What if the whole world could vote? October 30, 2008
Posted by Sverre in : Methods in political science, US Presidential election , comments closed… asks the Economist and tests it. They’ve asked their online readers to vote and constructed a worldwide electoral college. Lo and behold! the world electorate map is shockingly enough painted bright blue. It appears most nations in the world have a distribution in excess of 80-20 in Obama’s favour. Some people (no serious political scientists I hope) take this as evidence that the world supports Obama.
Economist.com voter map screenshot
The world at large probably prefers Obama, but this “survey” does in no way confirm that. Why not? It’s really quite simple. The survey is conducted at the Economist.com website. And who are going to claim that worldwide readers of the Economist represent a fair approximation to a random distribution of the population? None, I hope. For example, I would expect the Economists’ readers to have vastly higher than average levels of education. This is further accentuated by the fact that not every visitor to the website can vote, just registered Economist.com members. This ensures that even those casual visitors not normally reading the Economist are even less likely to vote.
There is no easier way to prove the bias of the survey than just looking at the scores for the US in this survey. In this survey the US supports Obama by 81-19.
This isn’t even very original. I have seen several such maps made on the basis of different surveys already, and must have read a dozen different online articles on it.
So has the Economist suddenly gone naive and stupid? Of course not. This was never intended as a survey by the Economist, so just don’t make the mistake of treating it like one. What the Economist wanted was more hits to their website, and more registered members on their website. I’d guess this got them hundreds, if not thousands. It worked on me. 😉 (more…)
Who votes for Fremskrittspartiet? October 27, 2008
Posted by Sverre in : Norwegian politics, Political behavior , comments closedNorwegian media today references a survey conducted by Norstat for Norwegian State Broadcasting (NRK) that shows that voters for the Norwegian party Fremskrittspartiet (The Progress Party) are more diverse than voters of other Norwegian parties. This corresponds quite well with a paper I wrote for a class in advanced statistics, analyzing the FrP voter based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS).
I analyzed the FrP voters according to the so-called “FrP code” presented by Norwegian Author Magnus Marsdal in the influential book FrP-koden. He claims that the success of FrP can be explained by the tension between a left-oriented cultural elite and a group of disgruntled voters identifying themselves with working class values. These are perceived to have little education and a low income, to be xenophobic and sceptical to the government and people in power. Marsdal employs mostly univariate analysis and anecdotal evidence to support these claims. I performed a regression analysis, testing these and a few other hypotheses, concluding that both low education, low age, scepticism to government and scepticism to immigration seems to increase probability of voting FrP. However, the tests of statistical reliability indicate that there are groups of voters that are very poorly predicted by these indicators, appraently voting FrP for some other, unexplained reasons. (more…)
Has Obama already won? October 19, 2008
Posted by Sverre in : US Presidential election , comments closed
Obama has had a good lead on the polls for a few days now – does this mean he’s won? Here’s a side glance at what the internet thinks.
Yes, say Norwegian newspapers. The reason they all agree is of course because they all quote their favourite expert, professor Ole O. Moen from the University of Oslo. To Dagsavisen, for example, he says he thinks it will now take a real or imagined terror threat for Obama to lose. He doesn’t think Obama is going to make any big enough mistakes. But with a single expert being quoted across the board I thought I’d look around a bit.
I assumed I could rely on Fox News to bring me predictions that didn’t favour that black yuppie, but their website did little more than confuse me. They were more interested in telling me that the great-great-great-granddaughter of a slave on McCain’s ancestor’s farm is now a psychology professor.
The Washington Post seems to think Obama will win. Among other things, they can tell us how McCain’s got trouble with media as Obama gets all the endorsements and the great maverick himself is starting a fight with the NYT. Just in case the unthinkable should happen and McCain wins, the Post has posted (ha-ha) some emergency help to journalists to help explain it. At least they list possible reasons why things might take an unexpected turn. (more…)
10-minute guide to Malaysian Politics: A foreigner’s view October 7, 2008
Posted by Sverre in : Malaysia, World politics , comments closed
Malaysian politics are fascinating, but as with any country not easy to understand unless you’ve studied them. I’ve had a keen interest in Malaysia for a few years, so I’ll try to sum up the most important things you need to know to follow what’s going on. This reflects my understanding of things, which I admit may be flawed. Please comment on any mistakes you believe I have made. Also a word of caution: Wikipedia articles on these subjects have occasionally been contaminated by “jokes” or partisan statements and should be used with caution. (more…)
Quick book review: International Migration by Jonathon W. Moses October 3, 2008
Posted by Sverre in : Political economy , comments closed
Title: International Migration – globalization’s last frontier
Author: Jonathon W. Moses
Year: 2006
Publisher: Zed Books, London
ISBN: 1842776592
I read this book as part of the required reading in a course on International Political Economy by prof. Moses, a man I hold in high regard both as a person and an academic. As he’s also the advisor for my master thesis you might question how good idea it is to criticize his work, but to hell with caution. Praise without criticism is boring and without much credibility anyway. Besides I’ve already done this during an oral exam that turned out well, so…
Let me start by recommending this book as a good read. Even though it has its flaws, it’s a thought-provoking analysis of a topic that certainly doesn’t have the attention it deserves in political science. It certainly gave me a lot of new ideas and forced me to rethink my entire conception of migration and borders in general.
Quickly summarized, Moses argues strongly and normatively against barriers to migration. He shows us how the world is becoming more and more globalized in a lot of areas, but how migration has somehow been exempt from this universal trend. He then proceeds along three separate lines of reasoning to explain why this is wrong: morally, politically and economically. Finally there is a chapter in which he challenges the conventional wisdoms on the effects of migration before concluding with a policy recommendation of open borders and broader debates. (more…)
Picking apart a quantitative analysis October 3, 2008
Posted by Sverre in : Methods in political science, Political behavior , comments closedKai Arzheimer posted on his blog a not yet published paper he wrote along with Elizabeth Carter of Keele University. The paper picks apart another paper on effects that contribute and don’t contribute to the electoral support of Le Pen’s Front Nationale in France, especially the volume of immigration.
My interest in the paper is not so much the substantial content as the nice reminder it was to me as an aspiring political scientist to still keep a critical eye towards papers that at first eyesight appear to have a thorough empirical basis. I don’t think I’d have noticed the flaws these two scientists did.
The paper is well worth a read for anyone interested in quantitative methods.
Read Kai Arzheimer’s post and both papers here.