Darrell M West
Biographic Data
| ID | 1017480 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Darrell M West |
| GIVEN NAMES | Darrell M |
| FAMILY NAME | West |
| SIGNATURE | WEST D M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brown University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 318 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 50 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The Costs and Benefits of Immigration
Prehistoric human occupation in the Bass Strait region, southeast Australia
Brain Gain
Contents 1. The Costs and Benefits of Immigration 2. Competing Policy Principles 3. Overcoming Particularistic Politics 4. Problematic Media Coverage 5. Shifting Public Opinion 6. Porous Borders and Unequal Justice 7. The Einstein Principle
Attack Politics
Journal Article Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Campaigns Since 1960 by Emmett H. Buell, Jr. and Lee Sigelman Get access Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Campaigns Since 1960by Emmett H. Buell and Lee Sigelman. Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2008. 354 pp. $34.95. Darrell M. West Darrell M. West Brookings Institution Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, …
Evaluating Campaign Quality
For a number of years, voters and academic observers have been dissatisfied with a number of elements of American campaigns. Contemporary races are seen as too negative, too superficial, and too unfair or misleading. Based on these complaints, a variety of reform organizations have targeted millions of dollars to improve the situation. Through their efforts and those within the academic community, a wide range of reform initiatives have been unde…
Citizen Evaluations of Local Police
The sources of public assessments of government policy long have been the object of controversy between those proposing personal experience versus a symbolic attitudes model based on more general political and social beliefs. However, much of the research focuses on national policy issues that are not concrete and are removed from the daily experiences of many Americans. The authors use attitudes about local police to examine whether public asses…
Characteristics Associated With Use of Public and Private Web Sites as Sources of Health Care Information
OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine the frequency with which Americans access health information from governmental (public sector) and nongovernmental (private sector) web sites and to identify similarities and differences in the characteristics associated with use of each type. METHODS: Data derive from 928 individuals who responded to a November 2005 national survey. In addition to forms of health communication, we asked about age, gender, race, …
Evaluating campaign quality
"For a number of years, voters and academic observers have been dissatisfied with a number of elements of American campaigns. Contemporary races are seen as too negative, too superficial, and too unfair or misleading. Based on these complaints, a variety of reform organizations have targeted millions of dollars to improve the situation. Through their efforts and those within the academic community, a wide range of reform initiatives have been und…
Race, Gender, and Communications in Natural Disasters
We examine public attitudes toward vulnerability and evacuation in hurricane natural disasters. Using the results of an opinion survey in a coastal, New England state, we find important differences in how men and women, and Whites and minorities perceive natural disasters. Race, gender, and geographic proximity to the coast affect how vulnerable people believe their residence is to a major hurricane, while government officials and media reporting…
Thomas Anton
Thomas Anton passed away on June 6, 2006, following a battle with cancer. Professor Anton was the A. Alfred Taubman Professor of Public Policy and American Institutions, professor of Political Science, and founding director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University. He served as director of the Taubman Center from 1984 to 2000
The Talk of the Party
Journal Article The Talk of the Party: Political Labels, Symbolic Capital and American Life by Sharon E. Jarvis Get access The Talk of the Party: Political Labels, Symbolic Capital and American Life by Sharon E. Jarvis. Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. 304 pp. Cloth, $80.00; paper, $27.95. Darrell M. West Darrell M. West Brown University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Q…
The Impact of Campaign Reform on Political Discourse
DARRELL M. WEST is the John Hazen White Professor of Public Policy and Political Science and the director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University. He is the author of Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance and various articles on media, advertising, and political campaigns. L. SANDY MAISEL is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government and director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic…
Managing Citizen Fears
The authors examine public attitudes toward urban terrorism, focusing on whether emotion or reason is a more important determinant of how people feel. Using the results of a public opinion survey in a large, northeastern city, the authors find that both emotion and reason affect people’s reactions to terrorist attacks. However, this relationship is affected by personal conversation. The more people talk about terrorism, the greater the chance rea…
Presidential Candidate Images
Presidential Candidate Images. Edited by Kenneth L. Hacker. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004. 288p. $80.00 cloth, $32.95 paper. In an era of personalistic politics and saturation media coverage, candidate image is an especially important topic. Presidential contenders go to great lengths to generate particular images of themselves. They devote a substantial portion of their budget to campaign advertising, and use public opinion s…
The Buying of the President 2004
E‐Government and the Transformation of Service Delivery and Citizen Attitudes
The impact of new technology on public‐sector service delivery and citizens' attitudes about government has long been debated by political observers. This article assesses the consequences ofe‐government for service delivery, democratic responsiveness, and public attitudes over the last three years. Research examines the content of e‐government to investigate whether it is taking advantage of the interactive features of the World Wide Web to impr…
Responsibility Frenzies in News Coverage
Little attention has been paid to cases in which news media cover political controversies in a sensible and responsible manner. Unlike “feeding frenzies,” which have been well documented, there has been almost no serious examination of cases in which reporters engage in “responsibility frenzies.” In this article, the author discusses a case of one such responsibility frenzy: rumors during Hillary Clinton’s 2000 U.S. Senate campaign that she was a…
Political Consultants in U.S. Congressional Elections By Stephen K. Medvic. Columbus
Political consultants have become an omnipresent part of the election landscape. Almost no prominent campaign emerges without a group of paid advisors who raise money, poll, design ads, and craft messages for the candidate. Yet despite the extensive visibility of campaign consultants, few empirical studies exist that attempt to measure the impact of this important player in American elections
Citizens’ Views on Urban Revitalization
Renaissance cities have been widely discussed in the literature on urban development. However, despite scholarly interest in this subject, there has been little systematic research on how citizens feel about so-called “hot” cities and the factors that go into citizen conclusions that a city is doing well. In this paper, we use data from a survey of residents of Providence, Rhode Island and review the political and economic history of the area to …
The Objective Media
In 1928, a popular play The Front Page (later a movie) characterized reporters as tabloid creatures who ran from crime scene to crime scene, trying to get the most sensational tidbits to splash on the front page. Such reporters were not very knowledgeable, neither were they professionally trained nor terribly scrupulous in their pursuit of the news. If getting the story required bending the law or bribing a source, that was acceptable.
The Partisan Media
Shortly into George Washington’s presidency, a fundamental debate over the proper role of the federal government divided political leaders of the day. One faction led by Thomas Jefferson was dubious about the need for a strong central authority, which smacked too much of the monarchy Americans had just bested in the Revolutionary War. The Jeffersonians were agrarians, who preferred a decentralized government based on grassroots authority, local b…
The Commercial Media
On May 24, 1844, Professor Samuel Morse of New York University made history by sending the first telegraph message — “What hath God wrought?” — from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. Sitting in the old Supreme Court chambers, Morse conveyed this information using commercial wires that ran the forty miles between the two cities on posts twenty feet high and one hundred yards apart.1 Working out of classrooms in the old University Building on Washingt…
The Fragmented Media
Early in 1992, Bill Clinton was the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. With President Bush’s approval ratings hovering near 90 percent in 1991 following the successful Persian Gulf war, a number of leading Democrats had opted not to seek the presidency out of fear that the election was a lost cause for their party. In the weak field of Democrats, Clinton appeared to be the strongest candidate.
The Future of the Media
Over 150 years ago, the famed French observer Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States for a firsthand look at the New World. Visiting hamlets all across the country, he compiled his impressions into what became the classic book entitled Democracy in America . In that volume, de Tocqueville emphasized how important newspapers were to the American experiment with popular rule, but how personally ambivalent he felt about the press of his…
The Interpretive Media
In 1987, Gary Hart, a prominent senator from Colorado and presidential candidate considered the likely Democratic nominee, was accused of adultery. It was not exactly news that leading politicians engaged in affairs. A long line of modern American presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to John Kennedy were thought to have done so. However, in regard to Hart, it wasn’t as much the sex that bothered reporters as the risk-taking character represented by…
Economic Expectations and Voting Behavior in United States House and Senate Elections
Past individual-level studies of economic voting (1) have incorrectly operationalized the model they employ by using past-oriented rather than future-oriented questions and (2) have failed to examine the level of economic voting in United States Senate elections. Using the 1978 National Election Study, we show that economic voting exists in Senate but not House elections, presumably due to the differences in electoral context. Even when economic …
The Political Bases of Citizen Contacting
This article examines a mode of political participation that frequently has been overlooked-individual efforts to obtain assistance from government officials. Using the seven-nation data set of Verba, Nie, and Kim, we develop and empirically evaluate alternatiave models of citizen contacting. Our first model draws on variations in the distribution of social and economic resources to explain the likelihood of contacting. The second focuses on diff…
Trading Security for Seats
In this paper, we examine redistricting in the 1982 House elections, paying particular attention to the strategic elements of redistricting. We argue that past reliance on aggregate approaches has hindered district-level studies of strategic processes and effects. To overcome this problem, we propose a method that uses individual districts as the unit of analysis. After showing how our district-level approach works, we apply it to the 1982 House …
The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment
Darrell West argues against prevailing wisdom that the media has increased in influence in the past decade. Covering over 200 years of American history, beginning in colonial America and ending with t
Presidential Candidate Images
Presidential Candidate Images. Edited by Kenneth L. Hacker. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004. 288p. $80.00 cloth, $32.95 paper. In an era of personalistic politics and saturation media coverage, candidate image is an especially important topic. Presidential contenders go to great lengths to generate particular images of themselves. They devote a substantial portion of their budget to campaign advertising, and use public opinion s…
Constituencies and Travel Allocations in the 1980 Presidential Campaign
This paper explores constituency allocations in the 1980 presidential campaign. Unlike other studies of travel allocations, which emphasize state distributions, I concentrate on constituencies. How did presidential contenders allocate their travel time among particular audiences? Contrary to observers who say presidential campaigning represents nothing more than a series of meaningless events, I found that election visits were a vital part of coa…
Political Advertising and News Coverage in the 1992 California U.S. Senate Campaigns
This research investigates the advertising and news environment during the 1992 California U.S. Senate campaigns. I examine how people used campaign media--ads and news--in evaluating candidates. Content analysis explores the messages in television ads and news coverage. How citizens assess candidate's recognition, favorability, electability, and the vote is addressed through local public opinion surveys in the nominating and general election sta…
Race, Gender, and Communications in Natural Disasters
We examine public attitudes toward vulnerability and evacuation in hurricane natural disasters. Using the results of an opinion survey in a coastal, New England state, we find important differences in how men and women, and Whites and minorities perceive natural disasters. Race, gender, and geographic proximity to the coast affect how vulnerable people believe their residence is to a major hurricane, while government officials and media reporting…
Polling effects in election campaigns
Ad buys in presidential campaigns
Two approaches have dominated the study of political advertising: those based on public opinion surveys and those derived from experiments. In this paper, we propose a third perspective based on ad buys—the campaign decisions on when, where, and how often to broadcast particular ads. Using national ad buy data for Bush, Clinton, and Perot in 1992 as well as local ad buy data in four communities around the country, we find major differences in how…
Managing Citizen Fears
The authors examine public attitudes toward urban terrorism, focusing on whether emotion or reason is a more important determinant of how people feel. Using the results of a public opinion survey in a large, northeastern city, the authors find that both emotion and reason affect people’s reactions to terrorist attacks. However, this relationship is affected by personal conversation. The more people talk about terrorism, the greater the chance rea…
Television Advertising in Election Campaigns
Few topics have generated more interest recently than the widespread use of television ads in election campaigns. Commercials have become one of the dominant means of candidate communication in contemporary races. Citizens are bombarded with millions of dollars in spot ads during the political season. The 1990 elections alone generated $203 million in spending on ads, according to an estimate by a broadcasting group.1 In today's world, it is near…
Activists and Economic Policymaking in Congress
This paper examines the role of activist opinion in congressional decision making on Reaganomics. Although several scholars have noted that legislators distinguish ordinary citizens from more informed activists having intense preferences within districts, empirical research has not incorporated this insight into the analysis. Using data that measure activist opinion on Reagan's 1981 economic program, member perceptions of their voting decisions, …
Citizens’ Views on Urban Revitalization
Renaissance cities have been widely discussed in the literature on urban development. However, despite scholarly interest in this subject, there has been little systematic research on how citizens feel about so-called “hot” cities and the factors that go into citizen conclusions that a city is doing well. In this paper, we use data from a survey of residents of Providence, Rhode Island and review the political and economic history of the area to …
Citizen Evaluations of Local Police
The sources of public assessments of government policy long have been the object of controversy between those proposing personal experience versus a symbolic attitudes model based on more general political and social beliefs. However, much of the research focuses on national policy issues that are not concrete and are removed from the daily experiences of many Americans. The authors use attitudes about local police to examine whether public asses…
A Preliminary Survey For Aboriginal Sites In The Denison River Valley, March 1989
A preliminary survey for Aboriginal sites in the Denison River valley was undertaken in March 1989 by a team of eight people from the Tasmanian Department of Lands, Parks and Wildlife (now Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage). Seven confirmed archaeological sites, all almost certainly providing evidence of Pleistocene human occupation, were located
Television and Presidential Popularity in America
Presidential approval ratings are a frequently used barometer of performance and popularity. However, despite recognition of the media age in which we live, little work has examined the impact of television on presidential popularity. Using a 1980 and 1984 television content study, panel data from the 1980 National Election Study and rolling cross-sectional data from the 1984 Continuous Monitoring Study, I compare two American presidents (Jimmy C…
The Costs and Benefits of Immigration
The Impact of Campaign Reform on Political Discourse
DARRELL M. WEST is the John Hazen White Professor of Public Policy and Political Science and the director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University. He is the author of Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance and various articles on media, advertising, and political campaigns. L. SANDY MAISEL is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government and director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic…
Radiocarbon dates on shearwater bones from Beeton Shelter, Badger Island, Bass Strait
The studies have shown that small islands in eastern Bass Strait provided rookery sites for a variety of shearwater bones by the mid-Holocene. The two warm-water shearwaters represented in Beeton shelter have shown the climatic changes and their affect on sea-water temperatures in eastern Bass Strait
Electronic Advocacy
study high-tech lobbying tools, such as television advertising and organized direct mail or phone bank efforts (for an exception, see Sexton and Loomis 1994). Lacking, too, are normative considerations of the impact of electronic advocacy on pluralistic democracy. High-tech lobbying tools are expensive, and lobbying strategies based on these models are not equally available to all groups. Given the costs of electronic advocacy, we address whether…
Reforming Campaign Ads
Dissatisfaction with paid campaign advertisements in recent elections has generated heartfelt pleas for fundamental change in the ways elections are conducted. Following the example of Australia and until recently West Germany, some have called for an outright ban on television campaign ads in the United States. Others more worried about the effect on last-minute deciders have suggested the application of the French model, where ads are banned du…
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and the Politics of Deficit Reduction
Procedural change often has generated unanticipated consequences for the policymaking process. This article examines an effort in the United States Congress to institute a procedural mechanism for deficit reduction, the so-called Gramm-Rudman-Hollings procedure. Although the triggering mechanism for automatic spending reductions ultimately was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, this case illustrates the strategic consequences that fl…
Rhetoric and Agenda-Setting in the 1980 Presidential Campaign
Using interviews, field observation, and a content analysis of campaign speeches, this article investigates rhetoric in the 1980 presidential campaign. Contrary to the views of those who denigrate rhetoric as meaningless or manipulative, I found that campaign appeals played important roles in presidential races. Candidates used rhetoric to set policy agendas, communicate coalitional strategies, and establish public personas. Through their policy …
Economic Expectations and Voting Behavior in United States House and Senate Elections
Past individual-level studies of economic voting (1) have incorrectly operationalized the model they employ by using past-oriented rather than future-oriented questions and (2) have failed to examine the level of economic voting in United States Senate elections. Using the 1978 National Election Study, we show that economic voting exists in Senate but not House elections, presumably due to the differences in electoral context. Even when economic …
Rhetoric and Agenda-Setting in the 1980 Presidential Campaign
Using interviews, field observation, and a content analysis of campaign speeches, this article investigates rhetoric in the 1980 presidential campaign. Contrary to the views of those who denigrate rhetoric as meaningless or manipulative, I found that campaign appeals played important roles in presidential races. Candidates used rhetoric to set policy agendas, communicate coalitional strategies, and establish public personas. Through their policy …
Constituencies and Travel Allocations in the 1980 Presidential Campaign
This paper explores constituency allocations in the 1980 presidential campaign. Unlike other studies of travel allocations, which emphasize state distributions, I concentrate on constituencies. How did presidential contenders allocate their travel time among particular audiences? Contrary to observers who say presidential campaigning represents nothing more than a series of meaningless events, I found that election visits were a vital part of coa…
Trading Security for Seats
In this paper, we examine redistricting in the 1982 House elections, paying particular attention to the strategic elements of redistricting. We argue that past reliance on aggregate approaches has hindered district-level studies of strategic processes and effects. To overcome this problem, we propose a method that uses individual districts as the unit of analysis. After showing how our district-level approach works, we apply it to the 1982 House …
United States
International Relations and Politics
The Political Bases of Citizen Contacting
This article examines a mode of political participation that frequently has been overlooked-individual efforts to obtain assistance from government officials. Using the seven-nation data set of Verba, Nie, and Kim, we develop and empirically evaluate alternatiave models of citizen contacting. Our first model draws on variations in the distribution of social and economic resources to explain the likelihood of contacting. The second focuses on diff…
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and the Politics of Deficit Reduction
Procedural change often has generated unanticipated consequences for the policymaking process. This article examines an effort in the United States Congress to institute a procedural mechanism for deficit reduction, the so-called Gramm-Rudman-Hollings procedure. Although the triggering mechanism for automatic spending reductions ultimately was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, this case illustrates the strategic consequences that fl…
Activists and Economic Policymaking in Congress
This paper examines the role of activist opinion in congressional decision making on Reaganomics. Although several scholars have noted that legislators distinguish ordinary citizens from more informed activists having intense preferences within districts, empirical research has not incorporated this insight into the analysis. Using data that measure activist opinion on Reagan's 1981 economic program, member perceptions of their voting decisions, …
Congress and Reaganomics
Public Assessments of Tax Reform
embers of Congress have demonstrated a well-documented tendency to claim credit for activities that please their constituents and shift blame for actions which do not (Mayhew 1974: 52-61; Fiorina 1989: ch. 5). While this phenomenon hardly is a new development, the electoral incentives to engage in this behavior during an era of weak parties and candidate-centered voting are quite high (Fenno 1978; Mann 1978; and Fiorina 1989). Legislators interes…
Public Assessments of Tax Reform
A Preliminary Survey For Aboriginal Sites In The Denison River Valley, March 1989
A preliminary survey for Aboriginal sites in the Denison River valley was undertaken in March 1989 by a team of eight people from the Tasmanian Department of Lands, Parks and Wildlife (now Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage). Seven confirmed archaeological sites, all almost certainly providing evidence of Pleistocene human occupation, were located
Polling effects in election campaigns
Television and Presidential Popularity in America
Presidential approval ratings are a frequently used barometer of performance and popularity. However, despite recognition of the media age in which we live, little work has examined the impact of television on presidential popularity. Using a 1980 and 1984 television content study, panel data from the 1980 National Election Study and rolling cross-sectional data from the 1984 Continuous Monitoring Study, I compare two American presidents (Jimmy C…
Reforming Campaign Ads
Dissatisfaction with paid campaign advertisements in recent elections has generated heartfelt pleas for fundamental change in the ways elections are conducted. Following the example of Australia and until recently West Germany, some have called for an outright ban on television campaign ads in the United States. Others more worried about the effect on last-minute deciders have suggested the application of the French model, where ads are banned du…
Political Advertising and News Coverage in the 1992 California U.S. Senate Campaigns
This research investigates the advertising and news environment during the 1992 California U.S. Senate campaigns. I examine how people used campaign media--ads and news--in evaluating candidates. Content analysis explores the messages in television ads and news coverage. How citizens assess candidate's recognition, favorability, electability, and the vote is addressed through local public opinion surveys in the nominating and general election sta…
Television Advertising in Election Campaigns
Few topics have generated more interest recently than the widespread use of television ads in election campaigns. Commercials have become one of the dominant means of candidate communication in contemporary races. Citizens are bombarded with millions of dollars in spot ads during the political season. The 1990 elections alone generated $203 million in spending on ads, according to an estimate by a broadcasting group.1 In today's world, it is near…
Ad buys in presidential campaigns
Two approaches have dominated the study of political advertising: those based on public opinion surveys and those derived from experiments. In this paper, we propose a third perspective based on ad buys—the campaign decisions on when, where, and how often to broadcast particular ads. Using national ad buy data for Bush, Clinton, and Perot in 1992 as well as local ad buy data in four communities around the country, we find major differences in how…
Radiocarbon dates on shearwater bones from Beeton Shelter, Badger Island, Bass Strait
The studies have shown that small islands in eastern Bass Strait provided rookery sites for a variety of shearwater bones by the mid-Holocene. The two warm-water shearwaters represented in Beeton shelter have shown the climatic changes and their affect on sea-water temperatures in eastern Bass Strait
Electronic Advocacy
study high-tech lobbying tools, such as television advertising and organized direct mail or phone bank efforts (for an exception, see Sexton and Loomis 1994). Lacking, too, are normative considerations of the impact of electronic advocacy on pluralistic democracy. High-tech lobbying tools are expensive, and lobbying strategies based on these models are not equally available to all groups. Given the costs of electronic advocacy, we address whether…
Air wars
Lessons of a Political Science Webcaster
Until I developed a new web site, I had no idea how much personal information webcasters collected on visitors. I always had assumed that surfing the Internet was an anonymous experience. The net was a benign tool that made my job easier. It brought the latest information on politics and media to my fingertips and eliminated my need to dig through dusty old newspapers. In part, it was seeing how the web facilitated my political science work that …
The Objective Media
In 1928, a popular play The Front Page (later a movie) characterized reporters as tabloid creatures who ran from crime scene to crime scene, trying to get the most sensational tidbits to splash on the front page. Such reporters were not very knowledgeable, neither were they professionally trained nor terribly scrupulous in their pursuit of the news. If getting the story required bending the law or bribing a source, that was acceptable.
The Partisan Media
Shortly into George Washington’s presidency, a fundamental debate over the proper role of the federal government divided political leaders of the day. One faction led by Thomas Jefferson was dubious about the need for a strong central authority, which smacked too much of the monarchy Americans had just bested in the Revolutionary War. The Jeffersonians were agrarians, who preferred a decentralized government based on grassroots authority, local b…
Political science (43 works) · Law (35 works) · Politics (34 works) · Law (27 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Business (17 works) · Public Administration (16 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (15 works) · Media studies (13 works) · Media Studies and Communication (13 works)