Winter 2004
Problem Set 1
Due January 27,
2004
Measures of association for tables in Canadian Ethnic Studies article
In “Minorities
and elections in Canada's fourth party system: macro and micro constraints and
opportunities,” Canadian Ethnic Studies, Spring 2002, volume 34, pp.
85-111, the authors Livianna S. Tossutti and Tom Pierre Najem (TN) provide
several tables that include measures of association such as V and phi.
You can obtain the full article online through the University Library – I have included only a few selections here. See http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/99/965/43689362w6/purl=rc1_ITOF_0_A94550900&dyn=5!xrn_5_0_A94550900?sw_aep=ureginalib
In the questions that follow, you are to
reproduce some of the statistics and reanalyze some of the data.
In this article,
ethnic is defined as not being from French, English, or aboriginal
ancestry. Visible minority is defined
as in the federal government definition.
1. Table 2 – distribution of ethnic and non-ethnic candidates by party.
a. For Table 2, the data for the year 2000 can
be presented as follows:
|
Political Party
|
Ethnic candidates |
Non-ethnic candidates |
|
Liberal |
80 |
221 |
|
Reform/Alliance |
70 |
228 |
|
PC |
56 |
236 |
|
New Democrats |
74 |
226 |
|
Bloc Québecois |
5 |
70 |
For this table,
TN report a Cramer’s V of 0.11, with a probability of less than or equal to
0.01. Obtain the chi-square value, its
probability, Cramer’s V, phi, and the contingency coefficient for this
table. State the null and research
hypothesis and your conclusions.
b. Eliminate the Bloc Québecois from the above
table and redo the exercise in a.
c. Using the results of a. and b., describe the
results in words, including comments on the TN statements about the results in
Table 2.
2. Table 7 – distribution of candidates by whether they faced ethnic competition.
Use the data for
2000 in Table 7 for this question.
a. Construct the 2 x 2 cross-classification
tables for (i) ethnic and non-ethnic and (ii) visible minority and non-visible
minority.
b. Using the tables in a., compute the
following measures of association: phi,
V, the contingency coefficient, the odds ratio, Yule’s Q, and the Pearson
correlation coefficient. State the null
and alternative hypotheses and, if possible, obtain the probability of these
statistics. What do you conclude about
the relationships in the two tables.
c. From the results of a. and b., comment on
the statements of the authors and state what you conclude from the tables and
statistics.
3. Conclusion
a. Is anything accomplished by using phi for
some tables and V for others?
b. Comment on the statement by TN in footnote
11:
(11.) Social researchers
use correlation coefficients to measure the strength of the relationship
between two variables. The choice of coefficient (Phi, Cramer's V, Tau-b and so
on) is contingent on the level of measurement within the data. There is no
universal agreement within political science or across disciplines on
interpreting their magnitude, but generally, coefficients with a range of .00 -
.19 indicate non-existent to weak relationships; coefficients in the .20 - .30
range are considered moderate; coefficients in the .30 - .40 range indicate a
moderately strong relationship; those in the .40 - .50 range would be
considered strong, and so on.
c. Do you have any suggestions for TN in order
to make their data and statistical analysis more accessible?
Table 2
Ethnic
and Visible Minority Nominations by Party, 1993-2000 (row
percentages/N
in parentheses) *
Political
Party 1993 (a,d) 1997 (b)
2000 (c)
Liberals 23.7 (70) 25.6 (77)
26.6 (80)
6.4 (19) 6.6 (20)
7.3 (22)
Reform/Alliance 23.3 (48) 23.8 (54)
23.5 (70)
.5 (1)
4 (9) 5
(15)
Progressive
Conservatives 17.3 (51) 21.9 (66)
19.2 (56)
3.1 (9)
2.3 (7) 2.4
(7)
New
Democrats 22.9 (67) 25.9 (78)
24.7 (74)
5.8 (17) 4.3 (13)
4.3 (13)
Bloc
Quebecois 6.7 (5)
4 (3) 6.7
(5)
2.7 (2)
1.3 (1) 2.7
(2)
*
Data for ethnic candidates reported in first row of cells; data for
visible
minorities reported in second row of cells Party differences in
ethnic
nominations:
(a)
Cramer's V = .11
(b)
Cramer's V = .12
(c)
Cramer's V = .11; all p [less than or equal to] .01 (11) Party
differences
in visible minority nominations
(d)
Cramer's V = .11; p [less than or equal to] .01
Selected
comments by TN on data in Table 2:
The
Liberals generally fielded more ethnic and visible minority candidates,
although the New Democrats (NDP) and the Reform/Canadian Alliance (in 1997 and
2000) were not far behind their rival (Table 2). The patterns for the Liberals
and the NDP are in keeping with the 1988 study, but what is unexpected is that
the Reform/Alliance, despite their anti-immigrant images, have fielded a more
diverse contingent of candidates than their more established competitor on the
political right.
Yet
this explanation does not account for why other parties have kept pace with the
Liberals' recruitment of ethnic candidates. The NDP's success may be attributed
to its programmatic appeal and/or to the incentives it has implemented to boost
visible minority candidacies, but the Reform/Alliance's comparable performance
is less intuitive, given the party's opposition to Official Multiculturalism
and its negative image in many ethno-cultural communities. We propose that
while Reform/Alliance has achieved comparable numerical representation of
minorities, the neoliberal individualistic principles it expounds may attract
individuals who reject or downplay a close identification with their ethnic
collectives. The validity of this hypothesis will be ascertained during the
elite interviews which were referred to earlier. The Conservatives' image as a
white, Anglo-Saxon party remains unchanged in the fourth party system. Despite
their long history, they
continue
to lag behind more recently-established parties such as the NDP and
Reform/Alliance in the area of minority candidate recruitment. Reasons for this
cannot be attributed to the lack of appeal which the Conservative program might
have for ethnic minorities, but are more likely linked to its historical
failure to convey an image of openness to these communities through its
organizational structure. Despite the overtures of the Mulroney government
toward ethno-cultural communities, including the creation of the first-ever
Department of Multiculturalism in 1988 and official apologies for the
internment and property expropriation of members of the Japanese and Italian-Canadian
communities during World War II, these efforts have not diversified the party's
appeal under the subsequent leadership of Campbell, Charest or Clark.
As hypothesized, few minority candidates competed for the separatist BQ. Non-francophones tended to support the federalist Liberals (Crete & Lachapelle, 1996, p. 426), and overwhelmingly rejected the sovereignty option in the 1995 Quebec referendum.
Selected
comments by TN on data in Table 7:
The
data noted in Table 7 challenges another assumption about the
opportunities
available to minority politicians. Neither ethnic nor visible minority
politicians competed at a financial disadvantage when compared to politicians
from founding groups. This can likely be attributed to legislated limits on
candidate spending (Carty, Cross & Young) and to their ability to raise and
spend as much money as Charter group candidates. Furthermore, unlike
Pelletier's study, which found that in 75 percent of federal ridings, there was
only one ethnic candidacy among the major parties, most ethnic and visible
minority candidates faced competition from members of other non-founding
groups. Between 63 and 82 percent of ethnic or visible minority candidates
faced minority competition, compared to between 38.7 and 44.3 percent of
Charter group politicians (Table 7).
Our
expectations concerning the tendency of ethnic and visible minority candidates
to compete in culturally heterogeneous ridings were confirmed. On average,
ethnic and visible minority candidates ran for
office in constituencies where between 32 and 43 percent of the population traced their ancestries to non-founding groups (Table 7). In contrast, members of founding groups and non-visible minorities tended to run in relatively homogeneous areas, where about a fifth of the population reported origins that were neither British, nor French nor Canadian.
Select
parts of Table 7
Local
Conditions for Ethnic, Visible Minority and Non-Ethnic Candidates, 1993-2000
%
Candidates Facing Ethnic Competition (row percentages/ N in
parentheses)
1993 1997
Ethnic
Candidates 63.1 (152) (h) 65.1 (181) (i)
Non-Ethnic
Candidates 38.7 (357) 44.3 (411)
Visible
Minority 58.3 (28) (k)
82 (41) (1)
N.-V.
Minority 43.1 (481) 47.7
(551)
2000
Ethnic
Candidates 64.6 (184) (j)
Non-Ethnic
Candidates 42.8 (419)
Visible
Minority 61 (36) (m)
N.-V.
Minority 47 (567)
%
of Minorities in Riding (N in parentheses)
Ethnic
Candidates 31.7 (241) (b)
33.0 (278) (c)
Non-Ethnic
Candidates 19.3 (923)
17.9 (927)
Visible
Minority 31.7 (48) (e)
43 (50) (f)
N.-V.
Minority 21.4 (1116) 20.5 (1155)
Ethnic
Candidates 32 (285) (d)
Non-Ethnic
Candidates 17.5 (980)
Visible
Minority 37.3 (59) (g)
N.-V.
Minority 20 (1206)
F-scores:
a) 6.3, p [less than or equal to] .01; b) 111.86; c) 172.70;
d)
160.13; e) 17.1; f) 80.08; g) 54.3; b thru g, p [less than or equal
to]
.001
Phi:
h) .20; i) .18; j) .18; k) .06, p [less than or equal to] .05; l) .14; m).06, p
[less than or equal to] .05; h,i,j,l, p [less than or equal to] .001
ABSTRACT/RESUME
This
study identifies the factors associated with the nomination and election
prospects of ethnic and visible minority candidates in three federal elections
held between 1993 and 2000. We conducted a statistical analysis of how party
affiliation, the geographic location of a riding, incumbency, local party
competitiveness, riding cultural heterogeneity, campaign spending, minority
competition, and a candidate's racial or ethnic background influenced electoral
outcomes for 3,634 candidates. We found that ethnic and visible minority
nomination and election rates did not slip from their climb in the third party
system, but have stalled. Furthermore, macro factors such as party affiliation
and geography did not generally account for differential election rates between
Charter group and non-Charter group politicians. Instead, local party
competitiveness and campaign spending were better predictors of the
likelihood
of a minority victory at the ballot box. Visible minorities
continue
to be underrepresented in candi dacies and in the parliamentary
ranks,
but there was no evidence to show they competed in unfavourable local contexts.
The key to electing more visible minorities lies in recruiting more of these
individuals to run for public office.
URL for article from University Library: