Matthew J Geras
Biographic Data
| ID | 828068 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew J Geras |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew J |
| FAMILY NAME | Geras |
| SIGNATURE | GERAS M J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oklahoma |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9939-8044 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
How Do US Voters Respond to Candidates Using Campaign Funds for Childcare? Evidence From a Framing Experiment
Following a 2018 FEC ruling, US congressional candidates are increasingly using campaign funds for childcare expenses incurred while campaigning. This policy has the potential to increase descriptive representation, but the policy’s viability is dependent on how voters react to candidates using campaign funds for childcare. Using a national survey experiment, we find that the framing around the use of this policy influences public opinion in mean…
Supporting Veterans: Source Cues, Issue Ownership,and the Electoral Benefits of Military Service
All in the family? Assessing the impact of child gender on congressional behavior
We examine the impact of having a daughter on the legislative behavior of members of Congress using original biographical data from 1973 to 2015. Previous research has produced mixed results. We leverage the random assignment of child sex as a natural experiment and expand the analysis by incorporating members' overall roll call voting, voting on women's issues, and sponsorship of women's issues bills. We also replicate and extend Ebonya Washingt…
Do Party Rules Matter? An Examination of State Party Bylaws and Congressional Nominations
This paper considers whether the rules governing state political parties help to explain primary election outcomes. I theorize political parties will see lower levels of competition during primary elections when they have bylaws that centralize power within the state central committee. To test this expectation, I created a dataset of state-level party rules by collecting and coding provisions within the bylaws of all 100 state-level Republican an…
Appointees versus Elected Officials: The Implications of Institutional Design on Gender Representation in Political Leadership
We explore how institutional design, whether a position is elected or appointed, influences women's representation in state executive leadership positions, including cabinet secretaries and heads of bureaucratic agencies. We expect this relationship is conditional on if the position addresses a stereotypically feminine or masculine policy area. As women are less politically ambitious and perceive electoral disadvantages in running for masculine p…
Women running the party and women running for Congress: An examination of state party diversity and candidate emergence in the 2018 midterm elections
Using a new data set of state political party bylaws and demographics of state party chairs, I evaluate whether women were more likely to run for Congress during the 2018 midterm elections from parties with higher levels of gender diversity. I construct three measures of gender diversity, whether each party was chaired by a woman, granted committee membership to an allied women’s group, and required gender parity among their committee members. De…
Diversity and Power: Selection Method and Its Impacts on State Executive Descriptive Representation
This article explores diversity within top leadership positions in state governments, specifically, the role that position selection method plays in promoting the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities into positions of power. We hypothesize that minorities will be more likely to serve in appointed positions as governors consider diversity in making appointments and less likely to serve in elected positions due to the additional hurdles for ca…
Gaining Access and Constituent Correspondence in the U.S. House of Representatives
In this article, we use legislative correspondence to determine who gains access to key staffers in a congressional office. To evaluate our theory of the office power hierarchy, we test hypotheses using an original dataset of more than 3,000 correspondence records from the office of former member of Congress James R. Jones. Our empirical analysis is supplemented by an e-mail interview with Representative Jones. We find that key senior staffers ar…
The Implications of Apportionment on Quality Candidate Emergence and Electoral Competition
The U.S. apportions congressional districts both across states and within states based upon population. Scholars have long focused on the electoral implications of redistricting within states, but there has been less consideration of the electoral implications of apportionment across states. In this paper, I analyze congressional elections from 2002 to 2014 and theorize that the limited number of political opportunities in states with few congres…
Land, Wood, Water, and Space: Senator Robert S. Kerr, Congress, and Selling the Space Race to the American Public
Objective We examine the contribution Sen. Robert S. Kerr (D‐OK) made in promoting NASA and space exploration to Oklahoma and the general public while serving as chair of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. Methods Using newspaper articles as well as speeches and press releases from the archival papers of Robert S. Kerr, we estimate a topic model to uncover the dimensions of debate concerning space. We also use the communicat…
Women running the party and women running for Congress: An examination of state party diversity and candidate emergence in the 2018 midterm elections
Using a new data set of state political party bylaws and demographics of state party chairs, I evaluate whether women were more likely to run for Congress during the 2018 midterm elections from parties with higher levels of gender diversity. I construct three measures of gender diversity, whether each party was chaired by a woman, granted committee membership to an allied women’s group, and required gender parity among their committee members. De…
Diversity and Power: Selection Method and Its Impacts on State Executive Descriptive Representation
This article explores diversity within top leadership positions in state governments, specifically, the role that position selection method plays in promoting the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities into positions of power. We hypothesize that minorities will be more likely to serve in appointed positions as governors consider diversity in making appointments and less likely to serve in elected positions due to the additional hurdles for ca…
The Implications of Apportionment on Quality Candidate Emergence and Electoral Competition
The U.S. apportions congressional districts both across states and within states based upon population. Scholars have long focused on the electoral implications of redistricting within states, but there has been less consideration of the electoral implications of apportionment across states. In this paper, I analyze congressional elections from 2002 to 2014 and theorize that the limited number of political opportunities in states with few congres…
All in the family? Assessing the impact of child gender on congressional behavior
We examine the impact of having a daughter on the legislative behavior of members of Congress using original biographical data from 1973 to 2015. Previous research has produced mixed results. We leverage the random assignment of child sex as a natural experiment and expand the analysis by incorporating members' overall roll call voting, voting on women's issues, and sponsorship of women's issues bills. We also replicate and extend Ebonya Washingt…
Appointees versus Elected Officials: The Implications of Institutional Design on Gender Representation in Political Leadership
We explore how institutional design, whether a position is elected or appointed, influences women's representation in state executive leadership positions, including cabinet secretaries and heads of bureaucratic agencies. We expect this relationship is conditional on if the position addresses a stereotypically feminine or masculine policy area. As women are less politically ambitious and perceive electoral disadvantages in running for masculine p…
Gaining Access and Constituent Correspondence in the U.S. House of Representatives
In this article, we use legislative correspondence to determine who gains access to key staffers in a congressional office. To evaluate our theory of the office power hierarchy, we test hypotheses using an original dataset of more than 3,000 correspondence records from the office of former member of Congress James R. Jones. Our empirical analysis is supplemented by an e-mail interview with Representative Jones. We find that key senior staffers ar…
Supporting Veterans: Source Cues, Issue Ownership,and the Electoral Benefits of Military Service
Land, Wood, Water, and Space: Senator Robert S. Kerr, Congress, and Selling the Space Race to the American Public
Objective We examine the contribution Sen. Robert S. Kerr (D‐OK) made in promoting NASA and space exploration to Oklahoma and the general public while serving as chair of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. Methods Using newspaper articles as well as speeches and press releases from the archival papers of Robert S. Kerr, we estimate a topic model to uncover the dimensions of debate concerning space. We also use the communicat…
The Implications of Apportionment on Quality Candidate Emergence and Electoral Competition
The U.S. apportions congressional districts both across states and within states based upon population. Scholars have long focused on the electoral implications of redistricting within states, but there has been less consideration of the electoral implications of apportionment across states. In this paper, I analyze congressional elections from 2002 to 2014 and theorize that the limited number of political opportunities in states with few congres…
Gaining Access and Constituent Correspondence in the U.S. House of Representatives
In this article, we use legislative correspondence to determine who gains access to key staffers in a congressional office. To evaluate our theory of the office power hierarchy, we test hypotheses using an original dataset of more than 3,000 correspondence records from the office of former member of Congress James R. Jones. Our empirical analysis is supplemented by an e-mail interview with Representative Jones. We find that key senior staffers ar…
Diversity and Power: Selection Method and Its Impacts on State Executive Descriptive Representation
This article explores diversity within top leadership positions in state governments, specifically, the role that position selection method plays in promoting the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities into positions of power. We hypothesize that minorities will be more likely to serve in appointed positions as governors consider diversity in making appointments and less likely to serve in elected positions due to the additional hurdles for ca…
Women running the party and women running for Congress: An examination of state party diversity and candidate emergence in the 2018 midterm elections
Using a new data set of state political party bylaws and demographics of state party chairs, I evaluate whether women were more likely to run for Congress during the 2018 midterm elections from parties with higher levels of gender diversity. I construct three measures of gender diversity, whether each party was chaired by a woman, granted committee membership to an allied women’s group, and required gender parity among their committee members. De…
Do Party Rules Matter? An Examination of State Party Bylaws and Congressional Nominations
This paper considers whether the rules governing state political parties help to explain primary election outcomes. I theorize political parties will see lower levels of competition during primary elections when they have bylaws that centralize power within the state central committee. To test this expectation, I created a dataset of state-level party rules by collecting and coding provisions within the bylaws of all 100 state-level Republican an…
Appointees versus Elected Officials: The Implications of Institutional Design on Gender Representation in Political Leadership
We explore how institutional design, whether a position is elected or appointed, influences women's representation in state executive leadership positions, including cabinet secretaries and heads of bureaucratic agencies. We expect this relationship is conditional on if the position addresses a stereotypically feminine or masculine policy area. As women are less politically ambitious and perceive electoral disadvantages in running for masculine p…
All in the family? Assessing the impact of child gender on congressional behavior
We examine the impact of having a daughter on the legislative behavior of members of Congress using original biographical data from 1973 to 2015. Previous research has produced mixed results. We leverage the random assignment of child sex as a natural experiment and expand the analysis by incorporating members' overall roll call voting, voting on women's issues, and sponsorship of women's issues bills. We also replicate and extend Ebonya Washingt…
Supporting Veterans: Source Cues, Issue Ownership,and the Electoral Benefits of Military Service
How Do US Voters Respond to Candidates Using Campaign Funds for Childcare? Evidence From a Framing Experiment
Following a 2018 FEC ruling, US congressional candidates are increasingly using campaign funds for childcare expenses incurred while campaigning. This policy has the potential to increase descriptive representation, but the policy’s viability is dependent on how voters react to candidates using campaign funds for childcare. Using a national survey experiment, we find that the framing around the use of this policy influences public opinion in mean…
Political science (9 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (8 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Public Administration (6 works) · Democracy (5 works) · Public Administration (5 works) · State (computer science (5 works)