WORKSHOP: Workshop on Survey Methodology and Sampling

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

A decade ago the National Science Foundation announced that it would not fund a midterm election study as it had previously, in connection with the American National Election Study. Despite a high level of interest in this project, scholars did not have a back up plan in place to deal with the situation. Scholars were faced with one of the most interesting electoral contexts in recent history and did not have a way of tracking attitudes and behavior of American citizens in these elections. While no one foresees a loss of funding for the current version of the American National Election Studies, concerns have been raised about the costs of the survey. In particular, the face-to-face pre-election and post-election interview components of the survey are very expensive and the costs per subject continue to increase. If, or when, the American National Election Studies has to change its methodology because of budget constraints or affordability issues, the discipline and the foundation should have ideas about ways to move forward which would maximize different dimensions of the project so that the best possible decision can be made. The decision can not be left to path dependencies or the easiest obvious solution. The goal of this intense multi-day workshop is to bring together a small number of sampling and survey experts with experience using the American National Election Studies to address this potential problem. The goal will be to develop alternatives that preserve the intellectual mission of the ANES time series, but also advances the conception of what can be done within each episodic election, separate from the time series. The move forward, when and if it comes, will have potentially transformative effects on the research in American politics generally and survey methodology more broadly. The intellectual goal is for the transformation to be positive, and perhaps of equal importance, for there to be support across the field of American politics for such a change, if needed.