Suchergebnisse

The Iowa Supreme Court adopted an unpopular but unanimous ruling in Varnum v. Brien, which established same-sex marriage. Using a unique panel study conducted immediately before and after the court decision, we evaluate the impact of policy adoption on changing opinions on minority rights. The signaling of new social norms pressured some respondents to modify their expressed attitudes. We find that respondents whose demographic characteristics would predict support for marriage equality, but previously did not, were more likely to shift their opinions to be consistent with the new state law. A policy feedback mechanism may be responsible for the rapid diffusion of laws legalizing same-sex in the states.

Racial attitudes toward African American candidates are partially explained by symbolic racism, which has replaced overt racism in responses to these candidates. However, as typically operationalized, symbolic racism as applied to candidate assessments fails to account for the emotions generated by a political campaign. Symbolic racism's effects are moderated when emotional responses to Barack Obama are included in a candidate evaluation model, while emotions remain an important predictor. While symbolic racism and negative emotions lower evaluations, the presence of the positive emotions generated by the 2012 campaign counteracted both. Inclusion of both symbolic racism and emotion is necessary to understand perceptions of Obama as a black presidential candidate.

While current federal programs for broadband have invested heavily in rural infrastructure, significant disparities in Internet use remain in urban areas, where broadband networks are available. The success of the national broadband plan and federal policy require understanding barriers to Internet adoption, including persistent inequalities in urban areas. Analysis of a random sample telephone survey in the city of Chicago merged with census tract–level data finds that neighborhood-level factors such as segregation and concentrated poverty influence the reasons why residents do not have home Internet access, as well as individual-level factors. Interactions demonstrate differential effects of age across racial and ethnic groups, and the amplification of disparities in access in segregated neighborhoods, especially for Latinos in gateway immigrant neighborhoods. Place effects need to be taken into account in further research and theory on technology inequality, and in public policy as well.

As part of their ongoing efforts to address frontloading and other
perceived problems, both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and
Republican National Committee (RNC) proposed revised schedules and
rules for 2008. The major changes for the Democrats were that two
new states were allowed to join Iowa and New Hampshire in violating
the official February 5 start date. The idea was that these
states—Nevada from the West and South Carolina from the South—would
enhance participation by more diverse populations (Latinos and
African Americans). While the Republican rules called for states to
lose half of their delegate vote if they violated the timing rules,
the Democrats implemented a "death penalty" requiring any state
violating the timing rules to lose all of its delegates. The
New York Times called these changes the biggest
shift in the way Democrats have nominated their presidential
candidates in 30 years. Yet in the end these changes did little to
lessen frontloading, as 70% of all delegates were actually chosen by
the beginning of March. Two large states (Michigan and Florida)
defied both national parties and voted before February 5.

Objective.The purpose of this research is to examine why some states have embraced digital government more extensively than others.Methods.Multivariate regression analysis is used to empirically test explanations for state innovation in e‐government. The primary dependent variable is the percent of state‐level government websites offering online services to citizens.Results.Republican‐controlled legislatures are more likely to embrace e‐government, implying that efficiency concerns may drive reliance on digital government. Innovators in e‐government were states with fewer households with Internet access and less use of the initiative process, indicating that citizen demand was not a factor. More extensive use of e‐government is also associated with legislative professionalization and professional networks—factors that may be useful for explaining the diffusion of other administrative reforms, and technical issues lacking political salience.Conclusions.These data suggest e‐government implementation is driven by legislative professionalism and, to a lesser extent, state professional networks, rather than citizen demand. These indicators fitLowi's (1972)conception of "constituent policy" as a top‐down process, confined to administrative or legislative circles, compared to distributive, regulatory, and redistributive policy. We hypothesize that other administrative reforms, particularly those lacking political salience, may exhibit similar relationships with legislative professionalization and professional networks.

Objective. The purpose of this research is to examine why some states have embraced digital government more extensively than others. Methods. Multivariate regression analysis is used to empirically test explanations for state innovation in e-government. The primary dependent variable is the percent of state-level government websites offering online services to citizens. Results. Republican-controlled legislatures are more likely to embrace e-government, implying that efficiency concerns may drive reliance on digital government. Innovators in e-government were states with fewer households with Internet access & less use of the initiative process, indicating that citizen demand was not a factor. More extensive use of e-government is also associated with legislative professionalization & professional networks, factors that may be useful for explaining the diffusion of other administrative reforms, & technical issues lacking political salience. Conclusions. These data suggest e-government implementation is driven by legislative professionalism &, to a lesser extent, state professional networks, rather than citizen demand. These indicators fit Lowi's (1972) conception of "constituent policy" as a top-down process, confined to administrative or legislative circles, compared to distributive, regulatory, & redistributive policy. We hypothesize that other administrative reforms, particularly those lacking political salience, may exhibit similar relationships with legislative professionalization & professional networks. 2 Tables, 52 References. Adapted from the source document.

The 2008 election marked an end to the longstanding gap in the level of black and white voter turnout, offering further evidence that minority empowerment affects voter turnout. In this article, the authors move beyond a dyadic conceptualization of empowerment and argue that the level of descriptive representation within the legislative body as a whole is crucial to understanding how context affects voter turnout. They find African Americans and Latinos are more likely to vote when residing in states with increased descriptive representation in the state legislature measured by the percentage of black or Latino lawmakers.