exist other measures of sense of community in the literature however, the McMillian and Chavis SCI is the most used and broadly validated measure of SOC (Chipuer and Pretty 1999). 3. Davidson and Cotter (1989) first explored the relationship between sense of community and political participation. They provide an excellent review of the studies up to 1989 in which the relationship between the idea of sense of community and political processes is implied. Yet these studies fail to measure sense of community in the intricate and nuanced matter that Davidson and Cotter (1989) are able to do with their SCS scale. This study builds on the work of Davidson and Cotter (1989). The major point of departure from Davidson and Cotter (1989) is that it examines individuals involved several different types of communities and it uses an adapted version of the Sense of Community Index created by Chavis et al. (1986). 4. See note 3. 2 A Research Design for Studying Sense of Community and Political Behavior: Methodological Considerations 1. See appendix A for a sample copy of the Jury Coordinator Letter. 2. See appendix B for question wording of the sense of community items used in the jury survey. 3. See appendix C.1 for a sample copy of the Letter of Introduction for context survey. 4. Unfortunately, two of the four organizations were unable to follow through and complete the survey. 5. See appendix C.3 for a sample of the context survey instrument. 6. See appendix E for the final dispositions for the telephone survey.
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3 Measuring Sense of Community 1. At this point, we will assume that variance in sense of community can exist and that such variance can be captured via survey instruments. With these assumptions in place, we can consider the hypothetical significance of variance in sense of community regardless of how sense of community is actually ultimately measured. These hypothetical scenarios provide a framework for assessment of the empirical findings to be reported momentarily. 2. The mean differences for the following pairs are significant at the p <.05 level: workplace and place of worship, workplace and neighborhood, workplace and association, place of worship and circle of friends. 3. On the basis of the results from this data, sense of community reduces to one large dimension, not four separate elements as theorized by McMillian and Chavis. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, sense of community will be approached as one large dimension. 4. The sense of community battery has 11 items on the telephone survey. Based on telephone pretest results, one item was dropped from the battery (“Very few of my _______ know me.”). Respondents seemed to answer the twelfth item on paper but did not when it was asked during the telephone interview. The correlation between the scales using 11 items compared to 12 items is .989. 5. Neighborhoods in this case are defined by zip code. While we acknowledge that zip codes are a rough indicator of neighborhood (although it is not uncommon to use as an indicator) it is the only way to break down the data into smaller units for analysis. Ideally one would want neighborhood names for such an analysis yet that data is unavailable to us. 4 Sense of Community, Efficacy, and Trust 1. Indeed Sampson, McAdam, MacIndoe, and Weffer-Elizondo (2005) examine what they term “blended social action” in which they combine the theoretical perspectives of the social movement literature and collective efficacy to develop a hybrid approach to studying civic events—which includes political behavior such as attending a protest. 2. Some efforts (although dated) have been made to examine group consciousness as a factor influencing efficacy (Gamson 1971, Gurin and Epps 1975, Gurn, Gurin, and Beattie 1969, Shingles 1981). Verba et al. (1995) speak to the idea in terms of individual-level traits influencing “roots in the community” and therefore concern about local issues. Most recently, Rudolph, Gangl, and Stevens (2000) conducted research on emotions, efficacy (particularly anxiety), and campaign involvement.
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3. This idea is wholly consistent with Schattschnieder’s contagiousness of conflict theory. As he notes “the first proposition is that the outcome of every conflict is determined by the extent to which the audience becomes involved in it. That is, the outcome of all conflict is determined by the scope of its contagion. The number of people involved in any conflict determines what happens . . .” (Schattsneider 1975, p. 2). 4. Brehm and Rahn (1997) demonstrate that “experience with crime and fear of walking in their neighborhood at night undermine trust in others” (p. 1018) and that age may also play a factor. 5. Although the theoretical framework outlined here posits that sense of community influences efficacy and trust, alternate causal connections are possible. The most likely alternate scenario is that any identified relationship is spurious, tracing not to the influence of sense of community on trust and efficacy, but rather to some common underlying force that influences all three of these variables. Given the construction of the sense of community index, a less likely scenario is that efficacy and trust influence sense of community. As is always the case in cross-sectional analyses, there is no definitive means to exclude these possibilities. However, cognizant of these concerns, I included in the survey items designed to capture an important array of individual-level traits, the Big Five personality characteristics. Inclusion of the Big Five as control variables does much to allay concerns about spuriousness because the variables account for the most obvious forces—extroversion, warmth and agreeableness, conscientiousness, and so on—that might incline an individual both to feel efficacious and trustworthy and to develop a strong sense of community. 6. Some respondents may have scores in fewer than the five contexts in which they were asked about because some individuals may not belong to a church or an organization, in which case they would have opted out of the battery of questions associated with those contexts. 7. The SCI used in this survey was adapted to contain only 11 items, correlational tests conducted on a pilot study reveals that the 11 item battery is highly correlated with the 12 item battery at .989. 8. On the context survey, the response for this question contained a scale ranging from 1 “none at all” to 10 “very much.” For the benefit of the respondent and the interviewer the question was converted to a fourpoint response on the telephone survey worded as you see above. 9. Two of the items used to measure sense of community, item 7 and 8, speak directly to the perceived capacities of the individual. Because these items arguably capture a facet of efficacy, I removed those two items and ran correlations between the index with and without those items. The indices are correlated at .996. Additionally, I ran a second set of models with sense of community constructed with these items omitted. Precisely the same pattern of results emerged bringing added confidence to the causal account presented here.
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10. In fact, every respondent for the telephone survey answered at least two of the five batteries related to the sense of community questions. 11. The full model also includes an interaction term for total sense of community X summary contexts. While the interaction terms fail to reach significance, joint-F tests confirm an interaction effect exists. 12. For all calculations, control variables are held constant at their mean values. 13. For the context survey this question has a 10 point scale, but was revised for the telephone survey. 14. These are the same questions used by Brehm and Rahn (1997) for their measure of interpersonal trust. 15. Context-specific sense of community just misses significance at the .10 level with a significance score of .107. 16. Again, the simulation for those with average sense of community was run and the results reveal null effects—the predicted probabilities are relatively similar when adding contexts for an individual with average sense of community. 17. Although the net positive varies for each dependent variable, across all four, the effect is either positive or no effect exists, in no case do we see a net negative effect. 5 Political Participation and Sense of Community 1. General discussion of the literature in this area can be found in Milbrath and Goel 1977, Bennett and Bennett 1986, Leighley 1995, Brady 1999, Conway 2000, and Schlozman 2002. 2. The second scenario dealt with raising the speed limit on your street. 3. Had I asked about actual incidents of past participation, it would have been impossible for me to rule out the scenario that participation itself contributed to the development of sense of community. This risk of reverse causation is especially prominent with social acts such as attending, and speaking at, meetings. With my approach, I can be certain that the specific acts of participation under consideration did not cause sense of community; that is, a true case of reverse causality can be ruled out. That said, it still remains possible that past acts of political participation give rise to both sense of community and future participation. Hence, I make no claim—nor is any such claim necessary—that participation is irrelevant for the generation of sense of community. Instead, my argument is that the results presented here are appropriately interpreted as revealing the extent to which an individual’s present level of sense of community contributes to this person’s likelihood of future political activity.
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4. Because the correlation between the two separate scenario scales was highly correlated, they were combined into one general participation scale. 5. The net effect of adding contexts however, is extremely small, for the average individual, adding a context only increases the predicted value of participation from 0.33 to 0.34. when moving from two contexts to five. 6. The scale is an additive scale for both types of scenarios presented to the respondents. They could respond with 1 not at all likely or 4 very likely. The two were highly correlated and thus were combined into one scale ranging from 2 to 8. 7. Total effects could not be ascertained because the dependent variables are ordinal thus the models used to calculate the coefficients are ordered logit models. 8. Recall that each context has a minimum score of 11 and a maximum score of 55. Thus for 2 contexts the minimum and maximum scores are 22 and 110 respectively, for 3 contexts the scores are 33 and 165 and so on. Every respondent had a score in at least two contexts. 9. These models were also run with an interaction term for sense of community X summary context but no significant results emerged, thus for ease of presentation and clarity, the more parsimonious model is presented here. 10. Figure 5.2 depicts graphically the results of the predicted probabilities; the figures are similar to ones in chapter 4. The vertical axis is the predicted probability and the horizontal is the number of contexts, the three lines represent minimum, average, and maximum sense of community scores. 11. It is impossible with this data to examine that scenario due to the fact that nearly everyone (98%) of those interviewed said they voted in the last national election. Clearly this lack of variation makes it impossible to conduct empirical tests. 6
The Interplay between Sense of Community and Political Discussion
1. Although Cramer-Walsh’s “Talking about Politics: Informal Groups and Social Identity in American Life” is a well conducted analysis of informal discussions about politics and a notable exception.
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Index
Bess, K. 6–7 Big 5 Personality Traits 13 Coleman 79, 97 collective efficacy theory 10, 53–54 community psychology 3, 5–6, 22 community satisfaction 140 context research 3 context survey 44–46 Cramer-Walsh 12 Davidson, W 9 discussion partner 98–99, 104–107
Lazarsfeld, P 3 letter writing 86–87 local discussion 100–104, 122, 127 local political knowledge 112, 115–117, 123, 128 locational community 7 McMillan, D. 8, 22 Miller, A.H. 4 multi-context approach 37–39 Mutz, D 3 network research 3
efficacy 10, 53–56, 59–65, 122–123, 134 external efficacy 63–66 general discussion 101–104 general participation 80–83 general political knowledge 111, 114–115 Gurin, P 4 Huckfeldt, Robert 1, 3, 4 Huddy, L 4 identity research 3, 5 internal efficacy 59–63
participation 9, 77–79, 123, 125–127 Perkins, D.D 2 personal trust 67–71 personality 13 petition signing 88–89 political discussion 11–12, 95–104, 134 political knowledge 11, 109–118, 123, 137 political psychology 2–3 political trust 71–72 Putnam, R 4 relational community 7
jury pool survey 40–44 Katz, E 3
Sarason, S.B. 6 Schlozman, K 78
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INDEX
sense of community 2, 6–9, 58, 121, 133–138 sense of community index (SCI) 45 sense of community items 40 sense of community scale 41–44 Simon, B 4 simple membership 119 single context approach 36–38 social capital 3, 4–5 social interaction 96–98, 113–114
Tallahassee Community Survey 47 Tallahassee, FL 24 telephone survey 47 tolerance 139–140 total sense of community 98 trust 10, 53, 56–58, 66, 121–123, 134 voting 89–92, 122 Zuckerman, A 77
