Jennifer Wolak

Explaining Public Confidence in the Branches of State Government

What explains public confidence in the leadership of government institutions at the state level? The authors explore how political processes, the nature of representation, and economic and policy performance in the states translate into citizen confidence in state institutions. Using a multilevel modeling approach, the authors consider the sources of public confidence in the people who lead state legislatures, offices of the governor, and state courts. While the explanations for government confidence at the state level resemble, in part, those of the national government, the authors also observe notable differences, with each branch of state government drawing on distinct sources of public satisfaction.

The Measure and Mismeasure of Emotion

Emotion, after a modest hiatus during the “cognitive revolution,” has reemerged of late to become a subject of significant attention in political science.1 The other contributions in this volume give ample evidence of the added understanding we gain by including emotion into the theoretical and empirical mix. Our entry in this volume turns to a question relevant to most if not all the other research found here: how do we best measure emotional response? We examine two central considerations—identifying which emotions define political responses and determining which kinds of questions are most suitable to assess these emotional reactions. Evaluating the measurement of emotion is important both because of the inherent challenges in securing reliable and valid measures of emotional reactions, as well as the sensitivity of our understanding of emotional reactions to our choice of measures.2

Value Conflict and Volatility in Party Identification

Are some people more prone to instabilities in partisanship due to the ways they rank and organize their core values? We investigate the mechanisms of partisan volatility, considering whether instabilities reflect value conflict and ambivalence. Our expectation is that when the basic values of the American ethos come into conflict in elite discourse, citizens have difficulty reconciling their own value arrangement with that of elites, resulting in greater partisan volatility. To this end, we use several heteroscedastic regression and ordered probit models to explore whether the conflict of competing values explains the response variance and instability of individual-level partisanship and ideology over time. To construct measures of value conflict, we rely on data from the 1992, 1994 and 1996 American National Election Studies. We find that, while instabilities in partisan identification reflect low information for some, the competition of core values generates volatility in partisan affiliations for others. In deliberating the value tradeoffs of politics, people may be of two minds even about central beliefs such as party identification.

The Consequences of Presidential Battleground Strategies for Citizen Engagement

How consequential is residence in a presidential battleground state for how people engage in politics? I explore the effects of battleground strategies for campaign exposure, voter interest, political discussion, learning, and participation in the presidential campaign. I also consider the sources of battleground influence, including the campaign efforts of presidential candidates and particular partisan nature of battleground states. Using survey data from the 1992, 1996, and 2000 National Election Studies in conjunction with measures of state campaign context, I find that the effects of battleground environments are limited. Neither levels of campaign interest nor rates of political discussion are affected by presidential campaign intensity. While television advertising promotes learning and participation, battleground influence on the intention to vote reflects the partisan environment of a state rather than advertising or events sponsored by the presidential candidates.

Personality and Emotional Response: Strategic and Tactical Responses to Changing Political Circumstances:

Emotions enable people to navigate various political environments, differentiating familiar situations where standard operating procedures are suitable from unfamiliar terrain when more attention is needed. While previous research identifies consequences of emotion, we know less about what triggers affective response. In this article, the authors investigate what role personality has in the operation of the systems of affective intelligence. Using experimental data as well as responses from the 2000 and 2004 American National Election Studies, the authors first consider whether personality affects the activation of emotional response. Next, they explore the degree to which citizen attitudes like openness to information and compromise are explained by personality characteristics and subconscious emotional response. Finally, they consider the implications of these results for our normative understanding of democratic citizenship.

Much of politics is still local: Multi-state lobbying in state interest communities

We explore the nationalization of state lobbying communities by examining all lobbying registrations held by organizations in the 50 states in 1997, with special attention given to the frequency of multi-state registrations. Following discussion of the meanings and sources of nationalization among state interest communities, we develop and analyze several measures of the level of localism, examining what factors drive variation in multiple state registrations across group types and states. Finally, we discuss the substantive and measurement implications of the nationalization of state interest communities. Our findings identify an interesting paradox of interest representation before state legislatures: although lobbying responses and techniques may have become more nationalized, the composition of state interest communities remains predominantly local.

The Dynamics of Public Confidence in U.S. State and Local Government

While the dynamics of trust in the national government have been shown to be responsive to political events and governmental performance, less is known about why the publics trust in U.S. state and local government rises and falls over time. We examine the trends in confidence in subnational government using an aggregate level approach. First, we consider whether levels of trust are defined by reactions to the national government. Second, we consider how factors specific to subnational politics such as governmental performance and the quality of community life influence trust. Using measures of confidence in state and local government from 1968 to 2004 and a set of error correction models, we find evidence for both accounts. Confidence in subnational governments reflects national trends such as economic tides and public preferences for more or less government, but also exhibits unique dynamics explained by factors specific to subnational politics.

Why People Decide to Participate in State Politics

Many have investigated who participates in politics and why they choose to do so. Here, the authors consider where people choose to participate. Using survey data from the American Citizen Participation Study, the authors investigate why people choose to participate in state politics versus local or national venues. If the decision of where to participate is resource driven, then people will engage in state politics for the same reasons they participate in politics generally. But if participatory choices reflect one’s motivation and incentives for action, then the reasons to engage in state politics will be unique, connected to individual interest and political environments.

The roots of trust in local government in western Europe

When people say that they trust local authorities, is it simply because they have generalized trust in national government? Or is trust in local government rooted in distinctive considerations, connected to the character of local communities and the balance of power across levels of government? We explore how trust in local and national government differs across individuals and across countries in western Europe. We find that people trust local government for different reasons than those that drive trust in national government. Cross-national differences in levels of trust in government reflect the character of national institutions. While both proportional representation systems and federal systems are power-sharing designs, each has distinctive consequences for trust. When opportunities for voice in local government are high, as in decentralized systems, people report greater trust in local government. When opportunities for voice in national government are limited, as in majoritarian systems, people report lower trust for national government and higher trust in local government.

Strategic retirements: the influence of public preferences on voluntary departures from Congress

Are members of Congress responsive to public preferences in their decisions to seek reelection or retire, or do members simply rely on the advantages of incumbency to secure reelection? I argue that members of Congress consider their electoral vulnerability when deciding whether or not to seek reelection, informing their reelection odds with the same short-term electoral forces that influence election outcomes: partisan preferences, economic evaluations, and congressional approval. Considering aggregate rates of voluntary departures from the House and Senate from 1954 to 2004, I show that rates of retirement reflect, not only institutional environments within Congress, but also the mood of the electorate.