Showing papers by "Sidney Verba published in 2011"

A Life in Political Science

Abstract: Political science has been a central part of my life for over half a century. This essay records thoughts about the discipline, what it has given me, and what I hope I have given it. It records my entrance into the field and the direction of my work, and offers a personal view of the nature of political science. Using my own work as the examples, it traces the evolution of comparative survey research as a method. And it outlines a list of works on citizen voice and political equality. It focuses as well on the openness and breadth of the discipline, two of its finest virtues.

Who Speaks? Citizen Political Voice on the Internet Commons

Abstract: Using an August 2008 representative survey of Americans conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, we investigate the consequences of Internet-based political activity for long-standing patterns of participatory inequality. There is little evidence of change in the extent to which political participation is stratified by socioeconomic status, even when we account for the fact that the well educated and affluent are more likely to be Internet users. However, because young adults are much more likely than their elders to be comfortable with electronic technologies and to use the Internet, the Web has ameliorated the well-known participatory deficit among those who have recently joined the electorate. Still, among Internet users, the young are not especially politically active. How these trends play out in the future depends on what happens to the current Web-savvy younger generation and the cohorts that follow as well as on the rapidly developing political capacities of the Web.