This package implements a simple but powerful framework to measure political sophistication based on open-ended survey responses. Discursive sophistication captures the complexity of individual attitude expression by quantifying its relative size, range, and constraint. For more information on the measurement approach see: Kraft, Patrick W. 2023. “Women Also Know Stuff: Challenging the Gender Gap in Political Sophistication.” American Political Science Review (forthcoming).
You can install the development version of discursive from GitHub with:
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("pwkraft/discursive")library(discursive)
cces$discursive <- discursive(data = cces,
openends = c(paste0("oe0", 1:9), "oe10"),
meta = c("age", "educ_cont", "pid_cont", "educ_pid", "female"),
args_prepDocuments = list(lower.thresh = 10, verbose = FALSE),
args_stm = list(K = 25, seed = 12345, verbose = FALSE),
dictionary = dict_sample, progress = FALSE)$output$discursive
#> Building corpus...
#> Converting to Lower Case...
#> Removing punctuation...
#> Removing stopwords...
#> Removing numbers...
#> Stemming...
#> Creating Output...
head(cces)
#> age female educ_cont pid_cont educ_pid
#> 1 58 1 2 1 2
#> 2 70 1 4 1 4
#> 3 23 1 4 6 24
#> 4 29 1 6 2 12
#> 5 28 1 4 2 8
#> 6 57 1 2 2 4
#> oe01
#> 1 Check for past arrests or mental conditions
#> 2 Necessary to provide adequate information for anyone who wishes to purchase a weapon. This will prevent anyone not of sound mind to have a weapon. Also, anyone who has committed a serious crime should need further investigation.
#> 3 so guns do not get into the wrong peoples hands
#> 4 Less illegal guns on streets
#> 5 We want to protect the greater society by double checking
#> 6 to make sure the person doesn't have a criminal history or they are mentally unstable
#> oe02
#> 1 More and quicker sales
#> 2 These thinkers fear that anything at all will weaken the second amendment to the Constitution.
#> 3 to use for hunting
#> 4 Unfair everyone should have the right to beat arms
#> 5 That background checks shouldn’t matter because they are just wanting a gun for hunting purposes.
#> 6 it is against everyone's right to bear arms and it is an invasion of privacy
#> oe03
#> 1 Abortion is murder
#> 2 Mostly from religious organizations some of whom refer to the bible. They may not understand that it's not about religion.
#> 3 women have the right to make decisions about their own body
#> 4 People will be more careful having sex
#> 5 That it is a human life
#> 6 it is murder of the unborn
#> oe04
#> 1 Right to decide
#> 2 A woman should have the absolute right to decide what happens to her body as do men. Roe v Wade provides choice.
#> 3 you should not be able to kill a baby
#> 4 Demeaning to women
#> 5 It is the women’s right to do what she wants with her body
#> 6 women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies
#> oe05
#> 1 Provide a better life for them
#> 2 This is the only fair and just way to provide legal status to these people who know nothing but the US, have been educated here and work to provide a better life for them and us.
#> 3 America is the home for chances
#> 4 People are people let them pursue happiness
#> 5 This is their home and all they know
#> 6 American is built on the idea of being a melting pot with open arms to immigrants
#> oe06
#> 1 Overpopulating and less jobs
#> 2
#> 3 people need to earn their way into our country
#> 4 We can help them
#> 5 They are still immigrants
#> 6 they drain the system resources and some of them are terrorists
#> oe07
#> 1 Is not affordable
#> 2 Costs too much and was a Democratic idea.
#> 3 everyone had a chance to be covered by health care
#> 4
#> 5 It is costing us too much money and we have better options
#> 6 it forces people to purchase something against their will that they may or may not want
#> oe08
#> 1 More money for insurance companies
#> 2 All Americans deserve healthcare just like most of the world's progressive countries.
#> 3 not everyone thinks its a requirement to have healthcare
#> 4 People need affordable healthcare
#> 5 Keep protecting the ones we are already protecting
#> 6 it helps more people have insurance
#> oe09
#> 1
#> 2 Just another ridiculous Republican idea.
#> 3 We keep a line of trade with other countries
#> 4
#> 5 Since they are out of the country we should charge
#> 6 we have to pay them tariffs so they can pay us too
#> oe10
#> 1
#> 2 This just irritates our allies and hurts our workers, companies and farmers.
#> 3 We close the line of trade with other countries
#> 4 Less big government
#> 5 It is just trading
#> 6 it isn't good for international relations
#> discursive
#> 1 0.07362755
#> 2 1.27235839
#> 3 0.32848993
#> 4 -0.17371927
#> 5 0.79568885
#> 6 0.50372490