Robert M Stein
Biographic Data
| ID | 983117 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert M Stein |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert M |
| FAMILY NAME | Stein |
| SIGNATURE | STEIN R M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rice University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9586-380X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 72 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1269 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 72 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1909 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
Path to the Polls: A Study of How Poll Workers Become Poll Workers
Poll workers are responsible for the street-level implementation of American elections. The democratic process could not take place without them, as they are responsible for confirming voter eligibility, checking in voters once eligibility is confirmed, providing accommodations for voters with special needs, and assisting voters with any other logistical or technical issues in the process of casting their ballot. As they have so much responsibili…
Staffing Elections
Objective We identify two different dimensions of retaining poll workers: the successful retention of experienced, more seasoned poll workers and the continued participation of newer, less experienced poll workers. Methods Using a unique national survey of poll workers, we test separate explanations for the successful retention of experienced and inexperienced (newer) poll workers. A web‐based survey of poll workers ( n = 4529) in 19 counties wit…
The Costs of Voting and Voter Confidence
We revisit the effect of ballot access laws on voter confidence in the outcome of elections. Previous research found weak or no relationship between voter confidence and election laws regulating ballot access. We argue this non-finding is conditioned by partisanship. Democrats and Republicans view election laws through a partisan lens, which is especially triggered when coalitions lose. Republican voters see ballot restrictions as a means of secu…
Why Making Voting Easier Isn’t Enough: Early Voting, Campaigns, and Voter Turnout
Early voting laws intended to increase voter turnout seem to have had little to no effect on turnout. Why? We argue that the effects of early voting on turnout are contingent on campaigns providing citizens with information about the election, their choices, and how to vote early. When campaigns do so, turnout increases because citizens are more likely to vote – and more likely to vote early. Using individual-level panel data, we show that direct…
Mental health in children and adolescents with overweight or obesity
Our findings highlight the importance of mental difficulties in children and adolescents with higher BMI and, consequently, underline the relevance of including psychological interventions in the treatment of overweight or obesity
Mitigating the Turnout Effects of Bad Weather With Early Voting: 1948–2016
We identify in-person early voting and no-excuse mail voting as antidotes for the depressing effect inclement weather has on voter turnout and the Republican dividend that accompanies rain and snow on Election Day. We offer and test an explanation for how voters utilize early voting to anticipate and avoid the costs of voting in bad weather. Replicating and extending Gomez et al (2007) analysis through the 2016 election, we confirm the remedial e…
Waiting to Vote in the 2016 Presidential Election: Evidence from a Multi-county Study
This paper is the result of a nationwide study of polling place dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. Research teams, recruited from local colleges and universities and located in twenty-eight election jurisdictions across the United States, observed and timed voters as they entered the queue at their respective polling places and then voted. We report results about four specific polling place operations and practices: the length of the che…
Choosing the Less Convenient Way to Vote: An Anomaly in Vote by Mail Elections
Nearly two-thirds of persons who receive an unsolicited ballot in the mail before Election Day choose to return their ballot in person, rather than through the less costly and more convenient U.S. Postal Service. Why? How and when voters choose to return their mail ballot is consequential to the administration of elections and the confidence voters have in the outcome of elections. We offer and test four explanations for how vote by mail voters c…
Reducing the Undervote With Vote by Mail
We study how ballot completion levels in Colorado responded to the adoption of universal vote by mail elections (VBM). VBM systems are among the most widespread and significant election reforms that states have adopted in modern elections. VBM elections provide voters more time to become informed about ballot choices and opportunities to research their choices at the same time as they fill out their ballots. By creating a more information-rich vo…
Pedagogical Value of Polling-Place Observation by Students
Good education requires student experiences that deliver lessons about practice as well as theory and that encourage students to work for the public good—especially in the operation of democratic institutions (Dewey 1923; Dewy 1938). We report on an evaluation of the pedagogical value of a research project involving 23 colleges and universities across the country. Faculty trained and supervised students who observed polling places in the 2016 Gen…
Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States: The Unification of the Burgundian Netherlands, 1380-1480
Enlisting the Public in Facilitating Election Administration: A Field Experiment
The proliferation of election reforms poses a challenge for local election officials (LEOs) charged with conducting elections. To meet this challenge, LEOs attempt to communicate, inform, and persuade voters how to cast their ballots in a manner that is efficient and effective for both the voter and the administrator. This article examines the effects of efforts by LEOs to persuade voters to return mailed ballots before Election Day and in person…
Survey Experiments with Google Consumer Surveys: Promise and Pitfalls for Academic Research in Social Science
In this article, we evaluate the usefulness of Google Consumer Surveys (GCS) as a low-cost tool for doing rigorous social scientific work. We find that its relative strengths and weaknesses make it most useful to researchers who attempt to identify causality through randomization to treatment groups rather than selection on observables. This finding stems, in part, from the fact that the real cost advantage of GCS over other alternatives is limit…
The Life-Adult-Study: Objectives and design of a population-based cohort study with 10,000 deeply phenotyped adults in Germany
The participation rate was 33 %. The assessment programme was accepted well and completely passed by almost all participants. Biomarker analyses have already been performed in all participants. Genotype, transcriptome and metabolome analyses have been conducted in subgroups. The first follow-up examination will commence in 2016
Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage
The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-rela…
How Risk Perceptions Influence Evacuations from Hurricanes and Compliance with Government Directives
In this study we present evidence supporting the view that people's perceived risk of hurricane‐related hazards can be reduced to a single seriousness score that spans different hurricane‐induced risk types and that compliant behavior with official advisories is strongly dependent on whether one perceives a high risk with respect to any type of hurricane‐related hazards. Our analysis suggests that people are less sensitive to risk type than they …
When, Where, and How We Vote: Does it Matter
Objectives In this article, we explore the different ways A mericans exercise their right to vote on E lection D ay and how these alternatives shape the voter's experience. Methods Our study draws on data collected from exit polls with E lection D ay voters in the 2008 C olorado presidential election. C olorado is unique among the 50 states in that it affords it voters the widest array of voting options, both before and on E lection D ay, and thu…
L’Après et son double: Reading Medieval History after the Linguistic Turn
L’Après et son double: Reading Medieval History after the Linguistic Turn Robert M. Stein (bio) Regelmäßig wird deren [der Fragen echter Methodik] Lösung über eine Revision der Fragestellung führen, die in der Erwägung formulierbar ist, wie die Frage: Wie es denn eigentlich gewesen sei? sich wissenschaftlich nicht sowohl beantworten als vielmehr stellen lasse. —Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (Frankfurt a/M: Suhrkamp Verlag, …
Whose community? The origin and development of the concept of Bonum commune in Flanders, Brabant and Holland (twelfth — fifteenth century)
Traditionally confined to the sphere of the State and of auctoritas, the phrase the “Common Good” is set to conquer the cities in the late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Early Modern period. But can we compare a kingdom like France where the cities defend their “Common Good” by making reference to the interest and benefit of the Kingdom with principalities like Flanders where, despite their fierce desire for autonomy, the cities use the …
Who Evacuates When Hurricanes Approach? The Role of Risk, Information, and Location: Risk, Information, and Location in Hurricane Evacuation
OBJECTIVE: This article offers an expanded perspective on evacuation decision making during severe weather. In particular, this work focuses on uncovering determinants of individual evacuation decisions. METHODS: We draw on a survey conducted in 2005 of residents in the eight-county Houston metropolitan area after Hurricane Rita made landfall on September 24, 2005. RESULTS: We find that evacuation decisions are influenced by a heterogeneous set o…
Networks, Regions and Nations: Shaping Identities in the Low Countries, 1300-1650
Engaging the Unengaged Voter: Vote Centers and Voter Turnout
Previous election reforms designed to increase turnout have often made voting more convenient for frequent voters without significantly increasing turnout among infrequent voters. A recent innovation—Election Day vote centers—provides an alternative means of motivating electoral participation among infrequent voters. Election Day vote centers are nonprecinct-based locations for voting on Election Day. The sites are fewer in number than precinct-v…
Who Is Held Responsible When Disaster Strikes? the Attribution of Responsibility for a Natural Disaster in an Urban Election
When do voters hold politicians accountable for events outside their control? In this article, we take advantage of a rare situation in which a prominent election in a large city followed a devastating flood. We find that voters are willing to punish the incumbent mayor for the flood if they believed the city was responsible for flood preparation. Moreover, we find that the attributions of responsibility for flood preparation are shaped by whethe…
Assessing the Micro-Foundations of the Tiebout Model
In this article, we seek to shed light on the micro-foundations of the Tiebout model. We use a survey of respondents in four of the largest United States metropolitan areas to analyze factors that contribute to households' exiting behavior. In this analysis, we explore the types of reasons likely movers offer to explain a potential move. The analysis incorporates variables measuring Tiebout factors and variables drawn from two important alternati…
Voting for Minority Candidates in Multiracial/Multiethnic Communities
Recent research suggests that over time the performance of minority officeholders rivals race-based attitudes and group membership as the primary determinant of citizen evaluations of minority officeholders. Here, we examine the determinants of electoral support for an African-American mayor in a multiracial/multiethnic venue. We test alternative explanations (race, social distance, and performance-based models) of voter support for an African-Am…
Reconciling Context and Contact Effects on Racial Attitudes
The inter-group contact hypothesis states that intera ctions between individuals belonging to different groups will influence the attitudes and behavior between members of these different groups. The two dominant measures of inter-group contact are context (i.e., size of a minority group within a specified geographic area) and individual behavior (i.e., personal contact between members of the majority and minority groups). The contextual and beha…
Congressional Elections and the Pork Barrel
The Electoral Dynamics of the Federal Pork Barrel
Theory: This paper articulates a model of distributive policy activity that links decreases in the flow of distributive policy benefits to House districts to an increased likelihood that quality challengers will oppose incumbents in primary and/ or general elections. Hypotheses: Do electorally vulnerable legislators seek to increase the flow of new awards early in the subsequent electoral cycle in order to help overcome their vulnerability? Do he…
Economic Voting for Governor and U. S. Senator: The Electoral Consequences of Federalism
Economic voting is examined in gubernatorial and senatorial elections. The findings of this study show that the assignment of functional responsibilities in a federal system determines the subject of voters' retrospective and prospective candidate and party evaluations and thus differentiates the content of vote decisions at each level of government. Voters are thought to assign the federal government a preponderant responsibility for managing th…
Who Is Held Responsible When Disaster Strikes? the Attribution of Responsibility for a Natural Disaster in an Urban Election
When do voters hold politicians accountable for events outside their control? In this article, we take advantage of a rare situation in which a prominent election in a large city followed a devastating flood. We find that voters are willing to punish the incumbent mayor for the flood if they believed the city was responsible for flood preparation. Moreover, we find that the attributions of responsibility for flood preparation are shaped by whethe…
Introduction: Early Voting
Journal Article Early Voting Get access ROBERT M. STEIN ROBERT M. STEIN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 62, Issue 1, May 1998, Pages 57–69, https://doi.org/10.1086/297831 Published: 01 May 1998
The Congressional Pork Barrel in a Republican Era
In this article, we ask what the pattern of distributive spending has been during the 104th. Congress, in which Republicans have been in the majority, compared to the preceding Congress when Democrats were the majority party. We seek to understand the patterns of change in light of four alternative explanations of distributive spending. The changes in the content and recipients of federal domestic outlays between the 103rd and 104th. Congresses a…
The Electability of Women Candidates: The Effects of Sex Role Stereotypes
Interlocal Cooperation and the Distribution of Federal Grant Awards
Much of the research on the distribution of federal assistance focuses on the activities of members of Congress. Yet it has been long understood that seeking and receiving federal aid programs by state and local governments is a costly activity. What is not understood nor carefully studied is how local jurisdictions attempt to "work" the federal aid system to obtain increased federal funding. To investigate this question, we draw upon theories of…
The Allocation of Federal Aid Monies: The Synthesis of Demand-Side and Supply-Side Explanations
Previous research on the distribution of federal aid monies has been dominated by the donor's perspective. Different distribution formulas, political influence of congressional representatives, bureaucrats, and individual aid recipients have been studied as the sole determinants of aid allocations. Each explanation, however, fails to examine the question of aid allocations from a demand-side perspective. This omission assumes that all governmenta…
Engaging the Unengaged Voter: Vote Centers and Voter Turnout
Previous election reforms designed to increase turnout have often made voting more convenient for frequent voters without significantly increasing turnout among infrequent voters. A recent innovation—Election Day vote centers—provides an alternative means of motivating electoral participation among infrequent voters. Election Day vote centers are nonprecinct-based locations for voting on Election Day. The sites are fewer in number than precinct-v…
Contextual data and the study of elections and voting behavior: Connecting Individuals to Environments
Universalism and the Electoral Connection: A Test and Some Doubts
A recurring theme in the academic literature on distributive policy is the tendency for legislators to form oversized coalitions to bestow benefits on virtually every district represented in the legislature. In this paper we offer two tests of the universalism hypothesis. First, we examine the distributional expectation of the universalism thesis under the assumption that separate logrolls occur over the distribution of benefits for individual pr…
Waiting to Vote in the 2016 Presidential Election: Evidence from a Multi-county Study
This paper is the result of a nationwide study of polling place dynamics in the 2016 presidential election. Research teams, recruited from local colleges and universities and located in twenty-eight election jurisdictions across the United States, observed and timed voters as they entered the queue at their respective polling places and then voted. We report results about four specific polling place operations and practices: the length of the che…
Voting for Minority Candidates in Multiracial/Multiethnic Communities
Recent research suggests that over time the performance of minority officeholders rivals race-based attitudes and group membership as the primary determinant of citizen evaluations of minority officeholders. Here, we examine the determinants of electoral support for an African-American mayor in a multiracial/multiethnic venue. We test alternative explanations (race, social distance, and performance-based models) of voter support for an African-Am…
Municipal Public Employment: An Examination of Intergovernmental Influences
This essay examines the effect federal and state policies have had on the size and growth of municipal work forces. The response of municipal govemments to federal and state influences is studied with specific attention to municipal strategies to balance the number of public employees and their wage rates. As suggested by Heclo, federal aid has had a significant effect on stimulating the growth of municipal public employment. Municipal government…
Arranging City Services1
Contemporary research on service delivery has been preoccupied with the issue of privatization. Specifically, the concern has been with whether a governmental or a nongovernmental entity is more effective and efficient in delivering publicly provided goods and services. This paper offers an alternative perspective on service delivery and examines the full array of institutional arrangements used by municipal governments to deliver different goods…
Assessing the Micro-Foundations of the Tiebout Model
In this article, we seek to shed light on the micro-foundations of the Tiebout model. We use a survey of respondents in four of the largest United States metropolitan areas to analyze factors that contribute to households' exiting behavior. In this analysis, we explore the types of reasons likely movers offer to explain a potential move. The analysis incorporates variables measuring Tiebout factors and variables drawn from two important alternati…
The Budgetary Effects of Municipal Service Contracting: A Principal-Agent Explanation
This study examines the spending and employment practices associated with service contracting. Specific attention is paid to the aggregate spending and employment levels of different contracting practices. A principal-agent model is offered and tested in which the decision to contract is mediated by the preferences of different actors in the policymaking process. Incentives for the use of a contract mode of production differ between mayors and bu…
Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage
The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-rela…
State Economies, Metropolitan Governance, and Urban-Suburban Economic Dependence
Previous research finds that central-city and suburban indicators of economic development are strongly related. Missing from previous research, however, is an empirical test of the expected relationship between urban-suburban economic dependence and the structure of metropolitan-area governance. In addition, the impact of the state economy on this relationship has not been fully examined. The authors replicate previous research that demonstrates …
Language Choice, Residential Stability, and Voting Among Latino Americans
Objective. Students of political behavior have often found that the primary use of languages other than English impedes many forms of political participation in the United States. We develop expectations about how language choice operates with social context to influence an individual's decision to vote. Although choosing to speak a language other than English—in this case, Spanish—may affect the amount of political information individuals have a…
Mortality in the Eighteenth-Century French Slave Trade
The eighteenth-century French slave trade claimed the lives of at least 150,000 African captives and 20,000 French crewmembers. Traditionally, the ‘Middle Passage’ has been held responsible for these deaths, but detailed information from the port of Nantes shows that the time spent on the African coast could be just as deadly as the crossing, at least for the crew. During the century nearly 8 percent of the crews died along the coast, compared wi…
Federal Categorical Aid: Equalization and the Application Process
Choosing the Less Convenient Way to Vote: An Anomaly in Vote by Mail Elections
Nearly two-thirds of persons who receive an unsolicited ballot in the mail before Election Day choose to return their ballot in person, rather than through the less costly and more convenient U.S. Postal Service. Why? How and when voters choose to return their mail ballot is consequential to the administration of elections and the confidence voters have in the outcome of elections. We offer and test four explanations for how vote by mail voters c…
Bernhard Hantzsch's Notes on Northeastern Labrador
Development of Map-Making in Austria
Measuring the French Slave Trade, 1713–1792/3
The recent Curtin–Inikori debate has revealed a basic shortcoming in the historiography of the eighteenth-century French slave trade. In computing the size of the French trade, historians have too long relied either on questionable estimates published by eighteenth-century authors or on published material about one port, Nantes. Enough material exists in various French archives to produce a more accurate appraisal of at least one aspect of the tr…
The Electability of Women Candidates: The Effects of Sex Role Stereotypes
Federal Categorical Aid: Equalization and the Application Process
Functional Integration At the Substate Level: A Policy Approach
Our cumulative knowledge about the determinants of substate integration is extremely limited. Few studies have examined support for integration across a variety of policy activities and mechanisms. Drawing on demand and supply side explanations for integration, this article tests a typology of substate functional integration. The correlates of functional integration are examined against previous research hypotheses in order to resolve ambiguities…
Mortality in the Eighteenth-Century French Slave Trade
The eighteenth-century French slave trade claimed the lives of at least 150,000 African captives and 20,000 French crewmembers. Traditionally, the ‘Middle Passage’ has been held responsible for these deaths, but detailed information from the port of Nantes shows that the time spent on the African coast could be just as deadly as the crossing, at least for the crew. During the century nearly 8 percent of the crews died along the coast, compared wi…
The Allocation of Federal Aid Monies: The Synthesis of Demand-Side and Supply-Side Explanations
Previous research on the distribution of federal aid monies has been dominated by the donor's perspective. Different distribution formulas, political influence of congressional representatives, bureaucrats, and individual aid recipients have been studied as the sole determinants of aid allocations. Each explanation, however, fails to examine the question of aid allocations from a demand-side perspective. This omission assumes that all governmenta…
The Revolution of 1789 and the Abolition of Slavery
Trends and prospects in state and local finance
An analysis of support for tax limitation referenda
State Regulation and the Political Consequences of Urban Fiscal Stress
The correlates of citizen-initiated municipal tax limitation referenda are examined for the period 1975–1977. Local level conditons are found to be only a partial explanation for the initiation andoutcome of tax referenda. State fiscal support (i.e., aids and direct spending) and constraints on local fiscal and programmatic activities are found to be significant correlates of tax referenda
Municipal Public Employment: An Examination of Intergovernmental Influences
This essay examines the effect federal and state policies have had on the size and growth of municipal work forces. The response of municipal govemments to federal and state influences is studied with specific attention to municipal strategies to balance the number of public employees and their wage rates. As suggested by Heclo, federal aid has had a significant effect on stimulating the growth of municipal public employment. Municipal government…
The Fiscal Impact of the U.S. Military Assistance Program, 1967-1976
The study of U.S. arms transfers and their impact on the fiscal decisions of aid recipients has been the subject of various interpretations and competing explanations. Absent in this literature has been a systematic testing of propositions derived from a general theory of aid impacts. A larger and somewhat related body of research has examined the political (Chaudhuri 1972; Hughes 1967; Gutteridge 1967) and general economic effects of domestic mi…
The Fiscal Impact of the U. S. Military Assistance Program, 1967-1976
The Abolition of Slavery in the North, West, and South of Saint Domingue
In the second half of 1793, slavery was abolished in the French colony of Saint Domingue or present-day Haiti. This was one of the most radical events of the French Revolution and one of the great moments in Caribbean history. Saint Domingue became the first land in the New World to outlaw slavery and to offer full rights to non-whites, yet there has been much confusion over how and when abolition occurred. Historians of the French Revolution hav…
Tiebout's Sorting Hypothesis
The sorting of residential populations among metropolitan area communities and its impact on municipal service bundles is studied across 216 metropolitan areas. There is strong empiricial support for the policy implications of Tiebout's model. The service bundles of metropolitan communities are significantly differentiated. Support for the homogeneous sorting of residential populations is not confirmed, nor is there a significant relationship bet…
Market Maximization of Individual Preferences and Metropolitan Municipal Service Responsibility
The assignment of functional responsibility in the American federal system is examined from the perspective of the municipal government. Tiebout's model of market maximization of individual preferences is contrasted with the more recent theories of Buchanan, Peterson, and Miller. The explanation that the historical origins of the city and the permeability of its borders structure the scope and level of its service responsibilities is tested. The …
Economic Voting for Governor and U. S. Senator: The Electoral Consequences of Federalism
Economic voting is examined in gubernatorial and senatorial elections. The findings of this study show that the assignment of functional responsibilities in a federal system determines the subject of voters' retrospective and prospective candidate and party evaluations and thus differentiates the content of vote decisions at each level of government. Voters are thought to assign the federal government a preponderant responsibility for managing th…
American Federalism and Public Policy: How the System Works. Thomas Anton
The Budgetary Effects of Municipal Service Contracting: A Principal-Agent Explanation
This study examines the spending and employment practices associated with service contracting. Specific attention is paid to the aggregate spending and employment levels of different contracting practices. A principal-agent model is offered and tested in which the decision to contract is mediated by the preferences of different actors in the policymaking process. Incentives for the use of a contract mode of production differ between mayors and bu…
Urban Alternatives: Public and Private Markets in the Provision of Local Services
Patriot Experience in the Gulf War
Operation Desert Storm began shortly before 3:00 on the morning of January 17, 1991 with the attack of Iraqi radar sites by U.S. Army Apache helicopters and the destruction of an air defense control center by an F-117A Stealth fighter. Coalition air strikes continued on a non-stop basis until the ceasefire 43 days later. Iraq was unable to mount an effective air defense and the coalition pounded vital Iraqi positions at will. Saddam Hussein's abi…
Arranging City Services1
Contemporary research on service delivery has been preoccupied with the issue of privatization. Specifically, the concern has been with whether a governmental or a nongovernmental entity is more effective and efficient in delivering publicly provided goods and services. This paper offers an alternative perspective on service delivery and examines the full array of institutional arrangements used by municipal governments to deliver different goods…
Universalism and the Electoral Connection: A Test and Some Doubts
Political science (52 works) · Law (41 works) · Politics (35 works) · Economics (33 works) · Law (31 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (30 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Voting (18 works) · Public Administration (17 works)