AbstractCommunication is a fundamental step in the process of political representation, and an influential stream of research hypothesizes that male and female politicians talk to their constituents in very different ways. To build the broad dataset necessary for this analysis, we harness the massive trove of communication by American politicians t...
Large numbers of people living under authoritarian governments participate in pro-opposition politics despite sometimes significant risks. Increasing amounts of this political participation are taking place and being organized online. Do emotions play a causal role in inducing pro-opposition participation in authoritarian regimes? Can emotions that...
Abstract: An ongoing debate in American politics concerns the extent to which subnational politics has become “nationalized.” We advance this debate by collecting issue‐position data on four distinct policy topics from unprecedented national surveys of public officials at both the local and state levels. We then combine this survey data with precin...
Abstract: In path-breaking work, Weingast et al. argue that there is a positive relationship between legislature size and inefficiency in public expenditures. Their proposition is currently known as the ‘law of 1/n’ and has been widely debated in political science and public administration. However, recent studies have questioned the validity of th...
Pre-analysis plans (PAPs) have been championed as a solution to the problem of research credibility, but without any evidence that PAPs actually bolster the credibility of research. We analyze a representative sample of 195 PAPs registered on the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) and American Economic Association (AEA) registration platfor...
When do domestic events affect international relations? Our answer to this puzzle emphasizes patterns of interaction in domestic networks. Leaders depend on coalitions of subnational actors—civilians, parties, militaries, and so on—for political survival. Structural imbalance emerges when the higher-order relations of subnational actors contradict ...
Abstract: An influential perspective argues that voters use interest group ratings and endorsements to infer their representatives' actions and to hold them accountable. This paper interrogates a key assumption in this literature: that voters correctly interpret these cues, especially cues from groups with whom they disagree. For example, a pro-red...
Understanding political and social effects of violence in local populations through public opinion surveys has become increasingly common internationally. Yet while researchers are attuned to possible challenges induced during survey implementation, this work focuses almost uniformly on respondents. This paper considers survey enumerators as critic...