Overview
The FCNES draws inspiration from previous community studies and the growing field of spatial analysis, and has been in the planning stages since the 2006 midterm elections. Fortunately, we were able to launch the study during the 2008 election cycle, which presented a serendipitous confluence of competitive primaries and a fairly competitive general election. We chose Franklin County, Ohio (home of Columbus, and the Ohio State University) as the research site, since it possesses demographics highly representative of the American public, and is the capitol region of America’s most consistent presidential bellwether state.
The primary component of the FCNES is a two-wave observational study of the presence of political yard signs. We drove block-by-block throughout a random sample of 30 Franklin County precincts (15,500 observations), and the entire city of Upper Arlington (11,500 observations), noting the location and content of yard signs and other political symbols. We chose to do a case study of Upper Arlington due to its incredibly high rates of this form of participation, its notorious “yard sign wars,” and its active and combative party organizations.
In December 2008, we sent surveys to all of the approximately 3,500 households for which we observed at least one yard sign related to the presidential race. Our survey generated more than 1,100 responses on topics that included motives for posting yard signs, participation in political discussion networks (including a novel, neighborhood-based ego-centric network battery), and a full battery of other acts of political participation.
Using public records, the observation and survey data is also linked with election records from the Franklin County Board of Elections and with property data from the Franklin County Auditor’s office. As such, we are able to analyze this data in a GIS framework using spatial econometric techniques which are gaining wider use in political science. Please visit the recent analyses page for working papers and additional updates.