Punctuated equilibrium and the dynamics of political participation: the case of letter writing

Figures & data

Figure 1. Adapted from Baumgartner et al. (2009).

Figure 2. Total mail per fortnight.

Table 1. Top topics of the letters.

Topic	Total mail
Reduction in Family Day Care funding – Anti	33,656
Alternative site for Sydney's second airport – Pro	29,538
Cuts to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Anti	26,401
East Timor – Human Rights	17,950
Gun reform (combined pro – and anti-)	16,794

Figure 3. Mr Howard’s fortnightly mail – with normal curve and 3 standard deviations indicated.

Figure 4. Weekly presidential mail volume: Ford to Reagan (with normal curve and 3sd indicated).

Note: for ease of visualization, all observations beyond 3sd were aggregated at 3sd.

Table 2. Summary of Kurtosis and L-kurtosis for changes in mail volumes.

	L-kurtosis	Gini co-efficient (95% CI)	N
Mr Howard – fortnightly (Australia)	0.2497	0.5161 (0.4864–0.5529)	85
Prime Minister annual (Australia)	0.2495	0.4754 (0.4235–0.5416)	41
Presidential weekly (USA)	0.2537	0.5087 (0.4911–0.5261)	504
Presidential fortnightly aggregation (USA)	0.2407	0.5044 (0.4773–0.5326)	216^a

^a The N for the fortnightly data is not exactly half the weekly data, because some weeks were missing, meaning it was not possible to aggregate to fortnightly data.

Figure 5. Mr Howard's fortnightly mail – change in topics (pooled).

Note: for ease of visualisation, all observations beyond 3sd were aggregated at 3sd.

Baumgartner, Frank R, Christian Breunig, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Bryan D. Jones, Peter B. Mortensen, Michiel Nuytemans, and Stefaan Walgrave. 2009. “Punctuated Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective.” American Journal of Political Science 53: 603–620. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00389.x

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