Changes in district boundaries in small magnitude electoral systems can have substantive consequences for representation. In the U.S., each decennial redistricting cycle infuses House districts with a large number of new voters, changing personal representation for many citizens. What effect...

The recent growth in the formation of think tanks in the United States raises questions about their role in the democratic process. In this article we present a theory of think tank formation. Our theory posits that committee debate creates incentives for legislators to seek research-based,...

Laws such as .08 blood alcohol content, open container, and license revocation provide a policy framework for reducing drinking and driving, yet policy effectiveness relies on their enforcement. The relationship between enforcement and drink-driving behavior is difficult to assess. Unlike...

Governments at one level increasingly develop measures of the activities of policymakers at another. That policymaking behavior as well as the measures can have electoral consequences. A large literature has developed in public administration and policy that assesses the determinants and...

Relying on a formal theoretical model, Cox (1984; 1990a; 1990b; 1997) demonstrates that single member districts induce candidates toward policy positions at their constituency median while multimember districts encourage dispersion. We test this theoretical implication in the context of the Arizona state...

All U.S. states have laws designed to discourage people from drinking and driving, but enforcement varies across the states. Existing studies offer conflicting evidence on the effectiveness of these strategies in deterring drinking-and-driving behavior. Deterrence theories imply that the mere...

Infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) eschew traditional public management to provide distributive goods worldwide. Yet, in Colombia, the context of our study, both the promise of and voters’ experience with PPPs hinder incumbent parties in elections when theories of distributive...

Although Congress often utilizes grants and other fiscal incentives when delegating policy to the states, it also incorporates non-fiscal arrangements, or joint partnerships into legislation. These partnerships include joint state-federal oversight boards, intergovernmental task forces, as well...