The impact of ANES on the careers of Goldenberg, Green, Jones-Correa and Philpot

ANES65thThis post is part of a series celebrating the 65th anniversary of the American National Election Studies (ANES). The posts will seek to highlight some of the many ways in which the ANES has benefited scholarship, the public, and the advancement of science. Do you have ideas for additional posts? Please contact us by email ([email protected]) or Twitter (@umisrcps).

Here we include comments from four prominent political scientists on how ANES has impacted their careers.

Edie Goldenberg, Professor of Political Science and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan:

I used ANES data in several articles early in my career and relied on other findings based on ANES data for the book I wrote with Mike Traugott, Campaigning for Congress. I served on the Board for a while and enjoyed ANES founder Warren Miller’s retreats in Arizona during the cold Michigan winters. We always went out for authentic Mexican cuisine, which was terrific. I met a lot of colleagues through the ANES.

Donald Green, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University:

Scarcely a day goes by in which something I’m reading, debating, or studying is not in some way connected to ANES research.  My very first day in graduate school in 1983 featured a lecture by UC Berkeley Political Scientist Merrill Shanks on the insights gleaned from the four-wave 1980 ANES.  Today, decades later, I am about to run off to teach a class on political psychology, and our readings for this week include Philip Converse’s “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics” and Ansolabehere, Rodden, and Snyder’s 2008 American Political Science Review (APSR) article that uses ANES data to show Converse would have come to different conclusions had he used multi-item scales.

Michael Jones-Correa, Professor of Government at Cornell University:

Working with the ANES and the ANES team has been both beneficial for my research and a real learning experience— particularly being part of the ANES advisory board. The intense discussion among the Primary Investigators (PIs) and board during our meetings had the best aspects of sitting in on a seminar on survey design and methods. The ANES itself has inspired me to be part of other survey data collection efforts– notably the Latino National Survey (LNS, 2006), with co-PIs Luis Fraga, John Garcia, Rodney Hero, Val Martinez, and Gary Segura, and the Latino Immigration National Election Survey (LINES 2012-2013), with James McCann. Both of these drew on, learned from, and expanded the scope of the ANES.

Tasha Philpot, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas – Austin:

I’ve utilized the ANES in almost all of my publications. The most significant point in ANES history for me was when Daron Shaw and I were able to secure National Science Foundation  (NSF) funding for the African-American oversample in 2008, a historic election. Using the African-American oversample, we were able to explore the determinants of black turnout in the 2008 election.