Adam R Brown

Publications

• Forthcoming: Party, Performance, and Strategic Politicians: The Dynamics of Elections for Senator and Governor in 2006
  • With Gary C. Jacobson. Forthcoming in State Politics and Policy Quarterly .

Talks and Conference Papers

• Forthcoming: Polarization, Partisanship, and Strategic Candidates
  • To be presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, held in Boston, Massachusetts, August 28-31, 2008.
• Forthcoming: Challenging the Governor: Money, Experience, and the Incumbency Advantage
  • To be presented at the State Politics and Policy Conference, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 30-31, 2008.
  • Abstract: Although potential gubernatorial challengers and their financial backers respond strategically to the incumbent's vulnerability, challenger strength has little effect on the ultimate election result. When strong challengers do succeed, they do so primarily as a result of the incumbent's initial weakness. To the extent that challenger strength does matter, the role of challenger strength depends on the challenger's partisanship. For Democratic challengers, only experience matters; for Republicans, only money does.
• Party, Performance, and Strategic Politicians: The Dynamics of Elections for Senator and Governor in 2006 (PDF )
  • With Gary C. Jacobson. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, held in Chicago, Illinois, August 30-September 2, 2007.
  • Abstract: This paper analyzes a unique set of state-level monthly survey data covering the eighteen months preceding the 2006 election to estimate (1) the effects of national and local conditions on the strength of challenges to incumbent senators and governors and (2) the effects of these challenges on changes in state electorates’ ratings of officeholders and their share of votes on election day. The analysis confirms several of the basic components of the theory that the strategic behavior of candidates and campaign contributors amplify the effects of local and national conditions on election results, thereby enhancing electoral accountability. But it also uncovers a striking difference between the two offices: Even taking the strongly pro-Democratic national climate into account, the election context had a strong tendency to reduce the approval ratings of Senators, while it had an equally strong tendency to increase the approval ratings of governors. We speculate as to what might account for this difference.
• Gubernatorial Approval and Strategic Entry in the 2006 Elections (PDF )
  • Prepared for the 65th Midwest Political Science Association national conference, held in Chicago, Illinois, April 12-15, 2007.
  • Abstract: Previous work has shown that candidate quality and strategic donors mediate Congressional election results, but this insight has had little treatment in the literature on gubernatorial approval and elections. Rather than examine challengers and donors, most studies have attributed gubernatorial election outcomes entirely to voter behavior, which has the misleading implication that the variables driving election results also determine gubernatorial job approval ratings. This paper presents a new model of gubernatorial elections, paying special attention to how potential challengers in 2006 responded strategically to January's gubernatorial approval ratings.

Working Papers

• Partisanship and Blame in a Federal System (PDF ). 2008. In progress.
  • Abstract: Elections are thought to provide a means for voters to hold politicians responsible for their behavior in office. But in the United States, voters directly elect dozens of politicians: Presidents, members of Congress, governors, legislators, mayors, and so on. How do voters decide which politician to blame for which policy outcomes? In some policy areas, one particular office may have a clear "functional responsibility," making blame easy to assign. But in many policy areas--economic development in particular--responsibility is shared. I examine how voters allocate blame between the president and their governor for economic conditions in their state. Using three sources of survey data, I find a consistent result: Voters assign blame for economic conditions in an essentially partisan manner, particularly when the president and the governor belong to opposing parties. In that situation, voters blame whichever level of government that is not controlled by their own party.
• The Nested Game of Direct Democracy 2006; under revision.
  • Abstract: In states that allow popular initiatives, legislative bargaining takes the form of a nested game; although individual legislators are responsible only to their districts, the legislature as a whole is responsible to the entire electorate. As such, legislators must tend both to their district's median voter (to ensure their reelection) and to the statewide median voter (to prevent an unattractive initiative). Therefore, initiatives increase responsiveness to the statewide median, possibly at the expense of each district's median. To avoid methodological difficulties discovered in previous analyses, this paper uses a new measurement of responsiveness, one based on survey measurements of policy satisfaction. I find that initiative institutions can boost policy satisfaction considerably; unexpectedly, however, I also find that actual use of initiatives appears to undermine policy satisfaction.
• Institutions, Issues, and Split-Ticket Voting. 2005; under revision.
  • Abstract: Many scholars assume that political issues fall along a single left-right dimension. But if we relax this assumption, what can we learn about split-ticket voting and, therefore, partisan loyalty? Given the institutional constraints that hinder establishment of major third parties in America (see Cox 1997), voters concerned with more than one issue area ought to be the weakest partisans.