A E Smith
Biographic Data
| ID | 13608 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A E Smith |
| GIVEN NAMES | A E |
| FAMILY NAME | Smith |
| SIGNATURE | SMITH A E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Iowa State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6436-153X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 407 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Does workplace inclusion mitigate emotional exhaustion? Evidence from local government organizations
Over the past few years, many local government organizations have become more concerned with employee burnout and identifying strategies to support employees. In this paper we examine inclusion as a resource that can shape emotional exhaustion and buffer against two demands, workplace incivility and COVID-19 job-related changes. With survey data collected from three local governments, we find that inclusion is associated with reduced feelings of …
Recasting of the Latin American Right: Polarization and Conservative Reactions
This book analyzes the transformation of the political right in Latin America in response to the strengthening of left-wing parties and movements throughout the region. While Latin America's post-2000 left has been widely studied, little is known about right-wing political formations during and after that time. There is a paucity of research on recent phenomena associated with the reorganization of the Right: the polarization of Latin American el…
Religion, Sexuality Politics, and the Transformation of Latin American Electorates
Right-wing candidates have rallied against same-sex marriage, abortion, and ‘gender ideology’ in several recent Latin American elections, attracting socially conservative voters. Yet, these issues are largely irrelevant to voting decisions in other parts of the region. Drawing on theories explaining partisan shifts in the US and Europe, we argue that elite and social movement debates on sexuality politics create conditions for electoral realignme…
Winners’ Consent? Citizen Commitment to Democracy When Illiberal Candidates Win Elections
Democracy is in decline worldwide, primarily because voters elect candidates harboring antidemocratic aspirations. Scholars argue that elections animate the democratic spirits of winners and deflate those of losers, but what about contests ending in the victory of authoritarian candidates? To answer this question, we consider the dynamics of commitment to democracy in Brazil's 2018 presidential campaign. Drawing on AmericasBarometer data and an o…
Forum: A Coup At the Capitol? Conceptualizing Coups and Other Antidemocratic Actions
The term “coup” has been used to describe a diverse range of events. Although recent decades have seen the academic study of coups focus on an increasingly narrow type of military intervention in politics, the general public, governments, and international organizations frequently apply the coup label to a broader set of antidemocratic actions. This was dramatically illustrated after the overrunning of the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, …
The Knowledge Polity: Teaching and Research in the Social Sciences
The Knowledge Polity advances a holistic view of knowledge production in the social sciences. The familiar publication pipeline metaphor stresses the individual; we move beyond such a conception, offering a vision of academics as members of a knowledge polity where citizenship comes with rights and responsibilities. Knowledge production does not just mean research, but encompasses teaching, reviewing, blogging, commenting, and other activities, w…
Assessing Racial/Ethnic and Gender Gaps in Political Science PhD Students’ Methodological Self-Efficacy
Most research on diversity within political methodology focuses on gender while overlooking racial and ethnic gaps. Our study investigates how race/ethnicity and gender relate to political science PhD students’ methodological self-efficacy, as well as their general academic self-efficacy. By analyzing a survey of 300 students from the top 50 US-based political science PhD programs, we find that race and ethnicity correlate with quantitative self-…
Demographic polarization and the rise of the far right: Brazil’s 2018 presidential election
Does the recent electoral success of far-right populists represent a mere rejection of the political and economic status quo, or has it revealed deeper cultural divides? Historically, demographic cleavages have been poor predictors of vote choice and partisanship in Latin America. However, during Brazil’s 2018 presidential election campaign, right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro fomented conflict across lines of gender, race, and religion. We argue…
What Stymies Action on Climate Change? Religious Institutions, Marginalization, and Efficacy in Kenya
Addressing climate change requires coordinated policy responses that incorporate the needs of the most impacted populations. Yet even communities that are greatly concerned about climate change may remain on the sidelines. We examine what stymies some citizens’ mobilization in Kenya, a country with a long history of environmental activism and high vulnerability to climate change. We foreground efficacy—a belief that one’s actions can create chang…
Latin America Erupts: When Does Competitive Authoritarianism Take Root
Democratically elected as Bolivia’s first indigenous president in 2005, Evo Morales eroded democracy and began a transition to competitive authoritarianism in the 2010s. By November 2020, however, both Morales and his successor, the right-wing president Jeanine Áñez, had fallen after failing to consolidate authoritarian rule. Why do some aspiring authoritarians succeed while many fail? A comparison of Bolivia to Brazil and Venezuela illuminates t…
What Drives Religious Politicking? An Analysis of 24 Democratic Elections
Why do clergy talk with congregants about elections to a greater extent in Mozambique than Indonesia, or in the United States than Taiwan? Arguing that context shapes religious actors' micro-level incentives to discuss or avoid electoral politics, we seek to explain variation in religious politicking—religious leaders' and organizations' engagement in electoral campaigns. Our framework integrates individual-level and country-level approaches, as …
Introduction The Grassroots Right in Latin America: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences
A fter a decade of leftist governments, the Latin American right is resurgent
Putting personality in context: Determinants of research productivity and impact in political science
Covid vs. Democracy: Brazil's Populist Playbook
Covid-19 has had unambiguously tragic human consequences in Brazil, which have been exacerbated by President Jair Bolsonaro’s “executive underreach” in failing to follow public-health guidance. Yet the democratic impacts are mixed. On the one hand, the health crisis may have diminished the risk of military intervention, belying Bolsonaro’s expressed support for military insurrection and encouraging elites to resist his “performative golpismo.” On…
Evangelical Environmentalists? Evidence from Brazil
While scholarship on the relationship between religions and environmental attitudes has been inconclusive, evangelical Protestants present an exception: they consistently report less environmental concern than other groups. However, prior studies have largely been conducted in the United States. Following a recent 'contextual' turn, we revisit the assumption that universal cognitive and doctrinal factors drive the previously documented negative a…
Religion and Brazilian Democracy: Mobilizing the People of God
"On November 7, 2017, conservative opponents of "gender ideology" burned the American feminist theorist Judith Butler in effigy on the street in front of the art institute Sesc Pompeia in the city of Sao Paulo, while Butler herself was inside giving a lecture. As protesters hoisted a life-sized doll in a pink brassiere and witch's hat over their heads and lit it on fire, they chanted, "Burn the witch!" The protest apparently included both conserv…
Looks Like Me, Thinks Like Me: Descriptive Representation and Opinion Congruence in Brazil
This article argues that descriptive representation, or demographic similarities between legislators and the public, can provide effective substantive representation of citizens’ concerns. We examine representation through the lens of opinion congruence or alignment in the policy preferences of legislators and citizens sharing various identities. Congruence may result from shared material interests or from self-selection into an identity group on…
Gender, Race, Age, and National Origin Predict Whether Faculty Assign Female-Authored Readings in Graduate Syllabi
Numerous studies document female scholars’ underrepresentation in political science publications and citations, yet few examine graduate syllabi. In this study, we assess the impact of instructors’ individual characteristics (i.e., race, gender, and age) on which readings they assign. We use what is—to our knowledge—the largest dataset of graduate readings to date: the GRaduate Assignments DataSet (GRADS), with 75,601 readings from 840 syllabi in…
The Gender Readings Gap in Political Science Graduate Training
What influences gender representation in assigned readings during graduate training? Whereas recent studies have identified gender gaps in citations and publications, less is known about the readings used to train future political scientists. Introducing a unique data set of 88,673 citations from 905 PhD syllabi and reading lists, we find that only 19% of assigned readings have female first authors. Scholarship by female scholars is underrepresen…
The Establishment Upside Down: A Year of Change in Brazil
This was a year of dramatic changes in Brazilian politics, as the established parties and actors that had dominated Brazilian politics for two decades were humbled. The year began with the administration of the extremely unpopular, lame duck President Michel Temer, and ended awaiting the inauguration of far-rightist President Jair Bolsonaro on January 1st, 2019. In this article, we describe and analyze the major events of 2018 in Brazilian politi…
Electing women to new Arab assemblies: The roles of gender ideology, Islam, and tribalism in Oman
As Arab monarchies increasingly adopt and empower consultative assemblies, women’s representation varies markedly across countries. What leads citizens in these new electoral systems to vote for women? This study investigates the determinants of support for women’s representation using the first electoral survey ever conducted in Oman, prior to the October 2015 Majlis al Shura elections. It considers cross-nationally recognized factors – gender i…
Explaining Gender in the Journals: How Submission Practices Affect Publication Patterns in Political Science
In recent work, Teele and Thelen (2017) documented the underrepresentation of female-authored scholarship in a broad selection of political science journals. To better understand these patterns, we present the results of an original, individual-level survey of political scientists conducted in the spring of 2017. Confirming Teele and Thelen’s speculation, our evidence indicates that differences in submission rates underlie the gender gap in publi…
Talking It Out: Political Conversation and Knowledge Gaps in Unequal Urban Contexts
In many contemporary urban spaces, political information accrues to high status neighborhoods. This might exacerbate political inequality as the information-rich and information-poor each talk primarily with others like themselves. When information is specific and broadly diffused through the media, however, the convenience and low cognitive costs of everyday conversation could be especially helpful for the disadvantaged. This article shows how p…
Democratic Talk in Church: Religion and Political Socialization in the Context of Urban Inequality
Is It Race, Class, or Gender? The Sources of Perceived Discrimination in Brazil
Observers have long noted Brazil's distinctive racial politics: the coexistence of relatively integrated race relations and a national ideology of "racial democracy" with deep social inequalities along color lines. Those defending a vision of a nonracist Brazil attribute such inequalities to mechanisms perpetuating class distinctions. This article examines how members of disadvantaged groups perceive their disadvantage and what determines self-re…
Civic Education, Political Discussion, and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002
How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique threewave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two-step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic…
Knowing Left from Right: Ideological Identification in Brazil, 2002-2006
Ideology, typically defined on a left-right spectrum, should provide a means of communication between elites and masses. After years of leftist party rule, have Brazilian voters internalized ideological divisions? Longitudinal surveys conducted from 2002 to 2006 reveal high nonresponse and instability in ideological self-identification. We find that the capacity to think ideologically is in part a function of political and social context. This ca…
Winners’ Consent? Citizen Commitment to Democracy When Illiberal Candidates Win Elections
Democracy is in decline worldwide, primarily because voters elect candidates harboring antidemocratic aspirations. Scholars argue that elections animate the democratic spirits of winners and deflate those of losers, but what about contests ending in the victory of authoritarian candidates? To answer this question, we consider the dynamics of commitment to democracy in Brazil's 2018 presidential campaign. Drawing on AmericasBarometer data and an o…
Incorporating Marginal Citizens and Voters: The Conditional Electoral Effects of Targeted Social Assistance in Latin America
In this article, we study how social assistance shapes election results across Latin America. Case studies in several countries have found electoral effects, yet it remains unclear whether and how effects vary cross-nationally, and whether electoral effects are due to mobilization or persuasion. We theorize that programs mobilize non-voters and convert the opposition simultaneously, but that the effects vary based on country-level political and p…
Demographic polarization and the rise of the far right: Brazil’s 2018 presidential election
Does the recent electoral success of far-right populists represent a mere rejection of the political and economic status quo, or has it revealed deeper cultural divides? Historically, demographic cleavages have been poor predictors of vote choice and partisanship in Latin America. However, during Brazil’s 2018 presidential election campaign, right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro fomented conflict across lines of gender, race, and religion. We argue…
The Gender Readings Gap in Political Science Graduate Training
What influences gender representation in assigned readings during graduate training? Whereas recent studies have identified gender gaps in citations and publications, less is known about the readings used to train future political scientists. Introducing a unique data set of 88,673 citations from 905 PhD syllabi and reading lists, we find that only 19% of assigned readings have female first authors. Scholarship by female scholars is underrepresen…
Do authoritarians vote for authoritarians? Evidence from Latin America
During the 2016 presidential election campaign in the United States, scholars argued that authoritarian visions of the family are associated with support for Donald Trump, a candidate also noted to exhibit authoritarian or illiberal tendencies. Though it is plausible that “authoritarian” citizens (defined by parenting attitudes) vote for “authoritarian” candidates (defined by disrespect for democratic institutions), past research provides relativ…
Religion, Sexuality Politics, and the Transformation of Latin American Electorates
Right-wing candidates have rallied against same-sex marriage, abortion, and ‘gender ideology’ in several recent Latin American elections, attracting socially conservative voters. Yet, these issues are largely irrelevant to voting decisions in other parts of the region. Drawing on theories explaining partisan shifts in the US and Europe, we argue that elite and social movement debates on sexuality politics create conditions for electoral realignme…
Latin America Erupts: When Does Competitive Authoritarianism Take Root
Democratically elected as Bolivia’s first indigenous president in 2005, Evo Morales eroded democracy and began a transition to competitive authoritarianism in the 2010s. By November 2020, however, both Morales and his successor, the right-wing president Jeanine Áñez, had fallen after failing to consolidate authoritarian rule. Why do some aspiring authoritarians succeed while many fail? A comparison of Bolivia to Brazil and Venezuela illuminates t…
Covid vs. Democracy: Brazil's Populist Playbook
Covid-19 has had unambiguously tragic human consequences in Brazil, which have been exacerbated by President Jair Bolsonaro’s “executive underreach” in failing to follow public-health guidance. Yet the democratic impacts are mixed. On the one hand, the health crisis may have diminished the risk of military intervention, belying Bolsonaro’s expressed support for military insurrection and encouraging elites to resist his “performative golpismo.” On…
When Clergy are Threatened: Catholic and Protestant Leaders and Political Activism in Brazil
In the past three decades, observers have noted a steady rise in religious leaders’ engagement in Brazilian politics. What motivates this new activism? One prominent theory focuses on threat from religious competitors; other scholars point to church-state relations or theologically-driven political grievances. I argue that because of institutional and theological differences, Catholic and Protestant clergy are motivated into political action by d…
Talking It Out: Political Conversation and Knowledge Gaps in Unequal Urban Contexts
In many contemporary urban spaces, political information accrues to high status neighborhoods. This might exacerbate political inequality as the information-rich and information-poor each talk primarily with others like themselves. When information is specific and broadly diffused through the media, however, the convenience and low cognitive costs of everyday conversation could be especially helpful for the disadvantaged. This article shows how p…
Is It Race, Class, or Gender? The Sources of Perceived Discrimination in Brazil
Observers have long noted Brazil's distinctive racial politics: the coexistence of relatively integrated race relations and a national ideology of "racial democracy" with deep social inequalities along color lines. Those defending a vision of a nonracist Brazil attribute such inequalities to mechanisms perpetuating class distinctions. This article examines how members of disadvantaged groups perceive their disadvantage and what determines self-re…
Refusing to know a woman’s place: The causes and consequences of rejecting stereotypes of women politicians in the Americas
What are the sources and effects of gendered leadership stereotypes for women’s representation? We explore the role of stereotypes in shaping public attitudes toward women’s representation using AmericasBarometer survey data from 25 countries. We report three key results. First, the modal respondent in almost every country rejects gendered leadership stereotypes, affirming that women and men leaders are equally qualified on corruption and the eco…
Gender, Race, Age, and National Origin Predict Whether Faculty Assign Female-Authored Readings in Graduate Syllabi
Numerous studies document female scholars’ underrepresentation in political science publications and citations, yet few examine graduate syllabi. In this study, we assess the impact of instructors’ individual characteristics (i.e., race, gender, and age) on which readings they assign. We use what is—to our knowledge—the largest dataset of graduate readings to date: the GRaduate Assignments DataSet (GRADS), with 75,601 readings from 840 syllabi in…
Introduction The Grassroots Right in Latin America: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences
A fter a decade of leftist governments, the Latin American right is resurgent
Explaining Gender in the Journals: How Submission Practices Affect Publication Patterns in Political Science
In recent work, Teele and Thelen (2017) documented the underrepresentation of female-authored scholarship in a broad selection of political science journals. To better understand these patterns, we present the results of an original, individual-level survey of political scientists conducted in the spring of 2017. Confirming Teele and Thelen’s speculation, our evidence indicates that differences in submission rates underlie the gender gap in publi…
Democratic Talk in Church: Religion and Political Socialization in the Context of Urban Inequality
Keeping Up with the Souzas: Social Influence and Electoral Change in a Weak Party System, Brazil 2002-2006
Despite weak partisanship and considerable political change in the wake of the 2002 election, three-quarters of Brazilian voters supported a presidential candidate in 2006 from the same party they had backed in 2002. This article assesses the factors causing both electoral stability and electoral change with a transition model, a model testing whether the effects of respondents' evaluative criteria depend on their initial vote choices. Social con…
Forum: A Coup At the Capitol? Conceptualizing Coups and Other Antidemocratic Actions
The term “coup” has been used to describe a diverse range of events. Although recent decades have seen the academic study of coups focus on an increasingly narrow type of military intervention in politics, the general public, governments, and international organizations frequently apply the coup label to a broader set of antidemocratic actions. This was dramatically illustrated after the overrunning of the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, …
The Establishment Upside Down: A Year of Change in Brazil
This was a year of dramatic changes in Brazilian politics, as the established parties and actors that had dominated Brazilian politics for two decades were humbled. The year began with the administration of the extremely unpopular, lame duck President Michel Temer, and ended awaiting the inauguration of far-rightist President Jair Bolsonaro on January 1st, 2019. In this article, we describe and analyze the major events of 2018 in Brazilian politi…
Electing women to new Arab assemblies: The roles of gender ideology, Islam, and tribalism in Oman
As Arab monarchies increasingly adopt and empower consultative assemblies, women’s representation varies markedly across countries. What leads citizens in these new electoral systems to vote for women? This study investigates the determinants of support for women’s representation using the first electoral survey ever conducted in Oman, prior to the October 2015 Majlis al Shura elections. It considers cross-nationally recognized factors – gender i…
The Diverse Impacts of Politically Diverse Networks: Party Systems, Political Disagreement, and the Timing of Vote Decisions
Journal Article The Diverse Impacts of Politically Diverse Networks: Party Systems, Political Disagreement, and the Timing of Vote Decisions Get access Amy Erica Smith Amy Erica Smith Department of Political Science, Iowa State University, 553 Ross Hall, Ames, IA 50010, USA Amy Erica Smith is an assistant professor of political science at Iowa State University, and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research…
Use of plants in control of agricultural and domestic pests
Chayanov, Sahlins, and the Labor-Consumer Balance
This paper examines Sahlins's use of the work of A. V. Chayanov. Chayanov found that, among peasant producers in Czarist Russia, the greater the ratio of workers to consumers in a household, the less each worker produced. Further, production was governed by 'some relationship' between the drudgery of effort and the utility of income--the Labor-Consumer Balance. For present-day subsistence producers, Sahlins uses the consumer/worker ratio to expla…
Chayanov, Sahlins, and the Labor-Consumer Balance
This paper examines Sahlins's use of the work of A. V. Chayanov. Chayanov found that, among peasant producers in Czarist Russia, the greater the ratio of workers to consumers in a household, the less each worker produced. Further, production was governed by 'some relationship' between the drudgery of effort and the utility of income--the Labor-Consumer Balance. For present-day subsistence producers, Sahlins uses the consumer/worker ratio to expla…
Use of plants in control of agricultural and domestic pests
Legitimate Grievances: Preferences for Democracy, System Support, and Political Participation in Bolivia
Many cross-national surveys examine the extent to which citizens of new democracies believe that democracy is always preferable to any other form of government. There is little evidence, however, regarding how such attitudes affect citizen behavior. This article examines the case of Bolivia, asking whether and how Bolivians’ attitudes toward democracy affect participation, including contacts with public officials and involvement in political part…
Knowing Left from Right: Ideological Identification in Brazil, 2002-2006
Ideology, typically defined on a left-right spectrum, should provide a means of communication between elites and masses. After years of leftist party rule, have Brazilian voters internalized ideological divisions? Longitudinal surveys conducted from 2002 to 2006 reveal high nonresponse and instability in ideological self-identification. We find that the capacity to think ideologically is in part a function of political and social context. This ca…
Fair Bananas: Farmers, Workers and Consumers Strive to Change an Industry
Civic Education, Political Discussion, and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002
How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique threewave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two-step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic…
Keeping Up with the Souzas: Social Influence and Electoral Change in a Weak Party System, Brazil 2002-2006
Despite weak partisanship and considerable political change in the wake of the 2002 election, three-quarters of Brazilian voters supported a presidential candidate in 2006 from the same party they had backed in 2002. This article assesses the factors causing both electoral stability and electoral change with a transition model, a model testing whether the effects of respondents' evaluative criteria depend on their initial vote choices. Social con…
Substance use and sexual risk among at-risk adolescents in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais State, Brazil
We examined the difference in prevalence of substance use and sexual risk behaviors among at-risk youth participants in programs offered by community-based organizations in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, by gender and organization type (governmental vs. non-governmental). 388 adolescents were recruited from 25 intervention-based organizations servicing at-risk youth between the ages of 12 and 17 in Juiz de Fora. Participants completed …
The Diverse Impacts of Politically Diverse Networks: Party Systems, Political Disagreement, and the Timing of Vote Decisions
Journal Article The Diverse Impacts of Politically Diverse Networks: Party Systems, Political Disagreement, and the Timing of Vote Decisions Get access Amy Erica Smith Amy Erica Smith Department of Political Science, Iowa State University, 553 Ross Hall, Ames, IA 50010, USA Amy Erica Smith is an assistant professor of political science at Iowa State University, and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research…
Incorporating Marginal Citizens and Voters: The Conditional Electoral Effects of Targeted Social Assistance in Latin America
In this article, we study how social assistance shapes election results across Latin America. Case studies in several countries have found electoral effects, yet it remains unclear whether and how effects vary cross-nationally, and whether electoral effects are due to mobilization or persuasion. We theorize that programs mobilize non-voters and convert the opposition simultaneously, but that the effects vary based on country-level political and p…
Refusing to know a woman’s place: The causes and consequences of rejecting stereotypes of women politicians in the Americas
What are the sources and effects of gendered leadership stereotypes for women’s representation? We explore the role of stereotypes in shaping public attitudes toward women’s representation using AmericasBarometer survey data from 25 countries. We report three key results. First, the modal respondent in almost every country rejects gendered leadership stereotypes, affirming that women and men leaders are equally qualified on corruption and the eco…
Do authoritarians vote for authoritarians? Evidence from Latin America
During the 2016 presidential election campaign in the United States, scholars argued that authoritarian visions of the family are associated with support for Donald Trump, a candidate also noted to exhibit authoritarian or illiberal tendencies. Though it is plausible that “authoritarian” citizens (defined by parenting attitudes) vote for “authoritarian” candidates (defined by disrespect for democratic institutions), past research provides relativ…
When Clergy are Threatened: Catholic and Protestant Leaders and Political Activism in Brazil
In the past three decades, observers have noted a steady rise in religious leaders’ engagement in Brazilian politics. What motivates this new activism? One prominent theory focuses on threat from religious competitors; other scholars point to church-state relations or theologically-driven political grievances. I argue that because of institutional and theological differences, Catholic and Protestant clergy are motivated into political action by d…
Democratic Talk in Church: Religion and Political Socialization in the Context of Urban Inequality
Is It Race, Class, or Gender? The Sources of Perceived Discrimination in Brazil
Observers have long noted Brazil's distinctive racial politics: the coexistence of relatively integrated race relations and a national ideology of "racial democracy" with deep social inequalities along color lines. Those defending a vision of a nonracist Brazil attribute such inequalities to mechanisms perpetuating class distinctions. This article examines how members of disadvantaged groups perceive their disadvantage and what determines self-re…
Talking It Out: Political Conversation and Knowledge Gaps in Unequal Urban Contexts
In many contemporary urban spaces, political information accrues to high status neighborhoods. This might exacerbate political inequality as the information-rich and information-poor each talk primarily with others like themselves. When information is specific and broadly diffused through the media, however, the convenience and low cognitive costs of everyday conversation could be especially helpful for the disadvantaged. This article shows how p…
Religion and Brazilian Democracy: Mobilizing the People of God
"On November 7, 2017, conservative opponents of "gender ideology" burned the American feminist theorist Judith Butler in effigy on the street in front of the art institute Sesc Pompeia in the city of Sao Paulo, while Butler herself was inside giving a lecture. As protesters hoisted a life-sized doll in a pink brassiere and witch's hat over their heads and lit it on fire, they chanted, "Burn the witch!" The protest apparently included both conserv…
Looks Like Me, Thinks Like Me: Descriptive Representation and Opinion Congruence in Brazil
This article argues that descriptive representation, or demographic similarities between legislators and the public, can provide effective substantive representation of citizens’ concerns. We examine representation through the lens of opinion congruence or alignment in the policy preferences of legislators and citizens sharing various identities. Congruence may result from shared material interests or from self-selection into an identity group on…
Gender, Race, Age, and National Origin Predict Whether Faculty Assign Female-Authored Readings in Graduate Syllabi
Numerous studies document female scholars’ underrepresentation in political science publications and citations, yet few examine graduate syllabi. In this study, we assess the impact of instructors’ individual characteristics (i.e., race, gender, and age) on which readings they assign. We use what is—to our knowledge—the largest dataset of graduate readings to date: the GRaduate Assignments DataSet (GRADS), with 75,601 readings from 840 syllabi in…
The Gender Readings Gap in Political Science Graduate Training
What influences gender representation in assigned readings during graduate training? Whereas recent studies have identified gender gaps in citations and publications, less is known about the readings used to train future political scientists. Introducing a unique data set of 88,673 citations from 905 PhD syllabi and reading lists, we find that only 19% of assigned readings have female first authors. Scholarship by female scholars is underrepresen…
The Establishment Upside Down: A Year of Change in Brazil
This was a year of dramatic changes in Brazilian politics, as the established parties and actors that had dominated Brazilian politics for two decades were humbled. The year began with the administration of the extremely unpopular, lame duck President Michel Temer, and ended awaiting the inauguration of far-rightist President Jair Bolsonaro on January 1st, 2019. In this article, we describe and analyze the major events of 2018 in Brazilian politi…
Electing women to new Arab assemblies: The roles of gender ideology, Islam, and tribalism in Oman
As Arab monarchies increasingly adopt and empower consultative assemblies, women’s representation varies markedly across countries. What leads citizens in these new electoral systems to vote for women? This study investigates the determinants of support for women’s representation using the first electoral survey ever conducted in Oman, prior to the October 2015 Majlis al Shura elections. It considers cross-nationally recognized factors – gender i…
Explaining Gender in the Journals: How Submission Practices Affect Publication Patterns in Political Science
In recent work, Teele and Thelen (2017) documented the underrepresentation of female-authored scholarship in a broad selection of political science journals. To better understand these patterns, we present the results of an original, individual-level survey of political scientists conducted in the spring of 2017. Confirming Teele and Thelen’s speculation, our evidence indicates that differences in submission rates underlie the gender gap in publi…
Putting personality in context: Determinants of research productivity and impact in political science
Covid vs. Democracy: Brazil's Populist Playbook
Covid-19 has had unambiguously tragic human consequences in Brazil, which have been exacerbated by President Jair Bolsonaro’s “executive underreach” in failing to follow public-health guidance. Yet the democratic impacts are mixed. On the one hand, the health crisis may have diminished the risk of military intervention, belying Bolsonaro’s expressed support for military insurrection and encouraging elites to resist his “performative golpismo.” On…
Political science (34 works) · Sociology (31 works) · Politics (28 works) · Law (24 works) · Law (18 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Economics (13 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (11 works) · Democracy (10 works)