IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v66y1972i04p1306-1315_14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scaling Models for Legislative Roll-Call Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Weisberg, Herbert F.

Abstract

Guttman scaling is the usual procedure for scaling legislative roll-call votes. This paper calls attention to an alternative scaling model—the proximity model. Under this model, legislators approve a consecutive set of items on the scale, without the cumulation required by the Guttman scale. Circumstances under which proximity voting is likely are discussed. Congressional voting on the Compromise of 1850 is analyzed in detail to illustrate the proximity model and to emphasize the possibility of obtaining faulty inferences if one uses the Guttman scale model when it is incorrect. Guttman scaling has been successful for contemporary Congresses, but the proximity model is seen to underlie some issues in the early 1970s. Proximity scaling is not limited to the legislative realm; it can be used in survey analysis and in attitudinal research more generally.

Suggested Citation

  • Weisberg, Herbert F., 1972. "Scaling Models for Legislative Roll-Call Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 1306-1315, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:66:y:1972:i:04:p:1306-1315_14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400146210/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Burstein, 1978. "A New Method for Measuring Legislative Content and Change," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 6(3), pages 337-364, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:66:y:1972:i:04:p:1306-1315_14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.