Research
Book Project (Based on an Award Winning Dissertation)
A Vote For Me is a Vote for America: Patriotic Appeals in PResidential elections
From H.W. Bush’s 1988 exaltation of the American flag to Donald Trump’s 2016 promise to “make America great again,” patriotic appeals have become a central rhetorical feature of contemporary American presidential campaigns. Candidates presumably make patriotic appeals because they believe doing so will accrue an electoral advantage. However, in this book I show that patriotic appeals also feed into a larger dialogue about who counts as “truly American” — and who does not. A combination of historical, textual, survey, and experimental analyses suggest that over the last four decades, Republican candidates have rhetorically packaged patriotic appeals with discriminatory statements to promulgate a narrative of exclusionary patriotism. As a result, many white voters treat “I love America” and “I hate American minorities” as interchangeable sentiments. This implies that, at least in its current form, American patriotism is largely incompatible with the values of a vibrant liberal democracy.
Publication
"Campaign finance regulations and public policy" with Martin Gilens & Shawn patterson (american political science review, 2021)
Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. This paper takes advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.
Publication
"'I’m Not the President of Black America': Rhetorical Versus Policy Representation," with Tali Mendelberg & Bennett Butler (Perspectives on Politics, 2019)
A key question in the study of minority representation is whether descriptive representatives provide superior substantive representation. Neglected in this literature is the distinction between two forms of substantive representation: rhetoric versus policy. This paper provides a systematic comparison of presidential efforts at substantive minority representation for these two dimensions. Along the way, it tests predictions about descriptive representation in the highest office in the American polity. Barack Obama was the first African American president, yet his efforts on behalf of African Americans have not been fully evaluated. Using speech and budget data, and accounting for economic and political factors, we find that relative to comparable presidents, Obama offered weaker rhetorical representation, but stronger policy representation, on race and poverty. While the paper cannot rule out non-racial causes of Obama’s behavior, his policy proposals are consistent with minority representation. His behavior also suggests that descriptive representatives may provide relatively better policy representation, but worse rhetorical representation, especially when the constituency is in the numerical minority. This paper thus highlights an understudied tension between rhetoric and policy in theories of minority representation.
Publication
"Women and the weight of a pandemic: A survey of four Western US states early in the Coronavirus outbreak," Amber Raile, Eric Raile, David Parker, and Elizabeth Shanahan (Gender, Work, and Organization, 2020)
In the initial months of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, people struggled to adjust to the new normal. The burden of managing changes to home and work life seemed to fall disproportionately to women due to the nature of women's employment and gendered societal pressures. We surveyed residents of four western states in the first months of the outbreak to compare the experiences of women and men during this time. We found that women were disproportionately vulnerable to workplace disruptions, negative impacts on daily life, and increased mental load. Women with children and women who lost their jobs were particularly impacted. These results contribute to the growing body of findings about the disproportionate impacts of crises on women and should inform organizational and government policies to help mitigate these impacts and to enhance societal resilience in future emergencies.
Publication
"Poaching the Personal Vote: How Shadowing Behaviour Shapes Constituent Impressions,” with David Parker (Regional & Federal Studies, 2020)
A key question in the study of minority representation is whether descriptive representatives provide superior substantive representation. Neglected in this literature is the distinction between two forms of substantive representation: rhetoric versus policy. This paper provides a systematic comparison of presidential efforts at substantive minority representation for these two dimensions. Along the way, it tests predictions about descriptive representation in the highest office in the American polity. Barack Obama was the first African American president, yet his efforts on behalf of African Americans have not been fully evaluated. Using speech and budget data, and accounting for economic and political factors, we find that relative to comparable presidents, Obama offered weaker rhetorical representation, but stronger policy representation, on race and poverty. While the paper cannot rule out non-racial causes of Obama’s behavior, his policy proposals are consistent with minority representation. His behavior also suggests that descriptive representatives may provide relatively better policy representation, but worse rhetorical representation, especially when the constituency is in the numerical minority. This paper thus highlights an understudied tension between rhetoric and policy in theories of minority representation.
Publication
“Questioning Scrutiny: The Effect of Prime Minister’s Questions on Citizen Efficacy and Trust in Parliament,” with Alan Convery, James Mitchell, & David Parker (The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2020)
A key question in the study of minority representation is whether descriptive representatives provide superior substantive representation. Neglected in this literature is the distinction between two forms of substantive representation: rhetoric versus policy. This paper provides a systematic comparison of presidential efforts at substantive minority representation for these two dimensions. Along the way, it tests predictions about descriptive representation in the highest office in the American polity. Barack Obama was the first African American president, yet his efforts on behalf of African Americans have not been fully evaluated. Using speech and budget data, and accounting for economic and political factors, we find that relative to comparable presidents, Obama offered weaker rhetorical representation, but stronger policy representation, on race and poverty. While the paper cannot rule out non-racial causes of Obama’s behavior, his policy proposals are consistent with minority representation. His behavior also suggests that descriptive representatives may provide relatively better policy representation, but worse rhetorical representation, especially when the constituency is in the numerical minority. This paper thus highlights an understudied tension between rhetoric and policy in theories of minority representation.
Paper
“FAR FRom politics as usual: A case study of rural voters in montana,” with Sara Guenther, Eric Raile, David Parker, and Elizabeth Shanahan (under pper review, revise and resubmit)
Despite being more likely to experience poverty, unemployment, and shortages in basic social services, rural voters consistently favor Republican candidates –– and swung heavily for Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. What drives rural voters’ electoral decision making? This paper tests Cramer’s (2012, 2016) theory of rural consciousness as a possible explanation using an original survey of Montana voters. The theory of rural consciousness argues that rural voters make sense of politics through a geographic identity encompassing both a sense of cultural distinctiveness and economic resentment based in the perception that most redistributive policies favor urban areas. This paper confirms that many rural Montanans feel connected by distinctive values, and that this coexists with widespread anger over perceived distributive injustice. Path analyses of vote choice in the 2016 presidential election show that the theory partially describes rural voting behavior. Place-based economic grievance was electorally irrelevant. However, identification with rural values strongly predicted support for Donald Trump. In fact, rural identity emerges as a powerful driver of rural vote choice — even when compared to competing electoral models emphasizing general economic concerns, cultural considerations, or racial animus. Thus, while the theory of rural consciousness does not hold in its entirety, our results suggest that accounting for place-based identity is indeed critical for understanding rural electoral behavior.
Paper
"Pride and prejudice: The effect of Patriotic Appeals on Group attitudes in America" (under Peer review)
This study presents evidence from a series of survey experiments to show that patriotic and nationalistic appeals represent implicitly racial language. When Republican candidates invoke patriotism or nationalism, it leads white Americans to express increased hostility toward African Americans, immigrants, the poor, and non-Americans. These findings complicate prevailing conceptual and normative distinctions between nationalistic ethnocentrism and patriotic solidarity. Instead, they suggest that patriotism and nationalism both have the potential to foster prejudice.
Paper
"‘Make america Great Again’: The Effect of PAtriotic Appeals on Voting Behavior in Presidential Elections" (under Peer Review)
While previous research has demonstrated that the patriotic appeals made by presidential candidates can have an enormous impact on voters’ preferences and behaviors at the polling booth, the causal mechanisms of this relationship have not been well established. This paper presents a survey experiment that adjudicates between two competing hypotheses about the causal mechanisms linking patriotic appeals and voting behavior. The national identity hypothesis maintains that presidential candidates are rewarded for patriotic rhetoric because it draws on a shared national identity common to all voters. The partisan justification hypothesis argues that voters reward patriotic appeals only when an in-party candidate employs them. The results of the survey experiment support the national identity hypothesis and shows that the patriotic appeals that a presidential candidate makes (or fails to make) can greatly influence their chances on election day.
Paper
"‘You Had better mention all of them’: Gendered Effects in Electoral Loss Narratives,” with Seth Masket (under Peer Review)
A common explanation for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 presidential election was that she catered to minorities at the expense of the broader electorate. How does such a loss narrative influence voter’s interpretation of subsequent elections? In a conjoint experiment conducted after the 2018 midterms, white Democratic respondents were randomly exposed to a vignette that ascribed Democrats’ recent losses to their focus on identity politics. This narrative had an asymmetric effect on men’s and women’s attitudes regarding the 2020 presidential election. It had no impact on men’s understanding of why the Democratic Party lost the last presidential election, or their candidate preferences for the next. However, women who received the narrative became twice as likely to believe that the Democrats were too focused on identity politics. Moreover, women’s preferences shifted away from female candidates explicitly looking to address gender and racial inequities, toward male candidates emphasizing broad economic policies. A summary of this research has been published in FiveThirtyEight.
Working Paper
"Why the Trump Tape Didn't Matter: White Women Voters in the 2016 Election"
Gender was highly salient in the 2016 presidential election. As the first ever female Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton emphasized that she was trying to “shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling.” In stark contrast, Donald Trump routinely made explicitly sexist statements that seemed to break important social norms of gender equality. Despite this, 53% of white women voted for Trump in the general election. This was consistent with presidential elections between 2000 and 2012, where 52-56% of white women voted Republican. Why did white women vote as though the 2016 presidential election was business as usual? This study investigates how women's’ sense of gender solidarity influenced their reactions to Donald Trump during the 2016 election using data from the 2016 American National Election Study. It finds that although the presidential primary offered white Republican women the opportunity to vote for a less overtly sexist, acceptable partisan alternative, they overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump. Perhaps due to the release of the Trump tape, Republican women with a stronger sense of gender solidarity were somewhat less likely to cast a vote for Trump in the general election – but nonetheless still granted him a solid majority. Moreover, there is little evidence that white Republican women cast their votes for Trump reluctantly. Their attitudes toward him were generally enthusiastic and positive. These findings suggest that white Republican women are unlikely to take political action to protect the interests of women as a group. More generally, they highlight the low potential for women to coalesce into a unified, self-interested political bloc in the foreseeable future.
Working Paper
"The Boundaries of American National Identity: Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms"
Much of the existing research on American national identity relies on a series of questions taken from the General Social Survey (GSS) that ask people to indicate whether certain behaviors, beliefs, and attributes are important for being "truly American." However, it is unclear whether these items tap into descriptive norms (beliefs about what characterizes the stereotypical American) or prescriptive norms (beliefs about what should characterize the stereotypical American). The implications of these survey items depend greatly on how respondents are interpreting and reacting to them. This paper presents a survey experiment in which respondents were asked to respond to the items using their original wording, using modified wording that asked them to indicate the traits that describe the average American, or using modified wording that asked them to indicate the traits that an American should possess. The results show that respondents interpret the GSS national identity items primarily as a prescriptive inquiry.