Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion.

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

Competition is a defining element of democracy. One of the most noteworthy events over the last quarter-century in U.S. politics is the change in the nature of elite party competition: The parties have become increasingly polarized. Scholars and pundits actively debate how these elite patterns influence polarization among the public (e.g., have citizens also become more ideologically polarized?). Yet, few have addressed what we see as perhaps more fundamental questions: Has elite polarization altered the way citizens arrive at their policy opinions in the first place and, if so, in what ways? We address these questions with a theory and two survey experiments (on the issues of drilling and immigration). We find stark evidence that polarized environments fundamentally change how citizens make decisions. Specifically, polarization intensifies the impact of party endorsements on opinions, decreases the impact of substantive information and, perhaps ironically, stimulates greater confidence in those—less substantively grounded—opinions. We discuss the implications for public opinion formation and the nature of democratic competition.

How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation (WP-12-14)

What is the price of federalism? Does it result in governmental interconnections that are too complex? Does it create overlapping responsibilities? Does it perpetuate social inequalities? Does it stifle economic growth? To answer these questions, Paul Peterson sets forth two theories of federalism: functional and legislative. Functional theory is optimistic. It says that each level of the federal system is well designed to carry out the tasks for which it is mainly responsible. State and local governments assume responsibility for their area's physical and social development; the national government cares for the needy and reduces economic inequities. Legislative theory, in contrast, is pessimistic: it says that national political leaders, responding to electoral pressures, misuse their power. They shift unpopular burdens to lower levels of government while spending national dollars on popular government programs for which they can claim credit. Both theories are used to explain different aspects of American federalism. Legislative theory explains why federal grants have never been used to equalize public services. Elected officials cannot easily justify to their constituents a vote to shift funds away from the geographic area they represent. The overall direction that American federalism has taken in recent years is better explained by functional theory. As the costs of transportation and communication have declined, labor and capital have become increasingly mobile, placing states and localities in greater competition with one another. State and local governments are responding to these changes by overlooking the needs of the poor, focusing instead on economic development. As a further consequence, older, big cities of the Rust Belt, inefficient in their operations and burdened by social responsibilities, are losing jobs and population to the suburban communities that surround them. Peterson recommends that the national government adopt policies that take into account the economic realities identified by functional theory. The national government should give states and localities responsibility for most transportation, education, crime control, and other basic governmental programs. Welfare, food stamps, the delivery of medical services, and other social policies should become the primary responsibility of the national government.

The Price for Federalism

This article addresses the issue of knowing when one has researched enough – thoroughly, and without missing anything. The author argues that there is not a magic number for the “appropriate” amount of cases. The author further explains using the image of a dartboard, one labeled as “Authority” and the other labeled as “Issues,” as a means of evaluating criteria.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1954774_code1063101.pdf?abstractid=1954774&mirid=5&type=2

How Many Cases Do I Need

Medicaid is the single largest public health insurer in the United States, covering upwards of 70 million Americans. Crucially, Medicaid is also an intergovernmental program that yokes poverty to federalism: the federal government determines its broad contours, while states have tremendous discretion over how Medicaid is designed and implemented. Where some locales are generous and open handed, others are tight-fisted and punitive. In Fragmented Democracy, Jamila Michener demonstrates the consequences of such disparities for democratic citizenship. Unpacking how federalism transforms Medicaid beneficiaries' interpretations of government and structures their participation in politics, the book examines American democracy from the vantage point(s) of those who are living in or near poverty, (disproportionately) Black or Latino, and reliant on a federated government for vital resources.

Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics

Anyone who has lived in, driven through or walked by a “bad” neighborhood has a sense of the attributes that render such places unique: graffiti, litter, public intoxication and much more. According to the well-known theory of “broken windows,” these readily observable corporeal characteristics signal neighborhood disorder and lead to increased criminal behavior. This article investigates the implications of disorder for political behavior, taking particular care to distinguish between the objective tangible conditions of disorder and residents’ subjective interpretations of those conditions. Utilizing exceptionally rich data, this analysis reveals that while certain aspects of objective “reality” are consequential, perceptions of such reality are a more powerful mechanism through which neighborhood disorder impacts local political engagement. For some political outcomes, a heightened sense of the problems associated with disorder is linearly associated with an increase in participation. For others, the pattern is parabolic: those who perceive so little disorder that they remain content or so much disorder that they become disaffected are substantially less likely to take action to make their communities better. Ultimately, holding objective contextual features constant, the lenses through which residents interpret things like “broken windows” are critical determinants of grassroots politics. This information, combined with broader understandings of what shapes perceptions of disorder, lays the foundation for structuring policy in ways that facilitate grassroots activism—a vital component of the American democratic process.

Neighborhood Disorder and Local Participation: Examining the Political Relevance of “Broken Windows”

In this article we reassess conceptions of the welfare state with an eye towards the limits of current scholarly approaches. In particular, we propose centering the study of the welfare state around those who occupy the margins of American society. We argue that concentrating on populations at the proverbial “bottom” of standard economic and political hierarchies productively reorients research on social policy and politics by bringing crucial but often overlooked facets of the welfare state into sharper view. Specifically, the bottom-up approach we offer here entreats political scientists to re-considerwherethey look in their efforts to delineate the welfare state,howto examine what they find, andwhatkinds of questions to ask in the process. Ultimately, studying the welfare state from the bottom up suggests a host of new directions for scholars seeking to understand its politics.

From the Margins to the Center: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship

The political processes surrounding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) offer valuable lessons about race and politics in the United States. In particular, the ACA underscores a critical tension between politics and policy in a racialized polity: even when policies are intended to target and address racial disparities, politics can undermine the steps necessary to do so. Close scrutiny of the ACA during its first decade reveals how race intersects with politics to render public policy less equitable and more vulnerable to erosion. Ultimately, this analysis points to the ways that racialized political processes are formidable barriers to equitable material outcomes. By examining such processes and making them visible, this article elucidates the possibilities, limits, and contours of public policy as a mechanism for achieving racial justice.

Race, Politics, and the Affordable Care Act.

Abstract Common markers of social class include income, wealth, education and family background. Though these capture staple pedestrian elements of class, they understate something substantial – social class is produced by political experiences. Building on this observation, I argue that social class is constructed and reinforced via political institutions that differentially affect the daily experiences and life trajectories of Americans. Viewing class through this lens (instead of more simply as a function of income or education) enables clarity on two critical features of the American political system: (1) its deeply racialized institutional practices (2) its dual inclusionary/exclusionary governance structures. Most broadly, this essay pushes us beyond a view of class as a set of variables that affect political outcomes and towards inquiry into the ways that political institutions produce class. Ultimately, such a conceptual pivot illuminates additional pathways for transforming economic and political relations in the United States.

Jamila Michener

Papers

Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics

Neighborhood Disorder and Local Participation: Examining the Political Relevance of “Broken Windows”

From the Margins to the Center: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship

Race, Politics, and the Affordable Care Act.

Social Class As Racialized Political Experience