Amber Wichowsky

Economic Discontent as a Mobilizer: Unemployment and Voter Turnout

Published scholarship argues that a poor economy depresses voter participation in the United States. This troubling result suggests that incumbents are “underpenalized” for bad economic performance. We challenge this conclusion theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we argue that a worsening economy has a disruptive effect that prods worried citizens to voice concern and seek remedies. Empirically, we analyze county-level data and find that, contrary to earlier studies, higher unemployment rates in fact stimulate more people to vote. We show that the effect is not the result of heightened electoral competition when unemployment is high. The relationship displays a partisan asymmetry in which Republican candidates are especially harmed by higher unemployment. The results also indicate that studies of economic voting need to consider the role of turnout in connecting economic performance to the incumbent’s vote share.

Does It Matter Who’s Behind the Curtain? Anonymity in Political Advertising and the Effects of Campaign Finance Disclosure

Despite the Supreme Court’s acceptance of disclosure requirements, some donors have been able to remain anonymous through a combination of regulatory gaps, complicated financing schemes, and lags in when information is made public. As a first examination of the potential consequences of increased anonymity in political advertising we designed an experiment that varied the amount and format of information about the interests behind an attack ad sponsored by an “unknown” group. We find that participants were more supportive of the attacked candidate after viewing information disclosing donors, suggesting that voters may discount a group-sponsored ad when they have more information about the financial interests behind the message. We also find some evidence that the effect of disclosure depends on how campaign finance information is presented. Our study has implications for how (to this point, failed) congressional efforts to require greater disclosure of campaign finance donors may affect electoral politics.

Narrow Victories and Hard Games: Revisiting the Primary Divisiveness Hypothesis

The 2008 presidential election offers a unique opportunity to revisit the hypothesis that a divisive primary exacts a tolls on the party’s general election performance—neither party had a sitting president or vice president seeking the nomination, the Democratic nomination was contested all the way to the end, and advertising data provide a way to gauge both the intensity and tenor of the campaigns. In this article, we take advantage of these circumstances to distinguish between primaries that were competitive and those that were negative and find, contrary to the assumptions in the divisive primary literature, that a close contest does not imply a divisive one. Moreover, we find that Obama was helped by his tight battle with Clinton for the nomination and that the tone of the primaries bore no relationship to his general election performance.

Competition, Party Dollars, and Income Bias in Voter Turnout, 1980–2008

The conventional wisdom is that turnout is higher in competitive contests and that electorates are more representative when more people vote. But whether more competition produces a more representative electorate remains unclear. Using measures of income bias that improve measurement equivalence across states, I show that income biases in voting participation tend to shrink as the state’s party system becomes more competitive and as the Democratic Party does more to mobilize voters. Close elections, however, do little to explain the income composition of the electorate. Rather, competition reflects a political struggle that varies in the extent to which it increases turnout among less advantaged citizens.

Same blueprint, different bricks: reexamining the sources of the gender gap in political ideology

Since the 1990s the ideological gap between men and women has grown, but scholars debate whether this difference is driven by diverging opinion on individual issues or differences in ideological reasoning. Utilizing Item Response Theory, we test for gender differences in multiple aspects of ideological thinking: ideological constraint, stability, the importance of individual issues to ideology, and the degree to which people base their self-reported ideological identity on policy issues. In contrast to existing studies showing that men and women privilege different sets of issues when choosing an ideological label, we find that men and women organize their opinions in much the same way. The gender gap in ideology reflects differences of opinion, but not political reasoning. Our results call for a shift away from research that searches for ways in which men and women reason differently about politics and focuses instead on why ideological thinking is so similar between the sexes despite difference in social experiences and on the elements of gender that explain basic differences in opinion.

External Influence on Exchange Rates: An Empirical Investigation of US Pressure and the Chinese RMB

Trade imbalances have often led to accusations of “currency manipulation�? and efforts to remedy the purported effects of exchange rate misalignment. This paper investigates the impact of US pressure on China to revalue the RMB. Using vector autoregression (VAR) to analyze an original dataset of US statements and actions between 2005 and 2012, we examine the over-time dynamics between US pressure and the nominal RMB/USD exchange rate. A case study of mounting US pressure in advance of the 2010 midterm election illustrates China’s responsiveness in timing adjustments in the RMB to defuse the risk of an international confrontation. Our findings indicate that external political pressures can influence national exchange rate policies under certain conditions.

Developing Citizen-Scientists: Effects of an Inquiry-Based Science Curriculum on STEM and Civic Engagement

In this article, we present the results of a cluster-randomized trial of an inquiry-based science curriculum conducted in grades 6–8 with 551 students in 13 schools. The intervention integrates science and civics instruction in a unit about community and family water conservation. The intervention also includes teacher professional development and technology-based tools to support instruction. We examined effects in science and civics, finding that student engagement in both areas was positively affected by the intervention. We argue that best practices in inquiry-based science instruction have value for students’ civic development and that the integration of science and civics in the classroom can enhance student outcomes in both fields.