Title:      How Similar Are They? Rethinking Electoral Congruence

Authors:    Jason Wittenberg

Entrydate:  2008-07-05 12:56:13

Keywords:   voting, elections, volatility, persistence,
correlation, concordance

Abstract:   Electoral continuity and discontinuity have been a
staple of voting research for decades. Most researchers have
employed Pearson's r as a measure of congruence between two
electoral outcomes across a set of geographic units. This paper
argues that that practice should be abandoned. The correlation
coefficient is almost always
the wrong measure. The paper recommends other quantities that
better accord with
what researchers usually mean by electoral persistence.
Replications of prior studies in American and comparative
politics demonstrate that the consequences of using r
when it is inappropriate can be stark. In some cases what we
think are continuities are actually discontinuities.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=782

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