{"title":"What Public Comments During Rulemaking Do (and Why)","authors":"Brian Libgober, Steven Rashin","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231175686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231175686","url":null,"abstract":"Public comments on proposed federal regulations are thought to influence bureaucratic policy choices, but why? While reelection incentives give politicians straightforward reasons for catering to public preferences, regulators lack similarly direct incentives to accede to demands from stake-holders. We argue commenters may adopt several different tactics to try and persuade regulators. Broadly, they may either describe policy consequences or threaten the regulator with sanctions, especially by the Courts or Congress. But which tactics do members of the public – especially firms and interest groups – use during commenting, and why? We explore this question by extensive manual coding of comments submitted by strategic actors during high-stakes financial rulemaking. We find that the vast majority of comments have purely informational content, with very limited threats to involve political principals. These findings should be surprising to a literature that often presumes a model where interest group commenting is a form of bargaining in the shadow of the Courts or Congress. To assess whether this behavior is driven by the benefits of information versus the costs of threatening, we explore how the strategy of outside interests changes across the resource distribution, and analyze the litigation records of firms against these agencies. We conclude with a case study of a high-stakes policy where different kinds of interests used different strategies.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"715 - 730"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48286400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Talk Local to Me: Assessing the Heterogenous Effects of Localistic Appeals","authors":"B. K. Munis, Richard Burke","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231173402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231173402","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary public opinion in the United States has been characterized by affective polarization and the nationalization of political behavior. In this paper, we examine whether local framing can decrease voters’ reliance on national partisan identities when evaluating their representatives in the United States Congress. Relying on both an experimental study and observational data from senators’ Facebook posts, we find evidence that “talking local” is an effective means for representatives to bypass the “perceptual screen” of partisanship . Candidates who “go local” in their communication style are able to expand their electoral coalition by appealing to independents and outpartisans alike. Observational findings suggest that many politicians, especially those representing competitive districts, are aware of this and “go local” strategically.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"655 - 669"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48937271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Legislative Gridlock and Policymaking Through the Appropriations Process","authors":"J. Ryan, Scott L. Minkoff","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231173403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231173403","url":null,"abstract":"Divergent preferences within and across American lawmaking institutions make it difficult to enact legislation. Yet, individual legislators and parties have incentives to effect policy change, even during periods of gridlock. We claim appropriations offer an alternative means of policymaking when legislation is likely to be unsuccessful using authorizations because appropriations bills have an extreme reversion point. Using an original dataset of appropriations laws, we measure the quantity of policy enacted given distributions of House, Senate, and executive preferences. The findings show that a larger gridlock interval and greater distance between the House and Senate medians promote the use of appropriations bills as substantive policymaking vehicles. This effect is especially pronounced when new chamber majorities come to power. We conclude that divergent preferences among lawmaking institutions affect legislative productivity, but winning coalitions can still make substantive policy changes using unorthodox lawmaking processes.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"805 - 822"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43292192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When Advocates Become Adjudicators: Tracing the Effects of Prosecutorial and Public Defense Experience on Judicial Decision Making","authors":"Banks Miller, Brett Curry","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231175138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231175138","url":null,"abstract":"We assess the influence professional background – specifically, having been a prosecutor or a public defender – exerts on decision making by federal district court judges. Focusing on search and seizure cases, we analyze nearly 1500 motions to suppress evidence from 2000 to 2022. In addition to controlling for judicial ideology and a judge’s prior experience as a prosecutor or public defender, we utilize matching to address endogeneity concerns related to one’s ability to self-select into one of these positions—which may itself be influenced by that individual’s ideological predispositions. We find that having been a former prosecutor, as well as the length of time that service spans, makes a judge significantly more likely to rule against a motion to suppress. Former public defenders are significantly more likely to grant that suppression motion, though their propensity to do so is not affected by the length of time served in that capacity.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"796 - 804"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43035709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Tormenting Dilemma: American Identity and Attitudes Towards Torture","authors":"Anca Zugravu, Mike Medeiros, Alessandro Nai","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231173917","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231173917","url":null,"abstract":"Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, research on attitudes towards the use of torture on suspected terrorists has become common. However, despite acknowledging the identity-rooted relationship between threat and out-group hostility, the possible relationship between identity attachment and attitudes towards torture has been under-explored. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, the results of the present study further the understanding of the relationship between identity and support for torture. Two main findings are supported: 1) greater attachment to American Identity increases support for the torture of suspected terrorists, and 2) the perceived threat of terrorism partially mediates the relationship between attachment to the American Identity and attitudes towards torture. Ultimately, the study demonstrates, high attachment to American Identity and the 9/11-generated discursive construction of terrorists as threatening this identity is associated with individuals’ attitudes towards torture.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"457 - 466"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48348334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Considerations of American Democracy, Feeling Like a Loser, and Support for Changing the Rules","authors":"Todd Donovan, Caroline J. Tolbert, Samuel Harper","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231172905","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231172905","url":null,"abstract":"We test how perceptions of feeling like a loser in American politics may condition support for changes to how elections are conducted. We report a survey experiment that sheds some light on why people may feel like an electoral loser, then use this measure of losing to predict support for a range of proposals to change elections. The experiment prompted people to consider if they were satisfied with how democracy works and to think about the design and structure of American government. Respondents were then asked if they felt like they were on the winning or losing ‘side’ of politics. The prompt was associated with higher rates of respondents reporting they felt like they were on the losing side. Non-experimental estimates of support for a range of proposed changes to elections find a substantial relationship between this form of feeling like a loser, and supporting changing how elections are conducted. This relationship holds with controls for partisanship and other factors. One implication of this is that the more that some Americans are prompted to think about their government and democracy, the more likely they support changing how it works.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"599 - 607"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42131121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economics, COVID, Election Forecasting: Did Trump Escape Blame?","authors":"C. Tien, M. Lewis-Beck","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231168584","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231168584","url":null,"abstract":"Given Trump’s provocative personal profile, coupled with boasts of his political prowess, one might expect that the electorate would not allocate praise or blame at the ballot box in the usual reward and punishment way. They might blame him more than other candidates or, indeed, they might blame him less. Utilizing election forecasting as a benchmark, in particular the structural model of political economy, we assess whether voters blamed him less for his faltering performance with respect to leading policy issues, particularly the economy and COVID-19. Our findings suggest that, contrary to claims from supporters, voters punished him at least as much as they punished past presidents, when confronted with similar issue contexts. The Trump image of a leader with superior powers has the character of fiction, rather than fact.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"619 - 632"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42110795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Health Risks and Voting: Emphasizing Safety Measures Taken to Prevent COVID-19 Does Not Increase Willingness to Vote in Person","authors":"S. Bokemper, G. Huber, A. Gerber","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231168354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231168354","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic made salient the risks posed by an infectious disease at a polling place. To what degree did such health risks, as with other changes to voting costs, affect the willingness to vote in person? Could highlighting safety measures reduce the association between COVID fears and unwillingness to vote in person? Using both a representative survey of Connecticut voters and a survey experiment, we examine whether concerns about health diminish willingness to vote in person. We find correlational evidence that those who are more worried about COVID-19 are less likely to report they will vote in person, even when considering risk mitigation efforts. We then present causal evidence that mentioning the safety measures being taken does little to offset the negative effect of priming COVID-19 risk on willingness to vote in person. These results contribute to a growing literature that assesses how health risks affect in person voting.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"588 - 598"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45427596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Gender Gap in Supreme Court Legitimacy","authors":"Christopher N. Krewson, J. Schroedel","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231168353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231168353","url":null,"abstract":"Men and women diverge in their political behavior and attitudes. We test whether gender-based variation in political attitudes extends to perceptions of US Supreme Court legitimacy. Using a dataset covering the years 2012–2017, we show that one’s identification as a man or a woman predicts their diffuse support for the Court. In particular, women almost always extend less legitimacy to the Court than men do. This is true within both Republican and Democratic identifiers, and regression analysis shows the gender gap holds when controlling for partisanship, ideology, race, age, education, income, and Supreme Court approval. Additionally, we included a series of questions in a 2021 Cooperative Election Study (CES) module to explore why the gender gap in perceived legitimacy exists. We find that differences in perceptions of the Court’s representation of women and its fairness drive the gender gap in legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"781 - 795"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49068601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evaluating the Effect of Descriptive Norms on Political Tolerance","authors":"F. Neuner, Mark D. Ramirez","doi":"10.1177/1532673X231168347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231168347","url":null,"abstract":"Recent scholarship has documented changing norms toward political tolerance and an increase in intolerant beliefs in the United States. Descriptive norm theory attributes attitudinal and behavioral changes to beliefs about how we perceive other people think and act. Applied to political tolerance, increasing the perception that society is more or less tolerant should result in corresponding changes among individuals. Neglected from this discussion, however, is the distinction between norms that are applied universally and norms that are applied to specific targets. Four studies show mixed support for descriptive norm theory with norms altering individual tolerance judgments mostly when applied universally. Norms aimed at a particularistic group fail to change tolerance judgments suggesting an important limitation to norm influence. Contrary to expectations, we uncover a reversal effect among Democrats whereby exposure to universalistic norms of intolerance leads to higher levels of tolerance.","PeriodicalId":51482,"journal":{"name":"American Politics Research","volume":"51 1","pages":"701 - 714"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44044031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}