But do you, or anyone else, have any other suggestions? Perhaps, especially something that also includes voting vs. non-voting by group.
To illustrate, here is my concern with the Stonecash book (bearing in mind my limited knowledge of the subject and the need to go over his book in real detail). IMO, the part of his book that covers these issues says:
1) There has been a great shift in inequality. Adversely affected people have respond to this.
2) The current Democratic mainstream in the '90s has done pretty well in attracting those adversely affected and are on track. In long run the Republicans will not be the majority party. Except for whites in the South, most of those who have been ill served by the changes have strengthened their support for the DP and this will show up if the DP stays its current course. Stonecash seems to limit the data search to supporting these points.
Of course there are alternative hypotheses. For example: SOME of those adversely affected by the neo-liberalism pushed by Republicans upped or shifted their support to the Democrats in hope of an alternative -- one certainly expects some of this. OTHERS were disappointed by what they saw coming from the Democrats and either dropped out of voting (or failed to register) or remained voting but moved down their priority list and now - more than before - vote based on the non-economic issues that they also care about (which for some includes religious issues, "national pride", even racial prejudices).
Obviously to look at those who are now not voting, one can't run regressions that JUST include voters (as Stonecash does). One has to look at shifts in voting AND non-voting patterns over time, among the core 'adversely affected' voters (not just the national average in non-voting, since other groups may be voting more than in the past).
Likewise, it could be that whites in the South are sui-generus and are just not responding to the hope that the Democrats offer. Or it could be that the current Democratic leadership does not offer *enough* of a hope to interest them, while the other non-economic issues show at least some hope of satisfaction (whatever one thinks of that satisfaction). And if one looks closely, this phenomena might show up in smaller groups scattered throughout the country (including lots of 'swing' states). One would have to look at things like priority ranking of issues and which party 'does a better job' in those issues -- all of which broken down among the 'adversely affected' economic groups over time.
Anyway...I hope people get the idea: any studies of how voting (and non-voting) patterns have changed during the era of neo-liberalism? Many thanks in advance.
Paul
At 12:05 PM 10/28/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>Paul wrote:
>
>>Anyone have suggestions of good empirical studies of voting patterns
>>broken down by economic categories (ideally cross referencing age, race,
>>geo location, profession, urban\suburban\rural, religious background, etc)?
>
>For a mostly income-based analysis, with regional and racial breakdowns,
>see Jeffrey Steonecash's Class and Party in American Politics.
>
>Doug
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