Political Research Quarterly

Reforms among Republicans in the House of Representatives have led to changes in deciding who should become committee chair. While factors such as party unity and campaign contributions have been demonstrated to matter, bipartisanship has yet to be analyzed. Using party cartel theory and information theory, it is hypothesized that those that are higher in bipartisanship will be more likely to become committee chair on non-power committees but will be less likely to become committee chair on power committees. Conditional logistic analysis of the 107th through the 114th Congress finds bipartisanship has a positive effect on becoming chair of a non-power committee but no effect on power committees. This analysis demonstrates the utility of combining multiple theoretical frameworks for understanding Congress.

Supreme Court nominations culminate in nearly 24-7, multi-day coverage of the nominee and elected officials discussing the nominee’s views, qualifications, and the Supreme Court. Scholars show that these events shape public attitudes. In this paper, we argue that nominee evaluations, which are largely a function of partisanship, have a significant and enduring effect on public approval of the Court. As a result, we contend that the effect of partisanship on Court approval is mediated through nominee support. To test this, we utilize nationally representative CES data from the last five nominations that included hearings, including over-time data for three of the nominations. We analyze these data using causal mediation analysis shortly after the nominations, and again one to four years later. Our results confirm our theoretical expectations: much of the effect of partisanship on Court approval is transmitted through the support of recent nominees, and the nominee effects often last for years.

Well-resourced interest groups often have the upper hand in legislative processes. They can invest in professional lobbying, build personal relationships with lawmakers, and supply sophisticated technical and political information during policy deliberations. Nonetheless, interest groups that lack capacity to intensively lobby can seek influence in other ways, for example, by giving testimony or submitting position letters intermittently. We argue that legislators have incentives to pay attention to intermittent advocacy because it provides constituency perspectives that might not otherwise be available to legislators. Intermittent advocacy can be especially informative when done in conjunction with other groups. We leverage a unique opportunity to observe both professional lobbying and position letters on bills introduced in the California State Legislature, focusing on bills that address the impacts of climate change—an issue mobilizing a range of organized interests and posing great risks to modern society. We develop an index of interest group diversity and show that letters of support from a diverse set of small, less politically active groups increase the likelihood that a bill passes committee. Our findings illuminate how advocacy tactics differ by organization type and demonstrate that groups that lack capacity to intensively lobby can influence legislative outcomes.

How do signals sent by women’s political organizations influence the diversity of who seeks them out? Women’s Candidate Training Organizations (WCTOs) are a vast network of political organizations operating in nearly all U.S. states, putting thousands of hours and millions of dollars into recruiting women candidates. These organizations provide an ideal case for understanding the impact of Organizational Identity Signaling. Political organizations vary in the signals they send about whose experiences will be centered in their programming, shaping who sees themselves within political spaces and gets the institutional support to participate in politics as a result. Using interviews with 57 Candidate Training Organizations, I provide evidence that while WCTOs nearly universally center and address women’s material and psychological barriers to running, they are less likely to focus on barriers faced by non-white candidates than equivalent non-gendered organizations. Using an original online survey experiment, I demonstrate the effect of these gendered and racial signals on women’s political ambition and its precedents, across race and ethnicity. This research has implications for understanding the role of identity-specific interest groups is shaping descriptive representation.

While existing research establishes that members’ racial identities are associated with legislative priorities, less is known about whether and under what conditions racial diversity within congressional offices shapes legislative agendas. We examine whether Black legislative staff is associated with members’ sponsorship of civil rights legislation and argue that staff composition influences which civil rights proposals reach members’ legislative agendas. We theorize that staff influence operates under institutional constraints: staff composition matters most in discretion-rich civil rights domains, where offices retain greater discretion over agenda construction, and is attenuated in partisan-constrained domains where sponsorship decisions are more tightly integrated into broader party and coalition agendas. Using data linking racial information on House members’ personal office staffs to civil rights bill sponsorship in the 111th–115th Congresses, we find support for both the descriptive-to-substantive link and its conditional operation across domains. Together, these findings show that staff diversity’s implications for lawmaking depend on institutional context, clarifying when descriptive representation translates into substantive representation.

In recent years, scholars have grown increasingly attentive to the uneven impacts that individual legislators exert on policy outcomes. These differences may reflect both lawmakers’ intrinsic abilities and the institutional levers at their disposal (e.g., chamber or party positions). Yet disentangling these forces empirically is challenging. We isolate the effects of legislative ability by focusing on members of the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees. We develop and test hypotheses on how the abilities of subcommittee chairs and other members affect discretionary spending decisions within their jurisdictions. Our findings indicate that higher-ability subcommittee chairs drive larger deviations from the President’s budget, and that minority-party ranking members likewise shape spending outcomes in meaningful ways. By contrast, the abilities of rank-and-file members—whether in the majority or minority party—do not appear to condition budgetary outcomes. Hence, abilities matter, but only in conducive contexts. The results illustrate how ability and position jointly constrain presidential control over policy outcomes.

Can messages targeted to underrepresented groups increase their participation in politics? We predict that mobilization messages highlighting a politically relevant group identity will increase participation among racial/ethnic minorities. However, responsiveness to such appeals should vary depending on the strength of one’s identity with that group. We test these predictions by conducting a two-wave panel survey that randomly assigns get-out-the-vote (GOTV) messages that appeal to either racial/ethnic identities or a less politicized identity (state identity). We compare the effects of these messages to a standard GOTV message or one that encourages recycling. We find that racial/ethnic identity appeals increase participation among minorities with weaker group identities, who are initially less inclined to participate. Therefore, such appeals help close the gap in participation between those with weak versus strong identities. These findings indicate that messages highlighting a politically relevant group identity can sometimes be effective at increasing participation among underrepresented groups.

Although members of the mass public express support for judicial philosophies--such as originalism--and evaluate nominees and decisions accordingly, it remains unclear whether they apply these philosophies in a coherent and consistent manner. In general, the public rarely employs overarching belief systems when making political judgments. Thus, are individuals philosophically constrained in their thinking about the judiciary? To answer this, we assess philosophical constraint among the mass public and compare it to a relevant baseline: legal professionals. Using two surveys—the 2022 Cooperative Election Study (CES) and a 2025 Prolific sample of legal professionals—we evaluate constraint through multiple metrics, including attitude consistency. Our findings suggest that judicial philosophy functions as an organizing framework for only a small subset of individuals, primarily those with higher levels of political sophistication or legal training. There is a disconnect between philosophy-based support and coherence in one’s understanding of that philosophy.

As evidenced by its prominence in the 2024 presidential election, and subsequent Trump administration policies, immigration remains a polarizing and controversial topic in U.S. politics. While Latinos have historically been perceived as largely supportive of liberal immigration policy, recent events and the shifting identities and demographics of the Latino population call this perception into question. Given changes among the Latino electorate, we investigate immigration attitudes within this increasingly diverse community. Using the largest public opinion dataset in the United States, we analyze attitudes toward restrictive immigration policy of over 30,000 Latinos. We evaluate the effects of identity through predictors such as nativity, immigration status, group perceptions, partisanship, and ideology to understand the correlates of Latino public opinion toward immigration. Our findings highlight the role of conservative ideology, which is increasingly becoming an important component of Latino identity, in driving support for restrictionist policies and the minimal influence of nativity or language use. We also find that other components related to identity, such as beliefs about discrimination, correlate strongly with immigration attitudes. Our results underscore the complexity of Latino public opinion and the countervailing factors that result from various identities among Latinos regarding immigration policy.

A persistent puzzle in American politics is whether shared gendered experiences can bridge enduring racial divides in political attitudes. This study evaluates whether maternal health policy frames can activate gendered solidarity among white women in ways that shape their support for a Black woman candidate. Using a survey experiment fielded to a representative sample of 1,047 white women, I assess how exposure to maternal-health-oriented policy messages influences evaluations of Black women candidates. The results show that white women respond sharply to explicitly race-specific health policy agendas, while gender-only health policy agendas do not meaningfully increase support for a Black woman candidate. Additional analyses using established measures of racial resentment and gender consciousness help illuminate these patterns. Notably, gender consciousness is only reactive to the intersectional policy cues. Exposure to the Black maternal health frame (race and gender) reduces the otherwise positive effect of gender consciousness on support for a Black woman candidate. Taken together, racialized attitudes remain the most powerful and consistent predictor of support, while gender consciousness contributes little to no positive upside for Black women candidates.

Supreme Court justices sometimes strategically use unanimity in an attempt to bolster the legitimacy of a court ruling and of the court itself. Do unanimous court rulings promote legitimacy? We pair evidence from three experiments based on real Supreme Court cases (including rulings on Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility) with observational analyses of the General Social Survey (1975–2024) to examine the influence of unanimity in more realistic environments than used in prior studies. Contrary to the belief that judicial consensus signals impartiality and bolsters legitimacy, we find that unanimity has little to no consistent effect on decision approval or broader evaluations of SCOTUS. Unanimity also does not reliably improve attitudes among people predisposed to disagree with the Court’s rulings. These findings challenge assumptions about judicial strategy and raise broader questions about the role of consensus in institutional legitimacy.

How does partisanship shape the ways Americans interpret major political events? We examine public evaluations of the Black Lives Matter protests and the January 6th insurrection using an original nationally representative YouGov survey alongside cross-sectional and panel data from the 2016–2024 American National Election Studies. We find that responses to both events are strongly structured by partisanship, but that this influence extends beyond party identification alone. Substantial differences exist within the two parties: MAGA Republicans and progressive Democrats diverge markedly from their co-partisans in their assessments of these episodes. Additionally, colder feelings toward the opposing party are associated with more polarized evaluations, with these relationships unfolding in opposite directions for Democrats and Republicans. Lastly, both Democrats and Republicans who perceive democracy as being under greater levels of threat also have more polarized evaluations of these key events. Although our evidence is observational, the consistency of these patterns across data sources and over time demonstrates the central role of partisanship in structuring how Americans interpret politically consequential events. The findings highlight how partisanship acts through various means, such as affective polarization, perceptions of threats to democracy, and factional identities within parties, to shape public evaluations of political conflict.

The Supreme Court relies on public goodwill for its authority, yet its decision-making processes are often hidden from the public eye. Media coverage of oral arguments in prominent cases provides an opportunity for Americans to assess how the Court carries out its procedures. Using a survey experiment conducted around the oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, we show that depictions of partisan bias by the justices in their oral argument questioning patterns reduce perceptions of procedural fairness, decrease approval of oral argument, and undermine views about the Court’s authority. While these effects are driven by bias against copartisans, bias favoring copartisans does not improve evaluations. Our findings illustrate the responsiveness of the American public to depictions of the Court’s decision-making behavior and highlight procedural fairness as an avenue for the Court to maintain institutional support.

This article examines how asylum decisions in European Union member states are shaped by the tension between administrative assessment and government preferences. Moving beyond the conventional binary distinction between protection and rejection, it focuses on the choice between different protection statuses (refugee, subsidiary, and national statuses) which entail distinct rights and long-term settlement implications. Building on insights from public administration and executive politics, the article develops an explanatory model in which governments seek to steer asylum outcomes in line with their preferences on immigration but are constrained by administrative evaluations of claim merit and public scrutiny. Empirically, the article tests the mechanism on first-instance asylum decisions across EU member states using seemingly unrelated regression models. The findings show that government preferences significantly influence how protection is allocated across statuses, particularly when public scrutiny is low. Under high public salience, restrictive governments are constrained to grant refugee status where claims are well-founded but pursue their preferences by curbing subsidiary protection, while more permissive governments apply protection criteria more stringently. National protection emerges as highly responsive to government preferences. This article advances a more nuanced understanding of asylum governance as a negotiated outcome between legality, political responsiveness, and public accountability.

Solidarity between people of color (PoC) is known to mute divisions between racially stigmatized groups. Yet solidarity’s political origins remain highly unclear. We consider whether PoC solidarity responds to partisan dynamics that unfold before, during, and after presidential elections. A racially diverse Democratic Party requires cross-racial alliances to effectively coordinate during presidential campaigns. This implies that relations between partisanship and PoC solidarity should be sensitive to shifts in campaign contexts, which (de)escalate partisanship. Thus, depending on campaign context, partisanship might shape PoC solidarity, and solidarity might also affect partisanship. We evaluate these prospects with longitudinal data from two extensive survey panels of Asian, Black, Latino, and Multiracial adults, which spanned the 2024 presidential contest between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. Across panels, we detect an influence of partisanship on PoC solidarity, with no clear evidence for a reverse relationship between these variables. Critically, partisanship’s linkage to PoC solidarity strengthens in waves that are more proximate to election day. These dynamics are substantively similar across racially stigmatized groups, suggesting that solidarity between people of color is partly rooted in the salience of presidential campaigns and the incentives they provide to build cross-racial alliances.

During Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential bid, there was a substantial wave of social media messaging aimed at mobilizing voters. Previous research indicates that many American voters obtain political news through social media; therefore, political candidates often use social media as a critical campaign strategy to garner widespread attention. We examine the influence of different Harris TikTok videos during the shortened 2024 presidential election to assess which affect favorability towards Harris. We demonstrate that during presidential elections with polarizing political candidates, social media messaging matters. We find that traditional campaign videos posted on the platform have greater influence than trendy TikTok “edits.” In particular, long form campaign ads posted to TikTok increased favorability for Harris. On the other hand, videos in which Harris explicitly discussed race or called out JD Vance or President Trump had limited influence on support, with some exceptions. In an increasingly digitized political environment, our findings are the first to document the effects of short-form videos on candidate favorability, the effectiveness of social media, the effectiveness of sharing social media with networks, and the use of different messages for voters.

Border fortifications are a common tool for states to deal with mass migration and security concerns, encouraging scholars to understand the causes and consequences of these changes. We ask how individuals’ distance to state borders and the level of fortifications at that border influences public opinion on immigration. We argue that those who live closer to borders have increased interaction with migrants, which makes them more supportive of open migration policies. However, border fortifications serve as a mediating factor for this relationship, with greater fortifications increasing perceived cultural distance between the resident and migrant, furthering the gap in immigration attitudes. Using data from the Integrated Values Survey, we find that greater distance from the border decreases favorability towards migrants, but overall, fortifications do not. However, we find evidence indicating that border fortifications moderate the influence of border distance. Lastly, we do find that depending on the topic at hand, border distance and border fortifications can serve as either a moderator or amplifier of the role of ideology in immigration attitudes. These findings highlight the role of border fortifications and geography in immigration attitudes, complicating the existing literature while highlighting the role of the state in influencing public opinion.

This article theorizes costly commitments in autocracies. Populist leaders who ascend to power through anti-establishment appeals confront a strategic dilemma between consolidating winning coalitions and maintaining the loyalty of their selectorate. Rooted in rhetoric that delegitimizes political parties, such leaders face constraints to regime institutionalization as their popular base remains resistant to formal party structures. Costly commitments occur where autocratizing leaders commit to their ideological messages to sustain popular support, which compromises the formation of ruling parties as instruments of elite cooptation. The 2021 executive takeover in Tunisia illustrates this dilemma emerging from incompatible incentives to commit to ideological narratives and forming a ruling party. We adopt a multi-method approach to discuss contemporary Tunisian politics as a theory-generating case study. To this aim, we leverage qualitative interviews with party officials, legislative election candidates, and members of Saied’s electoral campaign along with data from an original, nationally representative phone survey in Tunisia, and available public opinion data. Following Kais Saied’s move against the democratic order, elites engaged in party initiatives in support of his political project. Yet, Kais Saied rebuffed these advances, choosing to rely on the popular anti-party sentiment that had contributed to his rise to power.

Scholars of political representation have focused primarily on congruence between public preferences and enacted legislation, paying less attention to how policies are actually delivered by street-level bureaucrats in face-to-face encounters with citizens. This approach obscures the possibility that individuals may nonetheless have divergent perceptions of implemented policy that, in turn, inform their political attitudes. We examine this argument in the context of policing and traffic stops in Los Angeles using an integrated mixed-methods design combining an original survey (N = 2,118) and thirty semi-structured interviews. Our survey finds limited racial variation in preferences for police behavior and in reports of officer behavior during traffic stops. At the same time, our survey reproduces well-documented racial gaps in general assessments of police legitimacy and effectiveness. Our interviews reveal that these patterns result from fundamentally different personal and vicarious experiences across racial groups. For Black and Latine residents, the desire for a professional officer reflects concern for physical safety; for White residents, it reflects a preference for courtesy. Survey instruments that record responses but not the expectations underlying them may systematically understate racial inequality in how police encounters are actually experienced.