Brian Newman
Biographic Data
| ID | 3717850 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brian Newman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brian |
| FAMILY NAME | Newman |
| SIGNATURE | NEWMAN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pepperdine University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0410-2210 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 587 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Republican Pushback on Patriotism-Linked Covid-19 Vaccine Messages: A Note on Moral Reframing
Moral reframing theory suggests that messages that connect with fundamental values may soften resistance, especially when from a trusted source. We assess these expectations in opinion dynamics around US Republicans’ views on COVID-19 vaccines. Data are from a preregistered experiment in a national survey of Republicans (n = 3,058). Respondents were randomly assigned to one of three treatments or a control (no message) condition. Treated individu…
Jesus was a Refugee: Religious Values Framing can Increase Support for Refugees Among White Evangelical Republicans
We consider how frames highlighting religious values shape opinion among individuals who may experience social identity conflict. White evangelical Republicans have ardently supported Donald Trump’s restrictionist stances towards refugees, yet those partisan policy stances exist in tension with evangelical Christian values emphasizing care for vulnerable strangers. Our pre-registered national experiment tests whether a religious message can move …
Catholics and Immigration: Church Leadership Perspectives and the Views of a Diverse Laity
This article examines the viewpoints and policy perspectives of leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States concerning immigration. We find that over time they tend to hold moderate to liberal views and recommend policies that tend to mimic those of the Democratic Party rather than those of the Republican Party. We contrast these views with those of Catholic laity and find that there is a disconnect. In particular, White Catholics tend to…
The Evolution of Undergraduate Academic Dress at the University of Cambridge and its Constituent Colleges
This paper charts the development of the distinctive academic costume worn by undergraduate members of England’s second oldest university, Cambridge. It follows the evolution in undergraduate academic dress from differentiation based upon social class and wealth (and regulated as such by the University) to one of differentiation, in most historical cases at least, by the college of which undergraduates are members, about which the University’s on…
Sociopolitical intellectual humility as a predictor of political attitudes and behavioral intentions
Recent research has highlighted the relevance of intellectual humility to politics. Among a U.S. sample (N = 852), we examined self-reported sociopolitical intellectual humility (SIH), a nonthreatening awareness of the fallibility of one’s views about topics central to society and politics. SIH was associated with being less likely to dislike/avoid political discussion, and with more political tolerance, less social dominance orientation, and mor…
Cohen, Jeffrey E. The President on Capitol Hill: A Theory of Institutional Influence
Cohen, Jeffrey E. The President on Capitol Hill: A Theory of Institutional Influence." Congress & the Presidency, 48(1), pp. 107–108
Intellectual humility in the sociopolitical domain
A growing body of research has demonstrated the relevance of intellectual humility to a variety of interpersonal and social attitudes and behaviors. There is a need for further replication and expansion of findings about the role of intellectual humility in the sociopolitical domain. We examined sociopolitical intellectual humility (SIH), i.e., a non-threatening awareness of the fallibility of one’s views about sociopolitical topics in relation t…
Polls and Elections: The Economy and Events Still Matter (At Least a Little): Partisans' Presidential Approval in the Trump Era
Donald Trump's historically stable and polarized approval ratings raise concerns that partisans' evaluations of Trump are detached from real‐world conditions like the state of the economy and Trump's actions. We show that Republicans' (but not Democrats') approval and strength of (dis)approval tracked with stock market performance and perceptions of the economy. In addition, both Democrats and Republicans rewarded and punished Trump after major e…
Class War in the Voting Booth: Bias Against High‐Income Congressional Candidates
Do Americans care how much money congressional candidates earn? We conducted three experiments to examine how candidates' incomes affect voters' perceptions of the candidates' traits and ultimately their vote intention. Subjects evaluated otherwise identical candidates with annual incomes randomly varying between $75,000, $3 million, and a candidate with no income information provided. Results from the three experiments are remarkably similar. Su…
A God of Vengeance and of Reward? Voters and Accountability
Theories of democratic politics prize congruence between citizens’ preferences and their elected representatives’ actions in office. Elections are a critical means for achieving such policy congruence, providing voters the opportunity to chasten representatives who are out of step with constituent preferences and to reward the faithful. Do voters act this way? Recent studies based on observational data find they do, but these data are somewhat li…
Presidents and the Congressional Black Caucus: The Racial Consequences of Electoral Incentives
Presidents face incentives to move toward the median voter as elections approach. We explore the racial consequences of these electoral incentives. As presidents move toward the center, they move away from ideologically noncentrist groups like the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Comparing the president’s annual budget proposal to the CBC’s alternative budget from 1980 to 2012, we test whether Democrats’ (Republicans’) budgets are less (more) co…
Who Supports Syrians? The Relative Importance of Religion, Partisanship, and Partisan News
Who supports allowing Syrian refugees into the United States? As a candidate, Donald Trump clearly opposed doing so. In contrast, religious leaders across the broad spectrum of religious traditions in the United States have drawn on sacred texts to call their people to action in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Many explicitly ask the government to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States. Thus, many Republicans may have experienced cr…
Political inequality in America: Who loses on spending policy? When is policy less biased
Rapid growth in America’s economic inequality and endemic disadvantages among racial minorities have deepened fears about unequal political influence. From separate studies, it appears that the government responds more to the wealthy and to whites. But critical questions remain unanswered. What are relative contributions of race and class to government responsiveness? Why do these inequalities exist in the first place? And under what contexts are…
Polls and Elections: Terror, War, and the Economy in George W. Bush's Approval Ratings: The Importance of Salience in Presidential Approval
George W. Bush's presidency provides a fertile ground to further develop the standard model of presidential approval. In contrast to the vast presidential approval literature, early studies of Bush conclude economic conditions had no effect once the war in Iraq began. Rather than require a fundamental rethinking of presidential approval theories, we argue that approval models must take into account issue salience. When a factor is salient, it has…
Polls and Elections: Character and Political Time as Sources of Presidential Greatness
Presidency scholars have long debated whether a president's personal traits or the historical circumstances of their presidency have a bigger effect on presidential performance. We contribute to this debate by examining whether historical conditions (i.e., Skowronek's conception of political time) and two important personal traits (intellectual brilliance and character) relate to presidents’ standing in polls of “presidential greatness.” We find …
The Presidency and Political Equality
When black Americans and white Americans want the president to do different things, who wins? When low-income earners prefer different government action than do middle and high-income earners, whose preferences are reflected in presidential behavior? Recent studies show that congressional behavior often most closely follows the preferences of the white and the wealthy, but we know relatively little about presidential behavior. Since the president…
Religion and environmental politics in the US House of Representatives
Does religion affect legislators’ behavior on environmental policy in the US? Studies of environmental policy making have not examined this question, although the literature suggests that religion might affect legislative behavior on environmental policy. This study examines the relationship between US House members’ religion and roll-call voting on environmental legislation from 1973 to 2009. It finds significant differences across religious tra…
Polls and Elections: Decreasing the Economy's Impact on Evaluations of the P resident: An Experiment on Attribution Framing
Decades of research has shown that economic considerations are strongly tied to evaluations of the president. Many studies have found that framing (often called priming) by news coverage, events, and presidential rhetoric can increase the weight of economic and other considerations in presidential evaluations. I use a survey experiment to show that attribution frames can decrease the weight of economic considerations on presidential evaluations. …
Voting Power, Policy Representation, and Disparities in Voting’s Rewards
Reelection-minded officials have motivations to represent some of their constituents more than others when casting roll-call votes. In particular, reelection seekers have incentives to appeal to those with greater "voting power" (Bartels 1998): those who are likely to vote, are not strongly predisposed to vote for one of the parties, and are members of large groups within a particular constituency. We present two novel findings stemming from thes…
A Gender Gap in Policy Representation in the U.S. Congress
In the first article to evaluate the equality of dyadic policy representation experienced by women, we assess the congruence between U.S. House members' roll‐call votes and the policy preferences of their female and male constituents. Employing two measures of policy representation, we do not find a gender gap in dyadic policy representation. However, we uncover a sizeable gender gap favoring men in districts represented by Republicans, and a sim…
Polls and Elections: Divided Government and Foreign Relations Approval
During divided government, the public tends to attribute credit and blame for economic conditions to both the president and Congress. However, the “two presidencies” thesis argues that presidents have more influence vis‐à‐vis Congress in shaping foreign policy compared to domestic policy, so the public may attribute all foreign policy outcomes to the president alone. This suggests that the boost presidents typically receive in their overall appro…
Polls and Elections: The Polarized Presidency: Depth and Breadth of Public Partisanship
This essay examines the extent of partisan polarization in the public's views of the president from 1972 to 2008, extending earlier studies by placing the George W. Bush administration in historical context and exploring the depth and breadth of polarization. The authors find that the party gap in presidential approval has grown significantly over time. Moreover, more inpartisans strongly approve of the president and more outpartisans strongly di…
"Rally Round the Flag" Events for Presidential Approval Research
A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election – Edited by David E. Campbell
Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality in America
Are Voters Better Represented
Studies of political participation and representation often contend that elected officials respond more to the preferences of voters than those of nonvoters, but seldom test this claim. This is a critical assumption because if true, biases in who participates will lead to biased representation. Office holders might respond disproportionately to voters’ preferences because voters tend to select like-minded representatives, voters tend to communica…
FDR to Clinton, Mueller to: A Field Essay on Presidential Approval
Since the 1930s, polling organizations have asked Americans whether they “approve or disapprove of the job [the incumbent] is doing as president.” In the early 1970s, John Mueller started an academic industry by asking what drives these evaluations. American politics and the tools available to examine it have changed dramatically since then, inspiring a burst of research on presidential approval in the 1990s. We review this new body of literature…
The Unequal Representation of Latinos and Whites
We compare the ideological proximity of Latinos and whites to their Members of Congress (MCs), demonstrating the degree to which Latinos are underrepresented compared to whites. We show how this representation gap varies with group differences in electoral turnout and income, district ethnic composition, and MCs' ethnicity and party affiliation. We find that Latinos' unequal representation is not simply a function of the group's numerical minorit…
"Rally Round the Flag" Events for Presidential Approval Research
Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980-2000
Journal Article Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980–2000 Get access BRIAN NEWMAN BRIAN NEWMAN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 67, Issue 3, November 2003, Pages 335–367, https://doi.org/10.1086/377242 Published: 01 November 2003
Bill Clinton's Approval Ratings: The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same
Over the past three decades, political scientists have been developing general models of presidential approval ratings, seeking to determine the structure of aggregate approval. This endeavor has culminated in the broad claim that “peace, prosperity, and probity” drive the public's approval. The unprecedented events of the Clinton Presidency, especially his high approval during and after impeachment, present a strong chal- lenge to this model. Ho…
A Gender Gap in Policy Representation in the U.S. Congress
In the first article to evaluate the equality of dyadic policy representation experienced by women, we assess the congruence between U.S. House members' roll‐call votes and the policy preferences of their female and male constituents. Employing two measures of policy representation, we do not find a gender gap in dyadic policy representation. However, we uncover a sizeable gender gap favoring men in districts represented by Republicans, and a sim…
Voting Power, Policy Representation, and Disparities in Voting’s Rewards
Reelection-minded officials have motivations to represent some of their constituents more than others when casting roll-call votes. In particular, reelection seekers have incentives to appeal to those with greater "voting power" (Bartels 1998): those who are likely to vote, are not strongly predisposed to vote for one of the parties, and are members of large groups within a particular constituency. We present two novel findings stemming from thes…
Polls and Elections: The Polarized Presidency: Depth and Breadth of Public Partisanship
This essay examines the extent of partisan polarization in the public's views of the president from 1972 to 2008, extending earlier studies by placing the George W. Bush administration in historical context and exploring the depth and breadth of polarization. The authors find that the party gap in presidential approval has grown significantly over time. Moreover, more inpartisans strongly approve of the president and more outpartisans strongly di…
Explaining Seat Changes in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1950–98
Recent U.S. House elections have challenged existing models of congressional elections, raising the question of whether or not processes thought to govern previous elections are still at work. Taking Marra and Ostrom's (1989) model of congressional elections as representative of extant theoretical perspectives and testing it against recent elections, we find that the model fails. We augment Marra and Ostrom's model with new insights, constructing…
Religion and environmental politics in the US House of Representatives
Does religion affect legislators’ behavior on environmental policy in the US? Studies of environmental policy making have not examined this question, although the literature suggests that religion might affect legislative behavior on environmental policy. This study examines the relationship between US House members’ religion and roll-call voting on environmental legislation from 1973 to 2009. It finds significant differences across religious tra…
Polls and Elections: Terror, War, and the Economy in George W. Bush's Approval Ratings: The Importance of Salience in Presidential Approval
George W. Bush's presidency provides a fertile ground to further develop the standard model of presidential approval. In contrast to the vast presidential approval literature, early studies of Bush conclude economic conditions had no effect once the war in Iraq began. Rather than require a fundamental rethinking of presidential approval theories, we argue that approval models must take into account issue salience. When a factor is salient, it has…
Class War in the Voting Booth: Bias Against High‐Income Congressional Candidates
Do Americans care how much money congressional candidates earn? We conducted three experiments to examine how candidates' incomes affect voters' perceptions of the candidates' traits and ultimately their vote intention. Subjects evaluated otherwise identical candidates with annual incomes randomly varying between $75,000, $3 million, and a candidate with no income information provided. Results from the three experiments are remarkably similar. Su…
Fanning the Flames: Religious Media Consumption and American Politics
Both religion and mass media are politically important in the United States. However, little is known about the political role of religious media. Religious media might be politically influential because they help translate religion into political thinking and because their consumers are likely to internalize the political cues these media provide. We find that almost a quarter of the public claims to have relied on religious media when making vo…
Political inequality in America: Who loses on spending policy? When is policy less biased
Rapid growth in America’s economic inequality and endemic disadvantages among racial minorities have deepened fears about unequal political influence. From separate studies, it appears that the government responds more to the wealthy and to whites. But critical questions remain unanswered. What are relative contributions of race and class to government responsiveness? Why do these inequalities exist in the first place? And under what contexts are…
Jesus was a Refugee: Religious Values Framing can Increase Support for Refugees Among White Evangelical Republicans
We consider how frames highlighting religious values shape opinion among individuals who may experience social identity conflict. White evangelical Republicans have ardently supported Donald Trump’s restrictionist stances towards refugees, yet those partisan policy stances exist in tension with evangelical Christian values emphasizing care for vulnerable strangers. Our pre-registered national experiment tests whether a religious message can move …
Presidents and the Congressional Black Caucus: The Racial Consequences of Electoral Incentives
Presidents face incentives to move toward the median voter as elections approach. We explore the racial consequences of these electoral incentives. As presidents move toward the center, they move away from ideologically noncentrist groups like the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Comparing the president’s annual budget proposal to the CBC’s alternative budget from 1980 to 2012, we test whether Democrats’ (Republicans’) budgets are less (more) co…
Polls and Elections: Decreasing the Economy's Impact on Evaluations of the P resident: An Experiment on Attribution Framing
Decades of research has shown that economic considerations are strongly tied to evaluations of the president. Many studies have found that framing (often called priming) by news coverage, events, and presidential rhetoric can increase the weight of economic and other considerations in presidential evaluations. I use a survey experiment to show that attribution frames can decrease the weight of economic considerations on presidential evaluations. …
Polls and Elections: The Economy and Events Still Matter (At Least a Little): Partisans' Presidential Approval in the Trump Era
Donald Trump's historically stable and polarized approval ratings raise concerns that partisans' evaluations of Trump are detached from real‐world conditions like the state of the economy and Trump's actions. We show that Republicans' (but not Democrats') approval and strength of (dis)approval tracked with stock market performance and perceptions of the economy. In addition, both Democrats and Republicans rewarded and punished Trump after major e…
Who Supports Syrians? The Relative Importance of Religion, Partisanship, and Partisan News
Who supports allowing Syrian refugees into the United States? As a candidate, Donald Trump clearly opposed doing so. In contrast, religious leaders across the broad spectrum of religious traditions in the United States have drawn on sacred texts to call their people to action in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Many explicitly ask the government to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States. Thus, many Republicans may have experienced cr…
Polls and Elections: Character and Political Time as Sources of Presidential Greatness
Presidency scholars have long debated whether a president's personal traits or the historical circumstances of their presidency have a bigger effect on presidential performance. We contribute to this debate by examining whether historical conditions (i.e., Skowronek's conception of political time) and two important personal traits (intellectual brilliance and character) relate to presidents’ standing in polls of “presidential greatness.” We find …
The Polls: Presidential Traits and Job Approval: Some Aggregate‐Level Evidence
In a previous article in this journal, Cohen (2001 ) introduced time series measures of public perceptions of Bill Clinton's personal characteristics. Here, I explore the political impact of these perceptions, asking whether they affect the public's evaluations of presidential job performance. I find that they do, adding aggregate‐level support to existing individual‐level evidence of the importance of character assessments. Finding a connection …
Sociopolitical intellectual humility as a predictor of political attitudes and behavioral intentions
Recent research has highlighted the relevance of intellectual humility to politics. Among a U.S. sample (N = 852), we examined self-reported sociopolitical intellectual humility (SIH), a nonthreatening awareness of the fallibility of one’s views about topics central to society and politics. SIH was associated with being less likely to dislike/avoid political discussion, and with more political tolerance, less social dominance orientation, and mor…
A God of Vengeance and of Reward? Voters and Accountability
Theories of democratic politics prize congruence between citizens’ preferences and their elected representatives’ actions in office. Elections are a critical means for achieving such policy congruence, providing voters the opportunity to chasten representatives who are out of step with constituent preferences and to reward the faithful. Do voters act this way? Recent studies based on observational data find they do, but these data are somewhat li…
The Presidency and Political Equality
When black Americans and white Americans want the president to do different things, who wins? When low-income earners prefer different government action than do middle and high-income earners, whose preferences are reflected in presidential behavior? Recent studies show that congressional behavior often most closely follows the preferences of the white and the wealthy, but we know relatively little about presidential behavior. Since the president…
Explaining Seat Changes in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1950–98
Explaining Seat Changes in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1950–98
Recent U.S. House elections have challenged existing models of congressional elections, raising the question of whether or not processes thought to govern previous elections are still at work. Taking Marra and Ostrom's (1989) model of congressional elections as representative of extant theoretical perspectives and testing it against recent elections, we find that the model fails. We augment Marra and Ostrom's model with new insights, constructing…
Bill Clinton's Approval Ratings: The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same
Over the past three decades, political scientists have been developing general models of presidential approval ratings, seeking to determine the structure of aggregate approval. This endeavor has culminated in the broad claim that “peace, prosperity, and probity” drive the public's approval. The unprecedented events of the Clinton Presidency, especially his high approval during and after impeachment, present a strong chal- lenge to this model. Ho…
Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980-2000
Journal Article Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980–2000 Get access BRIAN NEWMAN BRIAN NEWMAN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 67, Issue 3, November 2003, Pages 335–367, https://doi.org/10.1086/377242 Published: 01 November 2003
FDR to Clinton, Mueller to: A Field Essay on Presidential Approval
Since the 1930s, polling organizations have asked Americans whether they “approve or disapprove of the job [the incumbent] is doing as president.” In the early 1970s, John Mueller started an academic industry by asking what drives these evaluations. American politics and the tools available to examine it have changed dramatically since then, inspiring a burst of research on presidential approval in the 1990s. We review this new body of literature…
The Polls: Presidential Traits and Job Approval: Some Aggregate‐Level Evidence
In a previous article in this journal, Cohen (2001 ) introduced time series measures of public perceptions of Bill Clinton's personal characteristics. Here, I explore the political impact of these perceptions, asking whether they affect the public's evaluations of presidential job performance. I find that they do, adding aggregate‐level support to existing individual‐level evidence of the importance of character assessments. Finding a connection …
Test Anxiety and Academic Performance in Undergraduate and Graduate Students.
This study investigated the relationship between test anxiety and academic performance in 4,000 undergraduate and 1,414 graduate students and found a significant but small inverse relationship between test anxiety and grade point average (GPA) in both groups. Low-test-anxious undergraduates averaged a B+, whereas high-test-anxious students averaged a B. Low-test-anxious female graduate students had significantly higher GPAs than high-test-anxious…
Are Voters Better Represented
Studies of political participation and representation often contend that elected officials respond more to the preferences of voters than those of nonvoters, but seldom test this claim. This is a critical assumption because if true, biases in who participates will lead to biased representation. Office holders might respond disproportionately to voters’ preferences because voters tend to select like-minded representatives, voters tend to communica…
The Unequal Representation of Latinos and Whites
We compare the ideological proximity of Latinos and whites to their Members of Congress (MCs), demonstrating the degree to which Latinos are underrepresented compared to whites. We show how this representation gap varies with group differences in electoral turnout and income, district ethnic composition, and MCs' ethnicity and party affiliation. We find that Latinos' unequal representation is not simply a function of the group's numerical minorit…
Fanning the Flames: Religious Media Consumption and American Politics
Both religion and mass media are politically important in the United States. However, little is known about the political role of religious media. Religious media might be politically influential because they help translate religion into political thinking and because their consumers are likely to internalize the political cues these media provide. We find that almost a quarter of the public claims to have relied on religious media when making vo…
Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality in America
Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality in America (American Politics and Political Economy Series)
Are the views of Latinos and African Americans underrepresented in our federal government? For that matter, what does it mean to be represented equitably? Rather than taking for granted a single answer to these complex questions, John Griffin and Brian Newman use different measures of political equality to reveal which groups get what they want from government and what factors lead to their successes. One of the first books to compare the represe…
A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election – Edited by David E. Campbell
Polls and Elections: The Polarized Presidency: Depth and Breadth of Public Partisanship
This essay examines the extent of partisan polarization in the public's views of the president from 1972 to 2008, extending earlier studies by placing the George W. Bush administration in historical context and exploring the depth and breadth of polarization. The authors find that the party gap in presidential approval has grown significantly over time. Moreover, more inpartisans strongly approve of the president and more outpartisans strongly di…
"Rally Round the Flag" Events for Presidential Approval Research
Polls and Elections: Divided Government and Foreign Relations Approval
During divided government, the public tends to attribute credit and blame for economic conditions to both the president and Congress. However, the “two presidencies” thesis argues that presidents have more influence vis‐à‐vis Congress in shaping foreign policy compared to domestic policy, so the public may attribute all foreign policy outcomes to the president alone. This suggests that the boost presidents typically receive in their overall appro…
A Gender Gap in Policy Representation in the U.S. Congress
In the first article to evaluate the equality of dyadic policy representation experienced by women, we assess the congruence between U.S. House members' roll‐call votes and the policy preferences of their female and male constituents. Employing two measures of policy representation, we do not find a gender gap in dyadic policy representation. However, we uncover a sizeable gender gap favoring men in districts represented by Republicans, and a sim…
Polls and Elections: Decreasing the Economy's Impact on Evaluations of the P resident: An Experiment on Attribution Framing
Decades of research has shown that economic considerations are strongly tied to evaluations of the president. Many studies have found that framing (often called priming) by news coverage, events, and presidential rhetoric can increase the weight of economic and other considerations in presidential evaluations. I use a survey experiment to show that attribution frames can decrease the weight of economic considerations on presidential evaluations. …
Voting Power, Policy Representation, and Disparities in Voting’s Rewards
Reelection-minded officials have motivations to represent some of their constituents more than others when casting roll-call votes. In particular, reelection seekers have incentives to appeal to those with greater "voting power" (Bartels 1998): those who are likely to vote, are not strongly predisposed to vote for one of the parties, and are members of large groups within a particular constituency. We present two novel findings stemming from thes…
Polls and Elections: Character and Political Time as Sources of Presidential Greatness
Presidency scholars have long debated whether a president's personal traits or the historical circumstances of their presidency have a bigger effect on presidential performance. We contribute to this debate by examining whether historical conditions (i.e., Skowronek's conception of political time) and two important personal traits (intellectual brilliance and character) relate to presidents’ standing in polls of “presidential greatness.” We find …
The Presidency and Political Equality
When black Americans and white Americans want the president to do different things, who wins? When low-income earners prefer different government action than do middle and high-income earners, whose preferences are reflected in presidential behavior? Recent studies show that congressional behavior often most closely follows the preferences of the white and the wealthy, but we know relatively little about presidential behavior. Since the president…
Religion and environmental politics in the US House of Representatives
Does religion affect legislators’ behavior on environmental policy in the US? Studies of environmental policy making have not examined this question, although the literature suggests that religion might affect legislative behavior on environmental policy. This study examines the relationship between US House members’ religion and roll-call voting on environmental legislation from 1973 to 2009. It finds significant differences across religious tra…
Political inequality in America: Who loses on spending policy? When is policy less biased
Rapid growth in America’s economic inequality and endemic disadvantages among racial minorities have deepened fears about unequal political influence. From separate studies, it appears that the government responds more to the wealthy and to whites. But critical questions remain unanswered. What are relative contributions of race and class to government responsiveness? Why do these inequalities exist in the first place? And under what contexts are…
Polls and Elections: Terror, War, and the Economy in George W. Bush's Approval Ratings: The Importance of Salience in Presidential Approval
George W. Bush's presidency provides a fertile ground to further develop the standard model of presidential approval. In contrast to the vast presidential approval literature, early studies of Bush conclude economic conditions had no effect once the war in Iraq began. Rather than require a fundamental rethinking of presidential approval theories, we argue that approval models must take into account issue salience. When a factor is salient, it has…
Presidents and the Congressional Black Caucus: The Racial Consequences of Electoral Incentives
Presidents face incentives to move toward the median voter as elections approach. We explore the racial consequences of these electoral incentives. As presidents move toward the center, they move away from ideologically noncentrist groups like the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Comparing the president’s annual budget proposal to the CBC’s alternative budget from 1980 to 2012, we test whether Democrats’ (Republicans’) budgets are less (more) co…
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