Research Protocol

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter presents the research protocol for the parallel experiments conducted with young adults from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in 212 classrooms, sixty-nine schools, in eight countries (ten cases). This experiment builds on the experiment conducted by Richard Matland (1994) in Norway. The treatment is a lengthy speech presenting realistic partisan policy stances on six topics. In each country the governing and major opposition parties provide the partisan baseline control, presented through party label and speech text using local partisan language about the policy topics. The speeches of the man and woman candidate of the same party are identical. Party Platform and Label effects provide a baseline relevant in diverse democracies against which the Candidate Gender effect is measured. A questionnaire measured participant evaluations of the candidate whose speech they read on eighteen DVs and collected information about participant’s demographics.