Frederic Charles Schaffer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3744967 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frederic Charles Schaffer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frederic Charles |
| FAMILY NAME | Schaffer |
| SIGNATURE | SCHAFFER F C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Democracies Across Cultures: The Hegemonic Concept of Democracy has Dissolved, What Happens Now
In this discussion of democracy's conceptual pluralism(s), Frederic Schaffer holds a guiding lamp to show what researchers should take into consideration in the study of “the democracies” and their “rough equivalents” as can be found across language, culture, time, and space. This act generates a focus on practical tactics in research and knowledge dissemination. Is it, for example, best to establish an international committee of democracy's epis…
Elucidating Social Science Concepts
In Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide , Frederic Charles Schaffer makes the case for an interpretivist approach to social science and the concepts used by social scientists. Schaffer adopts an approach to concepts that he calls ‘elucidation’, and the approach involves relating social science concepts to their everyday use by laypersons. The reviewers in this Book Review Symposium – Joe Soss, Douglas C. Dow and Ahmed Khan…
Not-So-Individual Voting: Patriarchal Control and Familial Hedging in Political Elections around the World
It is almost axiomatic in the study of elections that within the context of the family household, the vote is an expression of individual preference. This article questions how widely this assumption of individual voting applies to actual household members around the world by taking notice of two empirical anomalies that are particularly salient to understanding the electoral behavior of women: controlled voting (the dictating of women’s and youn…
Thin Descriptions: The Limits of Survey Research on the Meaning of Democracy
Survey researchers have produced a body of evidence suggesting that people's understandings of democracy are surprisingly consistent worldwide. This article challenges that finding by comparing the results of a 2002 survey conducted in the Philippines with the results of my own 2001 fieldwork in one Philippine community where, using interpretive rather than survey-research tools, I also investigated how people understand democracy. The article id…
Elections For Sale: The Causes and Consequences of Vote Buying
Might Cleaning Up Elections Keep People Away from the Polls? Historical and Comparative Perspectives
Many democracies in the developing world have enacted reforms to make their elections cleaner. It is often assumed that such reforms will make elections more participatory. The reality, however, is that we know little about the consequences of current reform efforts on voter turnout. In examining both historical and contemporary cases, this article identifies three mechanisms by which clean election reform today might actually keep potential vote…
Democracy in translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture
Frederic C. Schaffer challenges the assumption often made by American scholars that democracy has been achieved in foreign countries when criteria such as free elections are met. Elections, he argues, often have cultural underpinnings that are invisible to outsiders. To examine grass-roots understandings of democratic institutions and political concepts, Schaffer conducted fieldwork in Senegal, a mostly Islamic and agrarian country with a long hi…
Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture
Thin Descriptions: The Limits of Survey Research on the Meaning of Democracy
Survey researchers have produced a body of evidence suggesting that people's understandings of democracy are surprisingly consistent worldwide. This article challenges that finding by comparing the results of a 2002 survey conducted in the Philippines with the results of my own 2001 fieldwork in one Philippine community where, using interpretive rather than survey-research tools, I also investigated how people understand democracy. The article id…
Might Cleaning Up Elections Keep People Away from the Polls? Historical and Comparative Perspectives
Many democracies in the developing world have enacted reforms to make their elections cleaner. It is often assumed that such reforms will make elections more participatory. The reality, however, is that we know little about the consequences of current reform efforts on voter turnout. In examining both historical and contemporary cases, this article identifies three mechanisms by which clean election reform today might actually keep potential vote…
Democracy in translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture
Frederic C. Schaffer challenges the assumption often made by American scholars that democracy has been achieved in foreign countries when criteria such as free elections are met. Elections, he argues, often have cultural underpinnings that are invisible to outsiders. To examine grass-roots understandings of democratic institutions and political concepts, Schaffer conducted fieldwork in Senegal, a mostly Islamic and agrarian country with a long hi…
Not-So-Individual Voting: Patriarchal Control and Familial Hedging in Political Elections around the World
It is almost axiomatic in the study of elections that within the context of the family household, the vote is an expression of individual preference. This article questions how widely this assumption of individual voting applies to actual household members around the world by taking notice of two empirical anomalies that are particularly salient to understanding the electoral behavior of women: controlled voting (the dictating of women’s and youn…
Elucidating Social Science Concepts
In Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide , Frederic Charles Schaffer makes the case for an interpretivist approach to social science and the concepts used by social scientists. Schaffer adopts an approach to concepts that he calls ‘elucidation’, and the approach involves relating social science concepts to their everyday use by laypersons. The reviewers in this Book Review Symposium – Joe Soss, Douglas C. Dow and Ahmed Khan…
Democracy in translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture
Frederic C. Schaffer challenges the assumption often made by American scholars that democracy has been achieved in foreign countries when criteria such as free elections are met. Elections, he argues, often have cultural underpinnings that are invisible to outsiders. To examine grass-roots understandings of democratic institutions and political concepts, Schaffer conducted fieldwork in Senegal, a mostly Islamic and agrarian country with a long hi…
Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture
Might Cleaning Up Elections Keep People Away from the Polls? Historical and Comparative Perspectives
Many democracies in the developing world have enacted reforms to make their elections cleaner. It is often assumed that such reforms will make elections more participatory. The reality, however, is that we know little about the consequences of current reform efforts on voter turnout. In examining both historical and contemporary cases, this article identifies three mechanisms by which clean election reform today might actually keep potential vote…
Elections For Sale: The Causes and Consequences of Vote Buying
Not-So-Individual Voting: Patriarchal Control and Familial Hedging in Political Elections around the World
It is almost axiomatic in the study of elections that within the context of the family household, the vote is an expression of individual preference. This article questions how widely this assumption of individual voting applies to actual household members around the world by taking notice of two empirical anomalies that are particularly salient to understanding the electoral behavior of women: controlled voting (the dictating of women’s and youn…
Thin Descriptions: The Limits of Survey Research on the Meaning of Democracy
Survey researchers have produced a body of evidence suggesting that people's understandings of democracy are surprisingly consistent worldwide. This article challenges that finding by comparing the results of a 2002 survey conducted in the Philippines with the results of my own 2001 fieldwork in one Philippine community where, using interpretive rather than survey-research tools, I also investigated how people understand democracy. The article id…
Elucidating Social Science Concepts
In Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide , Frederic Charles Schaffer makes the case for an interpretivist approach to social science and the concepts used by social scientists. Schaffer adopts an approach to concepts that he calls ‘elucidation’, and the approach involves relating social science concepts to their everyday use by laypersons. The reviewers in this Book Review Symposium – Joe Soss, Douglas C. Dow and Ahmed Khan…
Democracies Across Cultures: The Hegemonic Concept of Democracy has Dissolved, What Happens Now
In this discussion of democracy's conceptual pluralism(s), Frederic Schaffer holds a guiding lamp to show what researchers should take into consideration in the study of “the democracies” and their “rough equivalents” as can be found across language, culture, time, and space. This act generates a focus on practical tactics in research and knowledge dissemination. Is it, for example, best to establish an international committee of democracy's epis…
Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Democracy (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Social science (3 works) · Philosophy (2 works)