You can "boo" AND vote: a new approach for studying how people combine political activities.

Do some people specialize only in electoral-oriented political participation such as voting, while others are active only beyond the electoral arena, participating in protests and demonstrations? In new research Jennifer Oser examines participatory inequalities by analyzing how people combine opportunities for political action in practice. She finds that most of those who are activists also vote, and that despite new opportunities for political activism, the majority of citizens are largely disengaged from politics

How Citizenship Norms and Digital Media Use Affect Political Participation: A Two-Wave Panel Analysis

A centrally important question for researchers of media and communication is whether any type of individual-level behavior (e.g., digital media use) or normative attitude (e.g., norms of good citizenship) contributes to equalizing patterns of political participation, which often favor higher-status groups. Drawing on a two-wave repeated panel telephone survey that uses a nationally representative sampling frame, the study’s research design facilitates a robust analysis of how citizenship norms and digital media use affect political participation, with a focus on comparing higher- and lower-status groups. Specifically, the study analyzes a survey conducted in 2018 (Wave 1) and 2019 (Wave 2) among Israeli citizens, with a representative sampling of the generally higher-status Jewish majority and the lower-status Arab minority. The findings indicate that citizenship norms and digital media use in Wave 1 have a time-ordered positive effect on nonelectoral participation in Wave 2 for both Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. However, the findings also show that for voting, the only statistically significant determinant is citizens’ Jewish or Arab identity. At a time when many democracies are facing severe challenges due to democratic erosion and social disintegration, this study contributes a normatively encouraging finding that key factors identified in the literature on citizenship norms and digital media use do not contribute to participatory inequalities between the Jewish majority and Arab minority in Israel. The findings also show, however, that it is essential to look beyond digital media use patterns to mobilize lower-status groups to become politically engaged in electoral-oriented politics

Strong partisans trust the political system, but not other people

Do we trust other people just like we trust the political system? For strong party supporters in the US, the answer is a resounding "no". Drawing on General Social Survey data from between 1972 and 2014, new research by Marc Hooghe and Jennifer Oser shows that strong party supporters have high trust in the political system, but low trust in ..

How do attitudes toward redistribution differ between Europe and the United States?

Europeans are often assumed to be more in favour of redistributive policies than citizens of the United States, but is this actually the case? New research by Jennifer Oser and Marc Hooghe finds that American public opinion is indeed less supportive of redistribution and social security than in Europe. However, a very substantial group of US citizens would still like more to be done to reduce poverty and inequality

Using digital media reinforces inequalities in political participation

In the past decade digital spaces have become increasingly important in politics and to political participation. But does using digital media help to mobilize new people to participate in politics? In a new study which looks at data across 25 years, Jennifer Oser and Shelley Boulianne find stronger evidence for the opposite effect: political participation motivates digital media use, which reinforces inequalities in political participation

Hashtag activism is not the solution to democratic inequality

The internet offers of swathe of new opportunities for democratic interaction, but how does this affect engagement levels among different groups? In this Policy Network repost, Mark Hooghe, Sofie Marien, and Jennifer Oser argue that what they term ‘hashtag activism’ is an inadequate solution to democratic equality

A two-step estimator for multilevel latent class analysis with covariates

We propose a two-step estimator for multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) with covariates. The measurement model for observed items is estimated in its first step, and in the second step covariates are added in the model, keeping the measurement model parameters fixed. We discuss model identification, and derive an Expectation Maximization algorithm for efficient implementation of the estimator. By means of an extensive simulation study we show that (1) this approach performs similarly to existing stepwise estimators for multilevel LCA but with much reduced computing time, and (2) it yields approximately unbiased parameter estimates with a negligible loss of efficiency compared to the one-step estimator. The proposal is illustrated with a cross-national analysis of predictors of citizenship norms

Multilevel latent class analysis with covariates: Analysis of cross-national citizenship norms with a two-stage approach

This paper focuses on the substantive application of multilevel LCA to the evolution of citizenship norms in a diverse array of democratic countries. To do so, we present a two-stage approach to fit multilevel latent class models: in the first stage (measurement model construction), unconditional class enumeration is done separately on both low and high level latent variables, estimating only a part of the model at a time -- hence keeping the remaining part fixed -- and then updating the full measurement model; in the second stage (structural model construction), individual and/or group covariates are included in the model. By separating the two parts -- first stage and second stage of model building -- the measurement model is stabilized and is allowed to be determined only by it's indicators. Moreover, this two-step approach makes the inclusion/exclusion of a covariate a relatively simple task to handle. Our proposal amends common practice in applied social science research, where simple (low-level) LCA is done to obtain a classification of low-level unit, and this is then related to (low- and high-level) covariates simply including group fixed effects. Our analysis identifies latent classes that score either consistently high or consistently low on all measured items, along with two theoretically important classes that place distinctive emphasis on items related to engaged citizenship, and duty-based norms

A two-step estimator for multilevel latent class analysis with covariates

We propose a two-step estimator for multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) with covariates. The measurement model for observed items is estimated in its first step, and in the second step covariates are added in the model, keeping the measurement model parameters fixed. We discuss model identification, and derive an Expectation Maximization algorithm for efficient implementation of the estimator. By means of an extensive simulation study we show that (i) this approach performs similarly to existing stepwise estimators for multilevel LCA but with much reduced computing time, and (ii) it yields approximately unbiased parameter estimates with a negligible loss of efficiency compared to the one-step estimator. The proposal is illustrated with a cross-national analysis of predictors of citizenship norms.Comment: Manuscript version accepted for publication in Psychometrik

Drug Abuse Treatment Beyond Prison Walls

The period surrounding release from prison is a critical time for parolees, bearing the potential for a drug-free and crime-free life in the community but also high risks for recidivism and relapse to drugs. The authors describe two projects. The first illustrates the use of a formal Delphi process to elicit and combine the expertise of treatment providers, researchers, corrections personnel, and other stakeholders in a set of statewide guidelines for facilitating re-entry. The second project is a six-session intervention to enable women to protect themselves against acquiring or transmitting HIV in their intimate relationships