Jacob M Grumbach
Biographic Data
| ID | 315756 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jacob M Grumbach |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jacob M |
| FAMILY NAME | Grumbach |
| SIGNATURE | GRUMBACH J M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Washington |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7381-9143 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 388 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The Political Effects of Affirmative Action
Affirmative action programs in public sector agencies are a canonical example of race-conscious remedial policy. While these regimes increase public sector diversity, they may also generate political backlash. In particular, they are thought to have increased support for the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, there has been relatively little quantitative study of potential political backlash to the implementation of race-conscious affi…
Mobilizing Frontline Workers Against Wage Theft
We use an original survey of frontline U.S. workers in five low-wage industries to investigate the prevalence of perceived wage theft and the effectiveness of messages aimed at mobilizing in response. We find that over 14% of workers report recent incidents of late- or underpayment. These workers are both more supportive of union representation and more willing to search for a new job. Using an embedded survey experiment, we study workers’ willin…
Improving Compliance in Experimental Studies of Discrimination
In experimental studies of discrimination, researchers often manipulate cues of social identities such as race to isolate their discriminatory effects, holding all else constant. However, these studies cannot distinguish between noncompliance, in which respondents do not observe, acknowledge, or update their beliefs about the social identity being signaled, and nondiscrimination, in which respondents update their beliefs based on the signal but d…
Right to Work or Right to Vote? Labor Policy and American Democracy
There is growing attention to the role of organized labor in maintaining and expanding democratic institutions in the United States. In this article, we investigate the effect of right-to-work laws on electoral democracy in the states. We theorize a series of mechanisms by which labor unions contribute to the maintenance and expansion of democratic institutions, including contributing money to campaigns and influencing the electorate. Right-to-wo…
Which States Adopt Election-Subversion Policies
Research highlights a growing divergence among U.S. states in their costs of voting, the partisan balance of their legislative districts, and the responsiveness of state policy to public opinion. Less is known, however, about a new and acute threat to democracy at the state level: policies that increase the states' vulnerability to election subversion. In this article, we investigate recent trends in state legislation that transfer election admin…
Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding
The Trump presidency generated concern about democratic backsliding and renewed interest in measuring the national democratic performance of the United States. However, the US has a decentralized form of federalism that administers democratic institutions at the state level. Using 51 indicators of electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018, I develop a measure of subnational democratic performance, the State Democracy Index. I then test theories of de…
Laboratories against Democracy
Getting out the vote in the projects
We analyze the effects of a community organizing initiative in low-income public housing on voter turnout among race-class subjugated communities. Get-out-the-vote campaigns and voter turnout are among the most heavily studied topics in empirical political science. Yet, we know much less about how to increase turnout among race-class subjugated communities, where community-level (as opposed to individual or household-level) interventions are nece…
U.S. State Policy Contexts and Physical Health among Midlife Adults
The authors examine how state policy contexts may have contributed to unfavorable adult health in recent decades, using merged individual-level data from the 1993–2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System ( n = 2,166,835) and 15 state-level policy domains measured annually on a conservative-to-liberal continuum. The authors examine associations between policy domains and health among adults 45 to 64 years old and assess how much of the asso…
Rock the Registration
Studies find that same day registration (SDR) laws increase turnout, but less is known about which kinds of voters are most affected. Young people are disproportionately burdened by traditional registration laws because they frequently change addresses and infrequently interact with government agencies providing registration services. SDR laws, which lower the cost of registration, should increase turnout most among young people. Laws that lower …
Gender, Race, and Intersectionality in Campaign Finance
American Federalism, Political Inequality, and Democratic Erosion
The United States has a particularly decentralized form of federalism that provides important authority to multiple levels of government. This decentralization is typically seen as beneficial for democratic politics. But while federalism both constrains and enables democratic participation, we argue that it does so unevenly, and in ways that deepen inequalities in the processes of democracy. We propose four mechanisms by which the institutional d…
The Political Economies of Red States
A striking feature of the American political economy is its fragmentation. The constitutionally protected role of the states and the localized quality of many crucial policies foster a political economy that is at once national – the rich world's most extensive nation-spanning market – and sectional, with states or groups of states constituting distinct political economies that often have enormous scope of their own.
Association of US state policy orientation with adverse birth outcomes
BACKGROUND: The current US context is marked by extreme right-left partisanship, which means that state policies tend to bundle together and are not experienced in isolation. While prior work has leveraged abrupt shifts in single policies to examine the effects of state policy on birth outcomes, we examined a holistic measure that captures political polarisation. METHODS: Data were drawn from national birth certificates for 2003-2017 (N=56 770 47…
Labor Unions and White Racial Politics
Scholars and political observers point to declining labor unions, on the one hand, and rising white identity politics, on the other, as profound changes in American politics. However, there has been little attention given to the potential feedback between these forces. In this article, we investigate the role of union membership in shaping white racial attitudes. We draw upon research in history and American political development to generate a th…
All-mail voting in Colorado increases turnout and reduces turnout inequality
US State Policies, Politics, and Life Expectancy
Policy Points Changes in US state policies since the 1970s, particularly after 2010, have played an important role in the stagnation and recent decline in US life expectancy. Some US state policies appear to be key levers for improving life expectancy, such as policies on tobacco, labor, immigration, civil rights, and the environment. US life expectancy is estimated to be 2.8 years longer among women and 2.1 years longer among men if all US state…
Interest Group Activists and the Polarization of State Legislatures
Theories in campaign finance research suggest that interest group contributions moderate, and individual contributions polarize, state legislators. However, interest groups are comprised of individuals, and public opinion data suggest that group‐affiliated individual donors are more politically active and have especially extreme attitudes. This article investigates the relationship between group‐affiliated donors and legislative polarization in t…
Race and Representation in Campaign Finance
Racial inequality in voter turnout is well-documented, but we know less about racial inequality in campaign contributions. Using new data on the racial identities of over 27 million donors, we find an unrepresentative contributor class. Black and Latino shares of contributions are smaller than their shares of the population, electorate, and elected offices. However, we argue that the presence of ethnoracial minority candidates mobilizes coethnic …
Billionaires, Organizations, and Federalism
From Backwaters to Major Policymakers
Political scientists often characterize state and local governments as marginal and highly constrained in policymaking. However, I suggest that in recent decades state governments have moved from the margins to the center of partisan battles over the direction of U.S. public policy. Across 16 issue areas, I investigate interstate policy variation, policy differences across states, and policy polarization, the changing relationship between party c…
Validation of a survey to examine drinking-water access, practices and policies in schools
Objective Ensuring ready access to free drinking-water in schools is an important strategy for prevention of obesity and dental caries, and for improving student learning. Yet to date, there are no validated instruments to examine water access in schools. The present study aimed to develop and validate a survey of school administrators to examine school access to beverages, including water and sports drinks, and school and district-level water-re…
Does the American Dream Matter for Members of Congress
Do legislators from upper-class backgrounds behave differently from those from humble beginnings? Scholars of representation have made progress understanding the effects of a legislator’s social class on roll-call votes, but ideology is also understood to be shaped during adolescence. Using data from Nicholas Carnes’ White-Collar Government, I find that upper-class members of Congress with working-class parents are significantly more liberal than…
Tapping Into Water
Objectives. We examined free drinking water access in schools. Methods. We conducted cross-sectional interviews with administrators from 240 California public schools from May to November 2011 to examine the proportion of schools that met excellent water access criteria (i.e., location, density, type, maintenance, and appeal of water sources), school-level characteristics associated with excellent water access, and barriers to improvements. Resul…
From Backwaters to Major Policymakers
Political scientists often characterize state and local governments as marginal and highly constrained in policymaking. However, I suggest that in recent decades state governments have moved from the margins to the center of partisan battles over the direction of U.S. public policy. Across 16 issue areas, I investigate interstate policy variation, policy differences across states, and policy polarization, the changing relationship between party c…
Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding
The Trump presidency generated concern about democratic backsliding and renewed interest in measuring the national democratic performance of the United States. However, the US has a decentralized form of federalism that administers democratic institutions at the state level. Using 51 indicators of electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018, I develop a measure of subnational democratic performance, the State Democracy Index. I then test theories of de…
Race and Representation in Campaign Finance
Racial inequality in voter turnout is well-documented, but we know less about racial inequality in campaign contributions. Using new data on the racial identities of over 27 million donors, we find an unrepresentative contributor class. Black and Latino shares of contributions are smaller than their shares of the population, electorate, and elected offices. However, we argue that the presence of ethnoracial minority candidates mobilizes coethnic …
Labor Unions and White Racial Politics
Scholars and political observers point to declining labor unions, on the one hand, and rising white identity politics, on the other, as profound changes in American politics. However, there has been little attention given to the potential feedback between these forces. In this article, we investigate the role of union membership in shaping white racial attitudes. We draw upon research in history and American political development to generate a th…
Rock the Registration
Studies find that same day registration (SDR) laws increase turnout, but less is known about which kinds of voters are most affected. Young people are disproportionately burdened by traditional registration laws because they frequently change addresses and infrequently interact with government agencies providing registration services. SDR laws, which lower the cost of registration, should increase turnout most among young people. Laws that lower …
Gender, Race, and Intersectionality in Campaign Finance
Does the American Dream Matter for Members of Congress
Do legislators from upper-class backgrounds behave differently from those from humble beginnings? Scholars of representation have made progress understanding the effects of a legislator’s social class on roll-call votes, but ideology is also understood to be shaped during adolescence. Using data from Nicholas Carnes’ White-Collar Government, I find that upper-class members of Congress with working-class parents are significantly more liberal than…
All-mail voting in Colorado increases turnout and reduces turnout inequality
Interest Group Activists and the Polarization of State Legislatures
Theories in campaign finance research suggest that interest group contributions moderate, and individual contributions polarize, state legislators. However, interest groups are comprised of individuals, and public opinion data suggest that group‐affiliated individual donors are more politically active and have especially extreme attitudes. This article investigates the relationship between group‐affiliated donors and legislative polarization in t…
American Federalism, Political Inequality, and Democratic Erosion
The United States has a particularly decentralized form of federalism that provides important authority to multiple levels of government. This decentralization is typically seen as beneficial for democratic politics. But while federalism both constrains and enables democratic participation, we argue that it does so unevenly, and in ways that deepen inequalities in the processes of democracy. We propose four mechanisms by which the institutional d…
U.S. State Policy Contexts and Physical Health among Midlife Adults
The authors examine how state policy contexts may have contributed to unfavorable adult health in recent decades, using merged individual-level data from the 1993–2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System ( n = 2,166,835) and 15 state-level policy domains measured annually on a conservative-to-liberal continuum. The authors examine associations between policy domains and health among adults 45 to 64 years old and assess how much of the asso…
Association of US state policy orientation with adverse birth outcomes
BACKGROUND: The current US context is marked by extreme right-left partisanship, which means that state policies tend to bundle together and are not experienced in isolation. While prior work has leveraged abrupt shifts in single policies to examine the effects of state policy on birth outcomes, we examined a holistic measure that captures political polarisation. METHODS: Data were drawn from national birth certificates for 2003-2017 (N=56 770 47…
Getting out the vote in the projects
We analyze the effects of a community organizing initiative in low-income public housing on voter turnout among race-class subjugated communities. Get-out-the-vote campaigns and voter turnout are among the most heavily studied topics in empirical political science. Yet, we know much less about how to increase turnout among race-class subjugated communities, where community-level (as opposed to individual or household-level) interventions are nece…
Improving Compliance in Experimental Studies of Discrimination
In experimental studies of discrimination, researchers often manipulate cues of social identities such as race to isolate their discriminatory effects, holding all else constant. However, these studies cannot distinguish between noncompliance, in which respondents do not observe, acknowledge, or update their beliefs about the social identity being signaled, and nondiscrimination, in which respondents update their beliefs based on the signal but d…
Right to Work or Right to Vote? Labor Policy and American Democracy
There is growing attention to the role of organized labor in maintaining and expanding democratic institutions in the United States. In this article, we investigate the effect of right-to-work laws on electoral democracy in the states. We theorize a series of mechanisms by which labor unions contribute to the maintenance and expansion of democratic institutions, including contributing money to campaigns and influencing the electorate. Right-to-wo…
Which States Adopt Election-Subversion Policies
Research highlights a growing divergence among U.S. states in their costs of voting, the partisan balance of their legislative districts, and the responsiveness of state policy to public opinion. Less is known, however, about a new and acute threat to democracy at the state level: policies that increase the states' vulnerability to election subversion. In this article, we investigate recent trends in state legislation that transfer election admin…
Billionaires, Organizations, and Federalism
Tapping Into Water
Objectives. We examined free drinking water access in schools. Methods. We conducted cross-sectional interviews with administrators from 240 California public schools from May to November 2011 to examine the proportion of schools that met excellent water access criteria (i.e., location, density, type, maintenance, and appeal of water sources), school-level characteristics associated with excellent water access, and barriers to improvements. Resul…
Does the American Dream Matter for Members of Congress
Do legislators from upper-class backgrounds behave differently from those from humble beginnings? Scholars of representation have made progress understanding the effects of a legislator’s social class on roll-call votes, but ideology is also understood to be shaped during adolescence. Using data from Nicholas Carnes’ White-Collar Government, I find that upper-class members of Congress with working-class parents are significantly more liberal than…
Validation of a survey to examine drinking-water access, practices and policies in schools
Objective Ensuring ready access to free drinking-water in schools is an important strategy for prevention of obesity and dental caries, and for improving student learning. Yet to date, there are no validated instruments to examine water access in schools. The present study aimed to develop and validate a survey of school administrators to examine school access to beverages, including water and sports drinks, and school and district-level water-re…
From Backwaters to Major Policymakers
Political scientists often characterize state and local governments as marginal and highly constrained in policymaking. However, I suggest that in recent decades state governments have moved from the margins to the center of partisan battles over the direction of U.S. public policy. Across 16 issue areas, I investigate interstate policy variation, policy differences across states, and policy polarization, the changing relationship between party c…
Billionaires, Organizations, and Federalism
US State Policies, Politics, and Life Expectancy
Policy Points Changes in US state policies since the 1970s, particularly after 2010, have played an important role in the stagnation and recent decline in US life expectancy. Some US state policies appear to be key levers for improving life expectancy, such as policies on tobacco, labor, immigration, civil rights, and the environment. US life expectancy is estimated to be 2.8 years longer among women and 2.1 years longer among men if all US state…
Interest Group Activists and the Polarization of State Legislatures
Theories in campaign finance research suggest that interest group contributions moderate, and individual contributions polarize, state legislators. However, interest groups are comprised of individuals, and public opinion data suggest that group‐affiliated individual donors are more politically active and have especially extreme attitudes. This article investigates the relationship between group‐affiliated donors and legislative polarization in t…
Race and Representation in Campaign Finance
Racial inequality in voter turnout is well-documented, but we know less about racial inequality in campaign contributions. Using new data on the racial identities of over 27 million donors, we find an unrepresentative contributor class. Black and Latino shares of contributions are smaller than their shares of the population, electorate, and elected offices. However, we argue that the presence of ethnoracial minority candidates mobilizes coethnic …
The Political Economies of Red States
A striking feature of the American political economy is its fragmentation. The constitutionally protected role of the states and the localized quality of many crucial policies foster a political economy that is at once national – the rich world's most extensive nation-spanning market – and sectional, with states or groups of states constituting distinct political economies that often have enormous scope of their own.
Association of US state policy orientation with adverse birth outcomes
BACKGROUND: The current US context is marked by extreme right-left partisanship, which means that state policies tend to bundle together and are not experienced in isolation. While prior work has leveraged abrupt shifts in single policies to examine the effects of state policy on birth outcomes, we examined a holistic measure that captures political polarisation. METHODS: Data were drawn from national birth certificates for 2003-2017 (N=56 770 47…
Labor Unions and White Racial Politics
Scholars and political observers point to declining labor unions, on the one hand, and rising white identity politics, on the other, as profound changes in American politics. However, there has been little attention given to the potential feedback between these forces. In this article, we investigate the role of union membership in shaping white racial attitudes. We draw upon research in history and American political development to generate a th…
All-mail voting in Colorado increases turnout and reduces turnout inequality
Laboratories against Democracy
Getting out the vote in the projects
We analyze the effects of a community organizing initiative in low-income public housing on voter turnout among race-class subjugated communities. Get-out-the-vote campaigns and voter turnout are among the most heavily studied topics in empirical political science. Yet, we know much less about how to increase turnout among race-class subjugated communities, where community-level (as opposed to individual or household-level) interventions are nece…
U.S. State Policy Contexts and Physical Health among Midlife Adults
The authors examine how state policy contexts may have contributed to unfavorable adult health in recent decades, using merged individual-level data from the 1993–2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System ( n = 2,166,835) and 15 state-level policy domains measured annually on a conservative-to-liberal continuum. The authors examine associations between policy domains and health among adults 45 to 64 years old and assess how much of the asso…
Rock the Registration
Studies find that same day registration (SDR) laws increase turnout, but less is known about which kinds of voters are most affected. Young people are disproportionately burdened by traditional registration laws because they frequently change addresses and infrequently interact with government agencies providing registration services. SDR laws, which lower the cost of registration, should increase turnout most among young people. Laws that lower …
Gender, Race, and Intersectionality in Campaign Finance
American Federalism, Political Inequality, and Democratic Erosion
The United States has a particularly decentralized form of federalism that provides important authority to multiple levels of government. This decentralization is typically seen as beneficial for democratic politics. But while federalism both constrains and enables democratic participation, we argue that it does so unevenly, and in ways that deepen inequalities in the processes of democracy. We propose four mechanisms by which the institutional d…
Which States Adopt Election-Subversion Policies
Research highlights a growing divergence among U.S. states in their costs of voting, the partisan balance of their legislative districts, and the responsiveness of state policy to public opinion. Less is known, however, about a new and acute threat to democracy at the state level: policies that increase the states' vulnerability to election subversion. In this article, we investigate recent trends in state legislation that transfer election admin…
Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding
The Trump presidency generated concern about democratic backsliding and renewed interest in measuring the national democratic performance of the United States. However, the US has a decentralized form of federalism that administers democratic institutions at the state level. Using 51 indicators of electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018, I develop a measure of subnational democratic performance, the State Democracy Index. I then test theories of de…
The Political Effects of Affirmative Action
Affirmative action programs in public sector agencies are a canonical example of race-conscious remedial policy. While these regimes increase public sector diversity, they may also generate political backlash. In particular, they are thought to have increased support for the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, there has been relatively little quantitative study of potential political backlash to the implementation of race-conscious affi…
Mobilizing Frontline Workers Against Wage Theft
We use an original survey of frontline U.S. workers in five low-wage industries to investigate the prevalence of perceived wage theft and the effectiveness of messages aimed at mobilizing in response. We find that over 14% of workers report recent incidents of late- or underpayment. These workers are both more supportive of union representation and more willing to search for a new job. Using an embedded survey experiment, we study workers’ willin…
Improving Compliance in Experimental Studies of Discrimination
In experimental studies of discrimination, researchers often manipulate cues of social identities such as race to isolate their discriminatory effects, holding all else constant. However, these studies cannot distinguish between noncompliance, in which respondents do not observe, acknowledge, or update their beliefs about the social identity being signaled, and nondiscrimination, in which respondents update their beliefs based on the signal but d…
Right to Work or Right to Vote? Labor Policy and American Democracy
There is growing attention to the role of organized labor in maintaining and expanding democratic institutions in the United States. In this article, we investigate the effect of right-to-work laws on electoral democracy in the states. We theorize a series of mechanisms by which labor unions contribute to the maintenance and expansion of democratic institutions, including contributing money to campaigns and influencing the electorate. Right-to-wo…
Political science (20 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (13 works) · Economics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Public Administration (9 works) · Democracy (7 works) · Demographic economics (6 works)