NSF LogoNSF Award Abstract - #9818742 AWSFL008-DS3

Democracy, Toleration, and the Strains of French Politics

NSF Org SES
Latest Amendment Date April 1, 1999
Award Number 9818742
Award Instrument Standard Grant
Program Manager James S. Granato
SES DIVN OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCES
SBE DIRECT FOR SOCIAL, BEHAV & ECONOMIC SCIE
Start Date April 1, 1999
Expires March 31, 2002 (Estimated)
Expected Total Amount $135000 (Estimated)
Investigator Paul M. Sniderman paulms@stanford.edu (Principal Investigator current)
Sponsor Stanford University
651 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305 650/723-2300
NSF Program 1371 POLITICAL SCIENCE
Field Application 0000099 Other Applications NEC
0116000 Human Subjects
Program Reference Code 0000,OTHR,

Abstract

The commitment of citizens to democratic practices under pressure is the distinctive objective of the study that we propose. A celebrated series of studies has provided a benchmark view of citizens' support for an array of democratic values (Stouffer, 1955; McClosky, 1964; McClosky and Brill, 1983; Gibson, 1988; Sullivan et al., 1978, 1982). Although the coverage of democratic values is wide, the examination of the conditions of commitment to them remains narrow. The assessment of attitudes toward political issues typically is carried out in conditions that deliberately are studiously neutral. The wording of questions, the framing of alternatives, and even the demeanor of the interviewers are designed to eliminate (or at least to balance) the pressure on respondents to take one, rather than another, side of a public issue (for pioneering exceptions, see Marcus et al., 1995; Gibson, 1998). These studies are valuable but, if the politics of democracies under strain is to be grasped, it is necessary to examine the commitments of citizens under pressure. How willing are they to honor their commitments to democratic values, not when they weigh their choices in an an artificially neutral situation, but when they must make them under pressure? How ready are they to qualify, or even abandon, them when they come face-to-face with competing values? What kinds of pressure - informational, normative, social or ideological, impose the greatest strain on the commitment of citizens to democratic values? For whom? And why? And with what consequences for the practice of democratic politics? The study that we propose is designed to break new ground in understanding when citizens, in France or elsewhere, stand by or forsake democratic principles under the pressure of competing values or in the face of an appeal to authority - including the authority of the popular will. To make this possible, we have partnerships with the Centre d'Etude de la Vie Politique Francaise (CEVIPOF) in Paris and the Institute d'Etude Politiques (CERIP) in Lyon. Each has a distinctive methodological expertise. The CEVIPOF group has been the leading survey research team in the study of electoral politics in France over the last two decades (Boy and Mayer, 1993; Boy and Mayer, 1997; Mayer, 1997). The CERIP group has been the principal forum for the study of the politics of ordinary citizens through close observation and intensive interviewing. Our group concentrates on marrying, through computer-assisted interviewing, the inferential strength of the randomized experiment with the descriptive strength of the representative sample. Working together, we can carry out a study that none of could accomplish on our own.


You may also retrieve a text version of this abstract.
Please report errors in award information by writing to: award-abstracts-info@nsf.gov.

Please use the browser back button to return to the previous screen.

If you have trouble accessing any FastLane page, please contact the FastLane Help Desk at 1-800-673-6188