Working Papers

Observable Bounds of Rationality and Credibility in International Relations (REGISTERED REPORT)

With Andrew Kenealy and So Jin Lee

Abstract: In crisis bargaining scenarios, resolved states send costly signals to demonstrate a willingness to fight. Yet public signals of resolve are issued by specific leaders, who operate with cognitive limitations in challenging decision environments. Drawing upon theories of behavioral economics, we develop a series of observable indicators plausibly connected to leader ability and difficulty of decision environment that we expect interactively shape perceived signaler credibility: capable leaders should be better able to overcome difficult decision environments. Effects, we argue, are due to perceived variation in the signaler’s uncertainty over the future costs at stake. Preliminary analysis of a pilot conjoint experiment provides suggestive support for expectations. Existing scholarship on credibility in IR emphasizes the value of power and of appearing tough; if confirmed, our results demonstrate the importance of appearing reasoned and methodical—qualities that most policymakers already strive to publicly convey.

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White Racial Polarization Before and After the Election of Donald Trump (Chapter for Changing American Right Edited Volume)

With Ashley E. Jardina

Abstract: This chapter traces white polarization on issues of race and ethnicity before and after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. In 2015, Donald Trump mounted an unconventional campaign for a modern presidential candidate. Unlike his predecessors from the post-Civil Rights Era, Trump’s campaign rhetoric was littered with overtly xenophobic and racist statements—a strategy that politicians had long thought was likely to backfire on a national stage in an era in which norms of racial equality were thought to be well-established. Drawing on decades of public opinion data, we demonstrate the trajectory of whites’ attitudes about immigration and race during the late 20th and early 21st centuries were profoundly shaped by Trump’s ultimately successful presidential campaign. Specifically, although white Americans entered the 2016 election already somewhat polarized in racial attitudes, immigration preferences, and views of Muslims, polarization along each of these dimensions increased considerably during and after 2016. White racial resentment toward Black Americans has moderately increased among white Republicans, but substantially decreased among white Democrats. Opposition to immigration reached a twenty year high among white Republicans in 2016, but a twenty year low among white Democrats. Evaluations of Muslims have grown warmer since the early 2000s among both white Republicans and Democrats, though these trends are more pronounced among Democrats. Finally, white Americans with a strong sense of racial identity and racial group consciousness have polarized in recent years, such that white grievance politics are now concentrated in the Republican Party. A key consequence of these forms of racial/ethnic attitudinal polarization is that white Americans’ candidate preferences have become increasingly correlated with their racial, immigration, and religious attitudes, with especially pronounced associations in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

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The Heterogeneous Associations of Rural Consciousness and Political Preferences

Abstract: Although rural Americans’ sense of place-based consciousness has been an influential explanation for their right-wing politics, recent studies have often found rural consciousness is weakly associated with Republican partisanship and conservatism. Analyzing the 2020 American National Election Study and reanalyzing three recent studies of rural consciousness, I show this incongruity is explained by heterogeneity in how rural consciousness is associated with political preferences. For politically engaged Americans, rural consciousness is associated with right-wing partisan-ideological identification and economic conservatism. For disengaged Americans, however, rural consciousness is associated with left-wing identification and economic liberalism. This heterogeneity emerges due to the downweighting of instrumental concerns among politically engaged citizens relative to symbolic, identity-based concerns. Thus, how rural consciousness is translated into political preferences is contingent on citizens’ relative weighting of competing instrumental and symbolic motivations, which push the rurally-conscious in opposite directions in terms of partisanship, ideological identification, and economic policy preferences.

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A Difference-in-Differences Approach for Estimating Survey Mode Effects

Abstract: A survey’s mode can influence both who takes the survey (selection) and how they respond to its questionnaire (measurement). To distinguish selection and measurement effects, most studies of mode effects use cross-sectional designs. However, cross-sectional designs risk omitted variable bias when the selection process is not fully modeled, but post-treatment bias if the selection process is modeled with variables measured in different survey modes. To address these shortcomings, I propose using difference-in-differences with mixed-mode panel surveys to identify measurement effects. Difference-in-differences compares changes in survey responses over time among panelists who switch modes to panelists who do not switch modes. Difference-in-differences can help reduce omitted variable bias without introducing post-treatment bias. I demonstrate the difference-in-differences approach by estimating the effects of completing live interviews vs. online surveys on the measurement of racial attitudes and political knowledge in the 2016-2020 ANES and cognitive functioning in the 1992-2020 Health and Retirement Study.

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