Robert Andersen

Professor (Cross-Appointed)

Professor of Sociology, Political Science and Statistics

Robert Anderson

Ph.D, McMaster University
MA, Univeristy of Western Ontario
BA, University of Western Ontario

bandersen@ivey.ca


Faculty Profile

Main academic appointment is in the Department of Sociology, but also cross-appointed in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences, and the Department of Political Science. Before joining the faculty at Western, Andersen was Distinguished Professor of Social Science and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He also previously held faculty positions at McMaster University, where he held the Senator William McMaster Chair in Political Sociology, the University of Oxford and Brock University. He has also previously taught regularly at the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods at the University of Michigan and the Oxford Spring School in Quantitative Methods.


Research Interests

Professor Robert Andersen’s general research interests are in political economy, social stratification and social statistics.


Current Research Projects

Most of Professor Andersen’s recent research explores the relationship between economic inequality and political attitudes and behaviours in cross-national perspective. He is particularly concerned with how individual-level economic position—measured by social class or income—interacts with national economic conditions to influence outcomes considered important to the health of democracy, including tolerance, support for democracy, attitudes towards redistribution, and civic participation. His published research includes Modern Methods for Robust Regression (Sage, 2008), and more than 65 papers including articles in the Annual Review of Sociology, American Journal of Political Science, American Sociological Review, British Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Politics, and Sociological Methodology. He has also been principal investigator or co-investigator for research grants totally more than $1,000,000.



Selected Publications

Books

Applied Statistical Methods

2008: Andersen, Robert. Modern Methods for Robust Regression. Sage University Paper series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, 07-152. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Refereed Journal Articles

Inequality, Politics and Democracy

  • 2015: Sealey, Anthony and Robert Andersen. “The Impact of Income Inequality on Popular Support for Redistributive Policies in Canada, 1993-2008.” Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques, 41(1): 51-64.
  • 2012: Andersen, Robert. “Support for Democracy in Cross-national Perspective: The Detrimental Effect of Economic Inequality.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 30(4): 389-402.
  • 2012: Andersen, Robert and Josh Curtis. “The Polarizing Effect of Economic Inequality on Class Identification: Evidence from 44 Countries.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 30:129-141.
  • 2008: Andersen, Robert and Tina Fetner. “Economic Inequality and Intolerance: Attitudes toward Homosexuality in 35 Democracies.” American Journal of Political Science, 52 (4):942-958.
  • 2008: Andersen, Robert and Tina Fetner. “Cohort Differences in Tolerance of Homosexuality: Attitudinal Change in Canada and the United States, 1981-2000.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 72:311-330.
  • 2006: Andersen, Robert, Edward Grabb, and James Curtis. “Trends in Civic Association Activity in Four Democracies: The Special Case of Women in the United States.” American Sociological Review, 71: 376-400.

Political Behaviour and Elections

  • 2006: Andersen, Robert, Min Yang, and Anthony Heath. “Class Politics and Political Context in Britain, 1964-97: Have voters become more individualized?” European Sociological Review, 22:125-138.
  • 2006: Evans, Geoffrey and Robert Andersen. ‘The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions.” Journal of Politics, 68:194-207.
  • 2005: Andersen, Robert, James Tilley and Anthony Heath. “Political Knowledge and Enlightened Preferences: Party Choice Through the Electoral Cycle.” British Journal of Political Science, 35:285-303.
  • 2003: Andersen, Robert. “Do Newspapers Enlighten Preferences? Personal Ideology, Party Choice, and the Electoral Cycle: The United Kingdom, 1992-97.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 36: 601-620.

Applied Statistical Methods

  • 2009: Andersen, Robert. “Nonparametric Methods for Modelling Nonlinearity in Regression Analysis.” Annual Review of Sociology, 35: 67-85.
  • 2006: Fox, John and Robert Andersen. “Effect Displays for Multinomial and Proportional- Odds Logit Models.” Sociological Methodology, 36:225-256.

Book Chapters

Inequality, Politics and Democracy

  • 2013: Andersen, Robert. ‘The Class-Party Relationship in Canada, 1965-2004,” in Political Choice Matters. Political Choice Matters: Explaining the Strength of Class and Religious Cleavages in Cross-National Perspective, edited by Geoffrey Evans and Nan Dirk De Graaf. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 165-184.

Political Behaviour and Electrions

  • 2013: Andersen, Robert. ‘The Class-Party Relationship in Canada, 1965-2004,” in Political Choice Matters: Explaining the Strength of Class and Religious Cleavages in Cross-National Perspective, edited by Geoffrey Evans and Nan Dirk De Graaf. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 165-184.

Applied Statistical Methods

  • 2012: Andersen, Robert. “Methods for detecting badly behaved data: Distributions, linear models and beyond,” in APA handbooks in psychology: Vol. 3. APA handbook of research methods in psychology: Data analysis and research publication, edited by H. Cooper (Ed.-in-Chief), P. Camic, D. Long, A. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.