PROBING THE CHARACTER OF NORMS - A FACTORIAL SURVEY ANALYSIS OF THE NORMS OF POLITICAL-ACTION

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to contribute to the meth odology for measuring norms; and second, to measure the norms of polit ical action among a sample of respondents in Leipzig, in the former Ea st Germany, in 1993. We highlight four aspects of norms: (1) polarity, whether a norm is prescriptive, proscriptive, or bipolar; (2) conditi onality whether a noon holds under all circumstances; (3) intensity, t he degree to which individuals subscribe to the norm; and (4) consensu s, the extent to which members of a society share a norm. We show how the factorial survey pioneered by Rossi (1951, 1979) enables developme nt of procedures for measuring these four aspects of norms, and we car ry out for the first time a factorial survey analysis of the norms of political action. The results indicate that prescriptive, proscriptive , and bipolar norms coexist, as do individuals subscribing to uncondit ional norms, conditional norms, and no norms at all. While over two-th irds of the measured norms are bipolar, a strong minority (almost 23 p ercent) are prescriptive; proscriptive norms, though less numerous tha n prescriptive norms, are stronger than. prescriptive norms. Finally, individuals disagree on the content of norms.