Neil A O’brian
Biographic Data
| ID | 1323922 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Neil A O’brian |
| GIVEN NAMES | Neil A |
| FAMILY NAME | O’brian |
| SIGNATURE | O’BRIAN N A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2196-0011 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 6 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Partisanship and Trust in Personal Doctors
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the gap in age-adjusted mortality rates between people living in Republican and Democratic counties expanded; people in Democratic counties started living longer. This paper argues that political partisanship poses a direct problem for ameliorating these trends: trust and adherence in one’s personal doctor (including on non-COVID-19 related care) – once a non-partisan issue – now divides Democrats (m…
Political Accountability and Selective Perception in the Time of Covid
That voters punish the incumbent president in bad times, and reward them in good times, has become a stylized fact of elections. Despite COVID-19 representing an unprecedented catastrophe, Trump’s approval ratings, unlike other world leaders, remained stable throughout 2020. To explore this puzzle, we surveyed the same Americans twice before the 2020 election—a period when COVID cases spiked. Instead of finding that the crisis’s severity affected…
Social Groups as the Source of Political Belief Systems
We present novel evidence that attitudes toward nonpartisan social groups structure political belief systems. First, we show that most Americans have a rich knowledge of the social groups that support and oppose group-related policies. This knowledge often exceeds people's awareness of where Democrats and Republicans stand on these same issues. Then, we show that this knowledge promotes what Philip Converse called ideological coherence: Americans…
Before Reagan
What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion position…
One-Party States and Legislator Extremism in the US House, 1876–2012
Do party strongholds exacerbate partisan extremism? Using over 140 years of election data and roll call votes I find that, on average, members of Congress elected in states where their party overwhelmingly dominates tend to moderate from their national party’s ideology when compared to members elected in more competitive settings. I argue that heavily one-party states have often been engendered by widespread agreement over locally salient issues,…
Income Inequality and Congressional Republican Position Taking, 1913–2013
McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal write about the century-long relationship between national income inequality and congressional partisan polarization: rising income inequality corresponds to more polarization. I question this relationship. First, income inequality correlates more strongly with Republican positioning than with polarization, even before Republicans moved asymmetrically rightward. Second, holding the Republican position fixed, leftward…
Social Groups as the Source of Political Belief Systems
We present novel evidence that attitudes toward nonpartisan social groups structure political belief systems. First, we show that most Americans have a rich knowledge of the social groups that support and oppose group-related policies. This knowledge often exceeds people's awareness of where Democrats and Republicans stand on these same issues. Then, we show that this knowledge promotes what Philip Converse called ideological coherence: Americans…
Political Accountability and Selective Perception in the Time of Covid
That voters punish the incumbent president in bad times, and reward them in good times, has become a stylized fact of elections. Despite COVID-19 representing an unprecedented catastrophe, Trump’s approval ratings, unlike other world leaders, remained stable throughout 2020. To explore this puzzle, we surveyed the same Americans twice before the 2020 election—a period when COVID cases spiked. Instead of finding that the crisis’s severity affected…
Before Reagan
What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion position…
One-Party States and Legislator Extremism in the US House, 1876–2012
Do party strongholds exacerbate partisan extremism? Using over 140 years of election data and roll call votes I find that, on average, members of Congress elected in states where their party overwhelmingly dominates tend to moderate from their national party’s ideology when compared to members elected in more competitive settings. I argue that heavily one-party states have often been engendered by widespread agreement over locally salient issues,…
Income Inequality and Congressional Republican Position Taking, 1913–2013
McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal write about the century-long relationship between national income inequality and congressional partisan polarization: rising income inequality corresponds to more polarization. I question this relationship. First, income inequality correlates more strongly with Republican positioning than with polarization, even before Republicans moved asymmetrically rightward. Second, holding the Republican position fixed, leftward…
One-Party States and Legislator Extremism in the US House, 1876–2012
Do party strongholds exacerbate partisan extremism? Using over 140 years of election data and roll call votes I find that, on average, members of Congress elected in states where their party overwhelmingly dominates tend to moderate from their national party’s ideology when compared to members elected in more competitive settings. I argue that heavily one-party states have often been engendered by widespread agreement over locally salient issues,…
Income Inequality and Congressional Republican Position Taking, 1913–2013
McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal write about the century-long relationship between national income inequality and congressional partisan polarization: rising income inequality corresponds to more polarization. I question this relationship. First, income inequality correlates more strongly with Republican positioning than with polarization, even before Republicans moved asymmetrically rightward. Second, holding the Republican position fixed, leftward…
Before Reagan
What explains the alignment of antiabortion positions within the Republican party? I explore this development among voters, activists, and elites before 1980. By 1970, antiabortion attitudes among ordinary voters correlated with conservative views on a range of noneconomic issues including civil rights, Vietnam, feminism and, by 1972, with Republican presidential vote choice. These attitudes predated the parties taking divergent abortion position…
Political Accountability and Selective Perception in the Time of Covid
That voters punish the incumbent president in bad times, and reward them in good times, has become a stylized fact of elections. Despite COVID-19 representing an unprecedented catastrophe, Trump’s approval ratings, unlike other world leaders, remained stable throughout 2020. To explore this puzzle, we surveyed the same Americans twice before the 2020 election—a period when COVID cases spiked. Instead of finding that the crisis’s severity affected…
Social Groups as the Source of Political Belief Systems
We present novel evidence that attitudes toward nonpartisan social groups structure political belief systems. First, we show that most Americans have a rich knowledge of the social groups that support and oppose group-related policies. This knowledge often exceeds people's awareness of where Democrats and Republicans stand on these same issues. Then, we show that this knowledge promotes what Philip Converse called ideological coherence: Americans…
Partisanship and Trust in Personal Doctors
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the gap in age-adjusted mortality rates between people living in Republican and Democratic counties expanded; people in Democratic counties started living longer. This paper argues that political partisanship poses a direct problem for ameliorating these trends: trust and adherence in one’s personal doctor (including on non-COVID-19 related care) – once a non-partisan issue – now divides Democrats (m…
Law (5 works) · Political economy (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Democracy (3 works) · Economics (3 works) · Psychology (3 works)