Arthur W. Lupia University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The mission of the American National Election (ANES) is to inform explanations of election outcomes by providing data that support rich hypotheses testing, maximize methodological excellence, measure many variables, and promote comparisons across people, contexts and time. The largest and longest running ANES data collection is a two-wave panel conducted in the months immediately before and after the 2008 elections. The surveys are conducted face-to-face in the respondent's home and are part of a time-series that expands over 50 years. Previous studies provide significant information on foreign policy (with an emphasis on terrorism in recent years), a range of feelings and perspectives about government (that could serve as a basis for understanding attitudes that are potentially related to domestic terrorism), and the relationship between religion and various aspects of social action. The project augments the 2008 ANES by allowing the survey to ask more questions on both the pre-election and post-election interviews. More broadly, these data collection enhances the ANES Time Series and provides a strong and credible basis from which to derive further understanding of issues such as preparedness, attitudes towards certain groups (particularly electorally relevant groups and religion), and further understandings of the likely roots of domestic terrorism and variations in domestic support for various homeland security initiatives..
