Suchergebnisse

Although fourteen American states periodically hold automatic referendums on whether to hold a state constitutional convention, no state has approved a constitutional convention referendum since 1984. This study explores the puzzle of why voters would oppose an opportunity to broadly reform state government and the factors that underlie these attitudes. Analyses of two statewide surveys of registered voters in New York during the 2017 Constitutional Convention Referendum campaign reveal that campaign framing, elite cues, and instrumental concerns have led voters to take risk-averse positions in order to minimize potential losses that could result from a constitutional convention.

This article examines how the institutional characteristics of state legislatures and governors affect state policy priorities. We argue that differences in the nature of their respective constituencies lead legislators to press for particularized benefits while governors favor collective goods. Empirical analysis of state-level data from 1982 through 2011 confirms that this is the case. The organizational arrangements of the two branches of government have an impact that is usually greater than that of state public opinion but generally less than that of state interest groups. The results from this analysis are important because they show that institutional structure has systematic effects that are independent of ideology, partisanship, and the other factors that are known to shape state policy making.

AbstractAlthough the U.S. judiciary is designed to be an independent and counter-majoritarian arbiter of the law, many states feature electoral institutions that may expose judges to public pressure. Scholars have demonstrated that judicial elections provide a clear link between public opinion and judicial decision making that may undermine the ability of courts to act in counter-majoritarian ways to protect minority rights. We extend this line of inquiry by examining whether direct democracy institutions have a similar effect of enhancing the impact of public opinion on judicial behavior and reducing the likelihood of judges voting in favor of minority rights. Empirical results from an analysis of gay rights cases in the American states from 1981 to 2004 provide evidence that direct democracy, in conjunction with electoral retention methods, significantly increases the effect of public opinion on judicial decisions.

This study examines public opinion toward the policy responsibilities of the national, state, and local governments. We use new data from a national survey to analyze citizens' attitudes toward the general and policy-specific activities of the respective governmental levels. We find that people want all levels of government to do more. But, they also differentiate among national, state, and local responsibilities for particular policy areas. In fact, public opinion corresponds quite closely to actual policy efforts manifested at different governmental levels. Moreover, citizens' preferences for specific programmatic activities are guided by a combination of general beliefs about governmental responsibilities and assessments of economic capacities. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for understanding the American intergovernmental system. Adapted from the source document.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans face a fragmented policy landscape across the country. Some states and localities have taken the lead and adopted policies to protect LGBTQ citizens, while others have sought to undermine LGBTQ equality. As such, the rights of LGBTQ citizens are very much dependent on the politics of states they reside in. In this article, we argue subnational innovation on LGBTQ inclusive policy is a result of national policy gridlock. We also examine the state-level political factors driving the adoption of policy protections for LGBTQ citizens. We conclude that LGBTQ policies are driven by local political context and illustrate the dynamic nature of fragmented federalism in America.

AbstractThis article sheds new light on policy diffusion by exploring policy complexity in state-level lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) antidiscrimination policies. The multiple component event history approach taken in this research allows for the concurrent study of both policy content and the factors that affect policy adoption. Results reveal that the factors influencing policy adoption vary depending on both the content and scope of the policy in question. In addition to addressing laws that protect gay people from discrimination, this article is one of the first studies in the political science and policy literature to empirically investigate the spread of transgender-inclusive laws. Despite combined advocacy and public conflation of identities, gay and transgender-inclusive laws appear to be influenced by different internal and external factors.