There is mounting evidence that the public's political decisional processes are heterogeneous
(Rivers, 1988; Sniderman, Brody & Tetlock, 1991; and Johnston, Blais, Gidengil & Nevitte, 1996).
All citizens do not reason the same way about politics: they rely on different considerations, or they
give different weights to similar considerations. However, our understanding of this phenomenon
remains sketchy, in many regards. I address the conceptual and empirical ambiguity by exploring
the nature, the sources, the extent, the consequences, and the campaign dynamics of interpersonal
heterogeneity in political decision-making. The analysis relies on Canadian and American public
opinion survey data.
The evidence reveals that heterogeneity is a very important phenomenon. Relationships
between dependent and explanatory variables are rarely stable and consistent across the entire
population. Most political decisions (especially the more common ones) and most independent
variables exhibit interpersonal diversity in coefficient strength. Hypothesis-testing and explanationbuilding
can be led astray if researchers limit their analyses to the whole citizenry. Normatively,
heterogeneity is responsible for individual and aggregate deviations from enlightened preferences.
Heterogeneity, however, is a very complex phenomenon. One can not deal with it in any
simple way. A researcher can not simply capture it, take it into account, and move on to other
concerns. Heterogeneity permeates through our models of political behaviour in significant,
pervasive and perplexing ways.
This research raises concerns about the complexity of political behaviour and our ability to
understand citizens, campaigns, elections, and democracy. The world is not a simple,
straightforward and easily comprehensible subject. It is much more intricate and difficult to grasp
than we currently believe. In order to understand reality, our approaches, theories, and models need
to be as complex and multidimensional as reality. Striving for oversimplification can only lead to
misconceptions and fallacies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11137 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Fournier, Patrick |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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