les of Investigating

The November elections may seem a long way off to most Americans, but for the staff of the American National Election Studies (NES) the 1984 election study is already in full swing. For thirty-six years, the election studies conducted by the University of Michigan’s Center for Political Studies (CPS) have served political and social scientists around the world as the premier research vehicle for the study of political attitudes and behavior of the American electorate. The 1984 study is the seventeenth in this long-running series, a continuous research endeavor that is virtually unparalleled in the history of social science research. The first American National Election Study was conducted after the presidential election of 1948 by Angus Campbell and Robert Kahn of the University of Michigan’s fledglin