Research
My research agenda can be reduced into two main strands: environmental politics and political parties. I am interested in compliance with environmental agreements, and international organizations' ability (or inability) to enforce those agreements, as well as the environmental and political consequences of heavy resource use.
I am also interested in party selection by voters in societies dealing with ethnic tensions, primarily in Europe. See below for links to published articles.
I am also interested in party selection by voters in societies dealing with ethnic tensions, primarily in Europe. See below for links to published articles.
Seeing is Believing: the Role of Place in Mitigating Partisan Attitudes toward the Environment (with Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo and David J. Ciuk) State and Local Government Review, Online FirstView
Over the past decade the partisan divide over environmental issues in the United States has widened significantly. Although attitudes toward climate change and other environmental policy issues have become highly polarized, it is possible that personal geography may moderate partisan attitudes. This study considers whether residing in coastal Virginia influences attitudes on environmental issues among Virginians. To test this question, we survey Virginia registered voters on a range of coastal environmental issues and consider whether place of residence has an effect on these attitudes when accounting for other factors including partisanship. We find a significant relationship between place of residence and a wide range of environmental issue attitudes, though the impact of partisanship is moderated in only limited cases. This research builds on the policy process literature concerning individual proximity to policy problems, place-attachment, and the relationship between partisanship and state environmental policy attitudes.
Judicial Activism and Ratification of Environmental Treaties Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Online FirstView
A key theory of environmental politics holds that states must achieve a certain level of economic development before environmental protection will occur. The assumption is that once people attain economic satisfaction, they are no longer willing to accept environmental degradation in return for a greater standard of living. Yet, numerous developing states ratify environmental treaties without achieving a median-level per-capita income. How do some states reach environmental goals that require some behavior change without the assumed demands of the citizenry? This paper argues that judicial autonomy may be the key to bringing environmental protection to the poorest states in the developing world. Activist judges, free of political interference, can push through policies that are unpopular but serve the greater good. Reacting to this, governments may be more likely to sign and ratify international environmental agreements. Using patterns of ratification for two conventions, I find evidence in favor of the hypothesis.
Examining the Impact of Institutions on Common-Pool Resource Problems: the EU's Common Fisheries Policy Journal of European Integration 42:2 (2020)
Why is there variation in the level of overfishing in European Union member states? The Common Fisheries Policy sets politically-negotiated quotas for fishing, but different states break the quotas at different levels. One answer for this variation lies within the domestic institutions of the member states themselves, in particular the incentives created by various electoral rules. Electoral rules which add more political parties to the decisionmaking process result in greater amounts of overfishing because smaller and smaller blocks of voters are more important in such instances. Evidence in favor of this theory comes from a unique window into fisheries compliance: the “scorecards” produced by the European Commission from 2001 to 2004.
Group Threat at the Ground Level: Support for Ethnically Radical Parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly (with Donald Beaudette) Political Research Quarterly 73:3 (2020)
Ethnic settlement patterns and other forms of everyday interethnic social contact have the potential to influence voter preferences for ethnic tribune parties who position themselves as the most strident protectors of, and flagbearers for, their respective ethnic groups. Previous studies on this topic have come to rival conclusions, with some finding that increased intergroup contact and residential mixing produce a corresponding increase in support for tribune parties and others finding the opposite. This study uses a combination of data from elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998 to 2017 and survey data from 2016 to evaluate these rival arguments and assess the extent to which the broader institutional and demographic context in which political competition takes place condition responses to intergroup contact. Our findings indicate that voters in both declining and ascending demographic groups respond similarly to intergroup contact, expressing less support for tribune parties in contexts where residential patterns and social networks provide more opportunities for intergroup contact. These results highlight the conditional nature of the effectiveness of consensus-based institutions in divided societies: they can create incentives for moderation, but those incentives are most likely to be realized in contexts where rival groups experience a high level of integration.
After the Resource Curse: The Unexplored Possibility of the Post-Rentier State International Studies Perspectives 19:2 (2018)
Existing theories of the rentier state are essentially static, but rentier states are not monolithic and unchanging; most have economies built on the extraction of non-renewable resources, and at some point those resources will be exhausted. What happens then? I argue that the case of Nauru may provide some guideposts. The existing concept of the rentier state is actually one component of a larger temporal typology. Rentier states can, and most will, eventually become post-rentier states. Post-rentier states have exhausted the resource wealth that formerly financed the state, and because of the perverse incentives of rentierism are ill equipped to function in the modern world economy. One of the paper's key contributions is in outlining a dynamic theory of the rentier state.
Zero-Sum of All Fears: Intergroup Threat, Contact, and Voting Behavior in Northern Ireland (with Donald Beaudette) European Political Science Review 9:1 (2017)
How do varying levels of inter-group contact affect voter preferences in connection with ethnically conservative political candidates and political parties? A broad range of scholars have wrestled with this question in a variety of social and political contexts, including the American South and India. Out of this research, two major competing hypotheses have emerged. The first, known as the group threat or racial threat hypothesis, argues that voters from an ethnic or religious majority in more ethnically or racially heterogeneous districts will exhibit stronger preferences for racially conservative political candidates. Conversely, the contact hypothesis argues that groups living in mixed localities are actually less likely to support ethnic conservatives and those in more homogenous localities are more likely to support ethnic conservatives. We test these conflicting hypotheses quantitatively on the case of Northern Ireland, looking at votes among Catholics for Sinn Fein and among Protestants for the Democratic Unionist Party using aggregate data from the 1981, 1991, and 2001 UK census. We conclude that the group threat hypothesis best explains votes for radical parties in Northern Ireland.
Linguistic Competition and Education Spending in Spain, 1992-2008 (with Donald Beaudette and Amy Liu) Social Science Journal 51:1 (2014)
Linguistic competition occurs when two or more linguistic groups vie against each other for resources from the same state. What are the effects of this competition on education spending? In this paper, we identify three types of competition (demographic, electoral, and curricular). Using a newly-constructed language-in-education measurement, we test the direct and indirect effects of each type of competition on spending at the subnational level for Spain (1992-2008). We find (1) demographic competition has an indirect effect on education spending; (2) electoral competition matters but the results are sensitive to model specification; and (3) curricular competition directly increases spending levels.
My Google Scholar page is here.
Over the past decade the partisan divide over environmental issues in the United States has widened significantly. Although attitudes toward climate change and other environmental policy issues have become highly polarized, it is possible that personal geography may moderate partisan attitudes. This study considers whether residing in coastal Virginia influences attitudes on environmental issues among Virginians. To test this question, we survey Virginia registered voters on a range of coastal environmental issues and consider whether place of residence has an effect on these attitudes when accounting for other factors including partisanship. We find a significant relationship between place of residence and a wide range of environmental issue attitudes, though the impact of partisanship is moderated in only limited cases. This research builds on the policy process literature concerning individual proximity to policy problems, place-attachment, and the relationship between partisanship and state environmental policy attitudes.
Judicial Activism and Ratification of Environmental Treaties Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Online FirstView
A key theory of environmental politics holds that states must achieve a certain level of economic development before environmental protection will occur. The assumption is that once people attain economic satisfaction, they are no longer willing to accept environmental degradation in return for a greater standard of living. Yet, numerous developing states ratify environmental treaties without achieving a median-level per-capita income. How do some states reach environmental goals that require some behavior change without the assumed demands of the citizenry? This paper argues that judicial autonomy may be the key to bringing environmental protection to the poorest states in the developing world. Activist judges, free of political interference, can push through policies that are unpopular but serve the greater good. Reacting to this, governments may be more likely to sign and ratify international environmental agreements. Using patterns of ratification for two conventions, I find evidence in favor of the hypothesis.
Examining the Impact of Institutions on Common-Pool Resource Problems: the EU's Common Fisheries Policy Journal of European Integration 42:2 (2020)
Why is there variation in the level of overfishing in European Union member states? The Common Fisheries Policy sets politically-negotiated quotas for fishing, but different states break the quotas at different levels. One answer for this variation lies within the domestic institutions of the member states themselves, in particular the incentives created by various electoral rules. Electoral rules which add more political parties to the decisionmaking process result in greater amounts of overfishing because smaller and smaller blocks of voters are more important in such instances. Evidence in favor of this theory comes from a unique window into fisheries compliance: the “scorecards” produced by the European Commission from 2001 to 2004.
Group Threat at the Ground Level: Support for Ethnically Radical Parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly (with Donald Beaudette) Political Research Quarterly 73:3 (2020)
Ethnic settlement patterns and other forms of everyday interethnic social contact have the potential to influence voter preferences for ethnic tribune parties who position themselves as the most strident protectors of, and flagbearers for, their respective ethnic groups. Previous studies on this topic have come to rival conclusions, with some finding that increased intergroup contact and residential mixing produce a corresponding increase in support for tribune parties and others finding the opposite. This study uses a combination of data from elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998 to 2017 and survey data from 2016 to evaluate these rival arguments and assess the extent to which the broader institutional and demographic context in which political competition takes place condition responses to intergroup contact. Our findings indicate that voters in both declining and ascending demographic groups respond similarly to intergroup contact, expressing less support for tribune parties in contexts where residential patterns and social networks provide more opportunities for intergroup contact. These results highlight the conditional nature of the effectiveness of consensus-based institutions in divided societies: they can create incentives for moderation, but those incentives are most likely to be realized in contexts where rival groups experience a high level of integration.
After the Resource Curse: The Unexplored Possibility of the Post-Rentier State International Studies Perspectives 19:2 (2018)
Existing theories of the rentier state are essentially static, but rentier states are not monolithic and unchanging; most have economies built on the extraction of non-renewable resources, and at some point those resources will be exhausted. What happens then? I argue that the case of Nauru may provide some guideposts. The existing concept of the rentier state is actually one component of a larger temporal typology. Rentier states can, and most will, eventually become post-rentier states. Post-rentier states have exhausted the resource wealth that formerly financed the state, and because of the perverse incentives of rentierism are ill equipped to function in the modern world economy. One of the paper's key contributions is in outlining a dynamic theory of the rentier state.
Zero-Sum of All Fears: Intergroup Threat, Contact, and Voting Behavior in Northern Ireland (with Donald Beaudette) European Political Science Review 9:1 (2017)
How do varying levels of inter-group contact affect voter preferences in connection with ethnically conservative political candidates and political parties? A broad range of scholars have wrestled with this question in a variety of social and political contexts, including the American South and India. Out of this research, two major competing hypotheses have emerged. The first, known as the group threat or racial threat hypothesis, argues that voters from an ethnic or religious majority in more ethnically or racially heterogeneous districts will exhibit stronger preferences for racially conservative political candidates. Conversely, the contact hypothesis argues that groups living in mixed localities are actually less likely to support ethnic conservatives and those in more homogenous localities are more likely to support ethnic conservatives. We test these conflicting hypotheses quantitatively on the case of Northern Ireland, looking at votes among Catholics for Sinn Fein and among Protestants for the Democratic Unionist Party using aggregate data from the 1981, 1991, and 2001 UK census. We conclude that the group threat hypothesis best explains votes for radical parties in Northern Ireland.
Linguistic Competition and Education Spending in Spain, 1992-2008 (with Donald Beaudette and Amy Liu) Social Science Journal 51:1 (2014)
Linguistic competition occurs when two or more linguistic groups vie against each other for resources from the same state. What are the effects of this competition on education spending? In this paper, we identify three types of competition (demographic, electoral, and curricular). Using a newly-constructed language-in-education measurement, we test the direct and indirect effects of each type of competition on spending at the subnational level for Spain (1992-2008). We find (1) demographic competition has an indirect effect on education spending; (2) electoral competition matters but the results are sensitive to model specification; and (3) curricular competition directly increases spending levels.
My Google Scholar page is here.