Julianna Pacheco

Evolution and creationism in America's classrooms: a national portrait.

Despite many legal and legislative decisions, a new study shows that one in eight high school biology instructors teach their students that creationism or intelligent design is a valid alternative to evolutionary biology.

The Social Contagion Model: Exploring the Role of Public Opinion on the Diffusion of Antismoking Legislation across the American States

Scholars have offered two primary explanations for the influence that neighboring states have on policy diffusion: state officials learn by observing the outcomes of policies and states seek an economic advantage over other states. Both models contend that decision making occurs laterally as state officials learn from or react to the policy decisions of other elites; the public has a minor role. I offer an additional explanation, the social contagion model, which suggests that state residents react to neighboring policies by changing their aggregate opinions on that policy. If state opinion becomes supportive, state officials respond by enacting similar policies in the home state or risk being ousted from office. Using both individual and aggregate data on antismoking legislation, I find empirical support for the social contagion model. The results reorient theories of policy diffusion to the public and, consequently, open up new avenues for future research.

Using National Surveys to Measure Dynamic U.S. State Public Opinion A Guideline for Scholars and an Application

The author improves on the measurement of U.S. state public opinion by (1) applying previous methods used only on cross-sectional data to create dynamic measures of state public opinion and (2) providing a systematic comparison of the performance of the various methodological approaches on these dynamic measures. The author shows that scholars can use multilevel regression, imputation, and poststratification (MRP) coupled with a simple moving average to measure state public opinion over time. Compared to aggregation, the MRP approach has less error and is more reliable, particularly for the less populated states. The author shows the applicability of the MRP approach by measuring and validating state partisanship and state ideology over time. The validated measures are available for public use. Armed with a method to measure state public opinion over time, scholars can begin to more fully understand the dynamic relationship between public opinion and policy in the U.S. states.

Stay in School, Don’t Become a Parent: Teen Life Transitions and Cumulative Disadvantages for Voter Turnout

We investigate three important life transitions—becoming a parent, getting married, and dropping out or graduating from high school—on the development of civic engagement. We qualify the socioeconomic status and resources frameworks by arguing that effects should differ across racial and ethnic lines. We address these issues by analyzing data from a nationally representative, 12-year panel study comprising more than 12,000 eighth graders in 1988 (National Educational Longitudinal Survey, 1988-2000). We show that early parenthood can have important and lasting impacts on voter turnout many years later. For Whites, early parenthood leads to increased risk of dropping out of high school. High school interruption has major negative impacts on later turnout, even when the student eventually returned to earn a diploma. The findings advance our understanding of the crucial period of adolescence by showing how race and event timing condition the impact of formative life events on later political participation.

Incorporating Health into Studies of Political Behavior: Evidence for Turnout and Partisanship

We argue that research on political behavior, including political participation, public opinion, policy responsiveness, and political inequality will be strengthened by studying the role of health. We then provide evidence that self-rated health status (SRHS) is associated with voter turnout and partisanship. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and General Social Survey (GSS), we find that people who report excellent health are more likely to vote and more likely to identify with the Republican Party. Moreover, the effects of health on voter turnout and partisanship appear to have both developmental and contemporaneous components. Taken together, our findings suggest that health inequalities may have significant political consequences.

Measuring and Evaluating Changes in State Opinion Across Eight Issues

Is state opinion stable or dynamic? Do states exhibit similar or divergent trends? I answer these questions by creating dynamic measures of state opinion using multilevel regression, imputation, and post-stratification (MRP) techniques across eight issues: two global indicators, partisanship and ideology; and six specific issues, including spending on education and welfare, abortion, the death penalty, presidential approval and consumer sentiment. I find that patterns of dynamism and heterogeneity vary. State opinion on some issues, such as consumer sentiment, is highly dynamic but follow closely with national trends. On other issues, such as education spending, states exhibit more stability with heterogeneous trends. And still other issues, such as abortion, exhibit both stability and homogeneity. The results have implications for longstanding debates concerning the nature and origins of mass opinion, the way that state opinions are translated into policies, and how to measure state opinion. Finally, the extensive data set of longitudinal state opinion is publicly available.

The Thermostatic Model of Responsiveness in the American States

Does the thermostatic model exist in the states? Using a unique data set on state spending preferences on education and welfare, I find evidence of dynamic policy representation and dynamic public responsiveness, but with important qualifications. As state support for spending on education or welfare increases, state expenditures increase, but only for states that are highly professional and, presumably, able to accurately gauge the preferences of residents. In other states, legislators are responding to national policy sentiment instead of specific state opinion. I find no evidence that initiative states are more responsive to state opinion. Empirical evidence for dynamic public responsiveness is more consistent across model specifications. As state expenditures on education or welfare increase, state preferences for additional spending decrease, even after controlling for federal expenditures. Finally, I find that policy representation and public responsiveness in the states are conditional on issue saliency. The results provide a more nuanced understanding about the degree of dynamic representation and responsiveness in the states and the thermostatic model more generally.

Public Health and Agenda Setting: Determinants of State Attention to Tobacco and Vaccines

What determines government attention to emerging health issues? We draw on research in agenda setting and policy diffusion to explore the determinants of public health attention in the fifty American states. We find that intergovernmental influence has a strong and consistent influence over state attention to tobacco and vaccines from 1990 to 2010. While national attention to tobacco or vaccines also sparks attention in the states, this effect is smaller than the internal impact of gubernatorial attention and the horizontal influence of neighboring state attention. We find some support that problem severity matters; however, these results are highly dependent on the measures used. Finally, we find no evidence that interest groups influence the attention that states pay to tobacco or vaccines. Our results suggest that institutions play a critical role in explaining government attention to health policy.

The Role of Public Opinion—Does It Influence the Diffusion of ACA Decisions?

We consider two ways that public opinion influenced the diffusion of ACA policy choices from 2010 through 2014. First, we consider the policy feedback mechanism, which suggests that policy decisions have spillover effects that influence opinions in other states; residents in the home state then influence the decisions of elected officials. We find that both gubernatorial ACA announcements and grant activity increased support for the ACA in nearby states. Consistent with our expectations, however, only gubernatorial announcements respond to shifts in ACA support, presumably because it is a more salient policy than grant activity. Second, we test for the opinion learning mechanism, which suggests that shifts in public opinion in other states provide a signal to elected officials about the viability of decisions in their own state. We find evidence that states are more likely to emulate other states with similar ACA policy preferences when deciding about when to announce their decisions. Our results suggest that scholars and policy makers should consider how shifts in public support influence the spread of ideas across the American states.

Free-Riders or Competitive Races? Strategic Interaction across the American States on Tobacco Policy Making

This article contributes to our understanding of policy diffusion in two ways. First, by explicitly focusing on the competition mechanism of diffusion, I consider how policy externalities contribute to free-rider dynamics or competitive races across the American states. The second contribution is the focus on the interdependence of the early stages of agenda setting as well as policy enactments. Using a unique dataset on four different types of tobacco policies that are introduced and eventually enacted in the states from 1990 to 2010, I find evidence that states engage in free-riding dynamics and that strategic interaction exists in the early stages of agenda setting. There is also evidence that states respond to legitimate policy threats in neighboring states. Overall, the results stress the importance of scholars to explore the conditional nature of policy diffusion dynamics by focusing on variations in policy content and stages of the policymaking process other than policy enactment.