Common Course numbers POS 033, 041, 042, 043, 044, 049, 050 ; Downloads are freely available (no cost). Click the shopping cart button to purchase a low cost printed textbook online or you may also phone the University Press of Florida to order a textbook on their toll free number: 800-226-3822.
From Florida Atlantic university Department of Political Science comes an exciting new book that explores the role of government, politics, and policy ion American lives. Full of real life applications and scenarios, Lenz and Holmans provide a text intended to encourage and enable political thinking (a reflective stance toward the world that helps a person to critically consider and participate in politics). Numerous hyperlinks send students into real world websites for illumination and exploration. ; Downloads are freely available (no cost). Click the shopping cart button to purchase a low cost printed textbook online or you may also phone the University Press of Florida to order a textbook on their toll free number: 800-226-3822. ; Common Course numbersPOS 033, 041, 042, 043, 044, 049, 050 ; From Florida Atlantic university Department of Political Science comes an exciting new book that explores the role of government, politics, and policy ion American lives. Full of real life applications and scenarios, Lenz and Holmans provide a text intended to encourage and enable political thinking (a reflective stance toward the world that helps a person to critically consider and participate in politics). Numerous hyperlinks send students into real world websites for illumination and exploration. ; Electronic reproduction. ; University Press of Florida. ; Mode of access: Internet.
An increasing number of U.S. sheriffs claim that they will not enforce gun safety policies from state and federal governments in their counties. As locally elected law enforcement with a unique institutional position and significant powers, sheriffs play a key role in local policy implementation. To better understand cooperation (or the lack thereof) between levels of government, we look at these sheriffs' contentious relationships over firearm regulation. We argue that sheriffs mobilized to resist state and federal gun safety policies through right-wing extremist efforts, tracing the involvement of sheriffs in gun policy over time. Using two surveys of sheriffs (conducted in 2012 and 2021), we show that sheriffs' preferences against gun safety measures relate to right-wing extremist attitudes, even with controls for political and demographic factors. We demonstrate relationships between sheriffs' right-wing extremism and an expressed reluctance to support or enforce a wide set of gun safety policies.
AbstractBackgroundDuring the COVID‐19 crisis, sheriffs across the country vocally refused to implement mask mandates.ObjectivesIn this note, we argue that resistance to mask mandates emerged out of successful efforts to recruit sheriffs into right‐wing extremism (RWE) and its foundations in white supremacy, nativism, and anti‐government extremism.MethodsWe draw on upon historical analysis and a national survey of sheriffsResultsWe show how RWE movements recruited sheriffs and that a substantial share of sheriffs adopted RWE attitudes. We argue that this radicalization of county sheriffs primes them to resist a core component of federalism: mandates by supra governments. We identify a relationship between sheriffs. RWE attitudes and their resistance to enforcing COVID‐19 mask mandates.ConclusionOur work demonstrates the importance of considering the implications of violent extremism in the United States, particularly as it aligns with local law enforcement.
Women in political office outperform men in legislative activity and constituent services. Scholars have identified two potential explanations for this overperformance: women are higher quality candidates when they run for office and women face elevated voter expectations to win elections. We use the presence of term limits to examine how these two justifications for women's overperformance produce downstream effects. While designed to strike a blow to entrenched systems of power, term limits reduce the time that legislators spend on constituent service and legislative output, including bill sponsorship, votes, and committee work. We use the effects of term limits as a tool for understanding the two paths to women's overperformance, using data on over 6000 legislators serving in term‐limited states. We find more evidence for the quality candidate hypothesis than the voter expectations hypothesis. While term limits degrade men's performance in office, women officeholders continue to overperform even under this institutional constraint. Our findings that women's overperformance is more likely due to their higher quality have implications for efforts to increase the representativeness of political bodies, the quality of representation in state legislatures, and the gendered consequences of institutional reforms.
Sexist attitudes influence a wide range of political behaviors, including support for explicitly gendered policies like gender quotas. But we know much less about how sexism might broadly shape policy preferences. We argue that some policy domains are implicitly associated with being pro-women or pro-men because of gender socialization, gender segregation in the workforce, and differences in policy preferences in the general population and among political elites. As (hostile) sexists view women as inherently undeserving, making illegitimate claims on government, and getting ahead at the expense of men, we hypothesize that they will oppose policies associated with women, while supporting "male" policies such as defense and law enforcement. We test our hypothesis using the 2019 Australian Election Study and 2018 US Cooperative Congressional Study. We find similar patterns of policy preferences, wherein those holding sexist attitudes (net of other attitudes and demographic characteristics) want to cut funding for pro-women policies like social services, education, and health, while they approve of increased funding for law enforcement and defense.
Attitudes about sexual harassment in the United States are multifaceted and have shifted over time. This article examines a quarter century of public opinion trends from several major national surveys. The polls reveal the complexity and dynamism of these views amidst broader societal changes involving gender and views of discrimination. While perceptions of sexual harassment as a problem have dramatically shifted, some questions suggest that public interest ebbs and flows with national political events. This article also documents small gaps between women and men on these views and large gaps between Democrats and Republicans. While recent national attention has increased the survey record on sexual harassment attitudes, inconsistent question wording and temporal gaps between relevant surveys have led to uneven metrics over time.
Partisanship structures mass politics by shaping the votes, policy views, and political perceptions of ordinary people. Even so, substantial shifts in partisanship can occur when elites signal clear differences on a political issue and attentive citizens update their views of party reputations. Mismatched partisans who strongly care about the issue respond by changing parties in a process of "issue evolution" when writ large. Others simply update their views to match their party in a "conflict extension" process. We build on these models by integrating the largely separate research strands of party issue ownership. Using sexual misconduct as a critical case study, we argue that partisan change can occur rapidly when party elites move strategically to take ownership of an issue, thereby clarifying differences between the parties. Using a quasi-experiment, a survey experiment, and data from dozens of national surveys, we find recent, rapid shifts in party reputations on #MeToo, views of the issue, party votes, and broader party support.
AbstractObjectiveWe examine the role of education in shaping attitudes about climate change and how it interacts with racial prejudice.MethodsWe analyze data from the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) and 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES).ResultsWe identify a paradoxical relationship in which education is associated with both lower levels of racial prejudice and increased support for climate policies, but also strengthens the negative effects of prejudices that persist at higher levels of educational attainment. For individuals with racially prejudiced views, we find that educational attainment decreases both agreement with the scientific consensus and support for climate policies. Our results hold up in evaluating Democrats and Republicans and using alternative measures of racial bias.ConclusionOur results contribute to our understanding of the barriers to action on climate change and the continued salience of racial prejudice in the United States.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina led to substantial demographic changes in New Orleans. The city lost large numbers of its African American population and became more diverse with the arrival of more Latino migrants and more highly educated, affluent white newcomers. Demographic change has the potential to depress political trust, efficacy, and trust in others. In this essay, we show that more than 10 years after Katrina, neither white nor Black New Orleanians trust local or national government. Black residents, particularly Black women, are generally more distrustful of their neighbors, whites, Latinos, and newcomers in the city. White newcomers are more efficacious and trusting than pre-Katrina white residents. These findings provide more evidence for the thesis that race and place shape trust and that Katrina continues to have an impact on New Orleans in distinctly racialized ways.
ObjectiveTo understand how gender structures the occupations of essential workers and which essential workers serve in political office.MethodsWe first use population‐level data by gender and occupation to examine the gender segregation of occupations deemed essential. Using the population composition as our baseline, we then examine descriptive representation using a new data set that codes the presence of essential workers in 30 state legislatures over 15 years.ResultsWe show that men and women make up similar shares of the occupations considered essential during COVID, but the occupations that they hold are highly gender segregated. We find that women essential workers and those from women‐dominated occupations are dramatically underrepresented in state legislatures.ConclusionDocumenting the (lack of) representation of essential workers, and particularly those from women‐dominated occupations, in decision‐making bodies is a critical first step to understanding policy making in response to COVID‐19.
Climate change policymaking has stalled at the federal level in the United States, especially since Donald Trump's election as president. Concurrently, extreme weather, rising sea levels, and other climatic effects have increased the salience of climate change in the mass public and among elected officials. In response, legislators in state governments increasingly introduce and adopt policies associated with climate change. In this article, we evaluate the state of climate change policymaking in state legislatures, with a focus on overall trends in climate mitigation and adaptation innovation and cases of policy retrenchment. We document an increased level of climate legislation introduced in U.S. states since President Trump's election, particularly in states under Democratic Party control. We evaluate patterns of introduced legislation across the states between 2011 and 2019 and consider the factors associated with bill sponsorship. Our results demonstrate the increased partisan nature of climate change policymaking in U.S. states.