Drawing on theories of affective intelligence and intergroup emotions, we develop a theory of aff... more Drawing on theories of affective intelligence and intergroup emotions, we develop a theory of affective representation in Congress in which lawmakers vary the emotional tone of their communications to align with the emotional experiences of rank-and-file co-partisans, thereby strengthening their popularity with constituents. In a nationalized political environment where control of the presidency is crucial, belonging to the presidential party influences both the emotional experiences of rank-and-file partisans and the emotions lawmakers express, more than legislative events. We test our theory by analyzing discrete emotions in congressional e-newsletters and find that the affective content of these newsletters depends on whether members of Congress are part of the president’s party rather than whether they are in the majority or have legislative success. These findings reflect the emotions that rank-and-file co-partisans feel toward the President and politics in general. Finally, using a survey experiment that keeps the newsletter’s informational content the same, we show that partisans evaluate lawmakers more favorably when they express congruent negative emotions like anger and disgust, whereas mirroring positive emotions such as enthusiasm does not yield the same benefit.
Place, Race, and the Geographic Politics of White Grievance
Political Behavior, 2024
Rural resentment is a form of place-based grievance politics that scholars have used to explain t... more Rural resentment is a form of place-based grievance politics that scholars have used to explain the growing urban-rural divide in American politics. However, whereas extant theory assumes that rural resentment stems from rural identification, recently available data shows that beliefs about geographic inequity, which are central to rural resentment, are not held exclusively by those who embrace a rural identity. If geography is not the sole source of rural resentment, then what else explains this ostensibly place-based phenomenon? Among White Americans who do not identify as rural, we posit that belief in deliberate rural deprivation by government and media elites can be understood as ‘place-based empathy’ toward rural Americans. Further, we argue that place empathy toward rural areas is partially an expression of White grievance politics stemming from the belief that the stereotypical rural resident is a White American suffering from relative deprivation at the hands of government officials who privilege non-white (and non-rural) constituents over them. Using the 2020 American National Election Time Series, as well as novel mTurk data, we show that White consciousness predicts beliefs about geographic inequity among non-rural identifiers but not rural identifiers. Instead, consistent with previous research, we show that racial prejudice is a better predictor of geographic attitudes for rural identifiers and White consciousness has little independent association. These findings provide a more complete and nuanced understanding of the ways race and place intersect to explain the grievance politics of White Americans in the Trump era.
Supplemental material, Appendix_B_-_Vignettes for Private Contracting and Citizen Attitudes Towar... more Supplemental material, Appendix_B_-_Vignettes for Private Contracting and Citizen Attitudes Toward Local Government by Ryan Dawkins in Urban Affairs Review
Citizenship in Hard Times: How Ordinary People Respond to Democratic Threat By Sara Wallace Goodman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 250p. $29.99 paper
The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
‘American’ is the Eye of the Beholder: American Identity, Racial Sorting, and Affective Polarization among White Americans
Political Behavior
Catching My Anger: How Political Elites Create Angrier Citizens
Political Research Quarterly, 2021
Anger is a common feature in contemporary American politics. Through the process of affect linkag... more Anger is a common feature in contemporary American politics. Through the process of affect linkage, we argue that one way the electorate becomes angrier about politics is by observing angry displays from political elites. Affect linkage occurs when a person’s emotional state of mind changes to match the emotions displayed by someone else. Using an online experiment in which subjects are randomly exposed to an angry or unemotional debate between a Democrat and Republican running for Congress, we show that exposure to an angry in-party politician significantly increases the amount of anger, disgust, and outrage expressed by co-rank-and-file partisans. This increase in aversive emotions, moreover, increases the likelihood that citizens report the intention to vote, and this affect linkage effect is most pronounced in those who are most likely to stay home on election day: the weakest partisans. Interestingly, angry rhetoric by political elites does not have any effect on out-partisans,...
Lawmakers use privatized service delivery to simultaneously maintain low taxes while also satisfy... more Lawmakers use privatized service delivery to simultaneously maintain low taxes while also satisfying citizen demands for high-quality public goods and services. However, what effect does private contracting have on people’s attitudes toward local government? I design a survey experiment that tests how public–private collaborations alter how people attribute responsibility to government for the successes and failures of the delivery of goods and services. I show that private contracting makes it less likely that people will connect public services to government, which erodes their evaluations of government performance and the feeling that local government represents their interests. Moreover, I show that citizens are also more likely to blame local government for private service delivery failures than they are to praise it for private service delivery successes. This asymmetry in responsibility attribution makes it difficult for local governments to build support among its citizens w...
Why do some people evaluate state supreme courts as more legitimate than others? Conventional aca... more Why do some people evaluate state supreme courts as more legitimate than others? Conventional academic wisdom suggests that people evaluate courts in nonpartisan ways, and that people make a distinction between how they evaluate individual court decisions and how they evaluate the court's legitimacy more broadly. We challenge this idea by arguing that people's partisan identities have a strong influence on how people evaluate the impartiality of courts, just as they do other aspects of the political world. Using original survey experiments, validated by existing observational survey data, we show that people perceive state supreme courts as being more impartial when courts issue decisions that match the ideological preferences of their preferred political party, while court decisions at odds with their party's policy goals diminish people's belief that courts are impartial arbiters of the law. We also show that the effects of citizen perceptions of impartiality erode...
Why do some Americans feel more patriotic than others? We argue that feelings of national pride a... more Why do some Americans feel more patriotic than others? We argue that feelings of national pride are reinforced by cues from people's political and social environments. When Americans reside in contexts that align with their values, traits, and civic orientations, they are more likely to express pride in their country. We consider both civic and ethnic pathways to patriotism. We expect that minorities and those who particularly value political equality will feel increasingly patriotic as the racial and ethnic diversity of their state climbs. For those who see politics through a partisan lens, we expect that environments defined by political competition will enhance feelings of national pride. We test our theory using data from the 2012 American National Election Studies (ANES). We find that Americans are more likely to say that they feel love for their country when they reside in political contexts congruent with their values and approach to citizenship.
Why are some people more responsive to campaign mobilization than others? I argue that the compos... more Why are some people more responsive to campaign mobilization than others? I argue that the composition of a person's core personality makes some people more responsive to mobilization cues than others. However, the degree to which personality alters the effectiveness of mobilization also depends on the type of political participation for which people are being mobilized. I explore the determinants of political participation by looking at the interaction between the Big-5 traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability and the intensity of campaign environments. This paper demonstrates that despite the possible ameliorative effect mobilization has on unequal patterns of political participation, an enduring source of participatory inequality may very well be rooted in a person's core psychological structure.
Replication Data for: Incongruent Voting or Symbolic Representation? Asymmetrical Representation in Congress, 2008-2014
The electoral connection incentivizes representatives to take positions that please most of their... more The electoral connection incentivizes representatives to take positions that please most of their constituents. However, on votes for which we have data, lawmakers vote against majority opinion in their district on one out of every three high profile roll calls in the U.S. House. This rate of "incongruent voting" is much higher for Republican lawmakers, but they do not appear to be punished for it at higher rates than Democrats on Election Day. Why? Research in political psychology shows that citizens hold both policy specific and identity-based symbolic preferences, that these preferences are weakly correlated, and that incongruous symbolic identity and policy preferences are more common among Republican voters than Democrats. While previous work on representation has treated this fact as a nuisance, we argue that it reflects two real dimensions of political ideology that voters use to evaluate lawmakers. Using four years of CCES data, district level measures of opinion, ...
This dissertation is the culmination of six years of fortitude and long, hard work. However, none... more This dissertation is the culmination of six years of fortitude and long, hard work. However, none of it would have been possible if not for the support, mentorship, or guidance of several people along the way. First and foremost, Jennifer Wolak is someone to whom I owe a tremendous debt, as an advisor, a teacher, and a role model for the kind of social scientist I could only aspire to be. She has dedicated a considerable amount of energy reading multiple drafts of every manuscript I have ever written, offering copious feedback, guidance, and criticism whenever necessary; provided me wonderful methodological training in the classroom; and offered more than her fair share of excellent life advice and emotional support. I'd also like to thank Anand Sokhey, Ken Bickers, Jeff Harden, and Jennifer Fitzgerald. They all offered thoughtful comments and feedback on various aspects of this dissertation, and they have all informed my thinking about both politics and political science as a discipline. Scott Adler also deserve recognition for being a constant presence throughout my graduate training, both as a teacher and as someone who has offered me numerous professional opportunities. Lastly, I'd like to thank Leaf Van Boven for serving on my dissertation committee and offering a fresh set of eyes and thoughtful comments. Numerous other people have been critical for the success of both this dissertation and my overall development as a political scientist, including Jim Pripusich,
Incongruent Voting or Symbolic Representation? Asymmetrical Representation in Congress, 2008–2014
Perspectives on Politics
The electoral connection incentivizes representatives to take positions that please most of their... more The electoral connection incentivizes representatives to take positions that please most of their constituents. However, on votes for which we have data, lawmakers vote against majority opinion in their district on one out of every three high-profile roll calls in the U.S. House. This rate of “incongruent voting” is much higher for Republican lawmakers, but they do not appear to be punished for it at higher rates than Democrats on Election Day. Why? Research in political psychology shows that citizens hold both policy-specific and identity-based symbolic preferences, that these preferences are weakly correlated, and that incongruous symbolic identity and policy preferences are more common among Republican voters than Democrats. While previous work on representation has treated this fact as a nuisance, we argue that it reflects two real dimensions of political ideology that voters use to evaluate lawmakers. Using four years of CCES data, district-level measures of opinion, and the ro...
Incongruent Voting or Symbolic Representation? Asymmetrical Representation in Congress, 2008–2014
The electoral connection incentivizes representatives to take positions that please most of their... more The electoral connection incentivizes representatives to take positions that please most of their constituents. However, on votes for which we have data, lawmakers vote against majority opinion in their district on one out of every three high-profile roll calls in the U.S. House. This rate of “incongruent voting” is much higher for Republican lawmakers, but they do not appear to be punished for it at higher rates than Democrats on Election Day. Why? Research in political psychology shows that citizens hold both policy-specific and identity-based symbolic preferences, that these preferences are weakly correlated, and that incongruous symbolic identity and policy preferences are more common among Republican voters than Democrats. While previous work on representation has treated this fact as a nuisance, we argue that it reflects two real dimensions of political ideology that voters use to evaluate lawmakers. Using four years of CCES data, district-level measures of opinion, and the ro...
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