State Political Characteristics Research Articles

State Supplemental Benefits for Informal Kinship Caregivers: A Comparative Policy Analysis

Kinship caregivers raise relative children who are unable to be cared for by their parents. Most kinship caregiving takes place outside the child welfare system (“informal” care), meaning that caregivers do not have access to foster care payments to offset the costs of child rearing. The main source of financial support for informal kinship caregivers is Child-Only TANF, which is inadequate to meet the full range of caregiver needs. To address this funding gap, the authors present a comparative policy analysis of seven programs in six states that have implemented supplemental state funds for informal kinship caregivers. The authors analyze key features of each program and compare the socioeconomic and political characteristics of states that offer supplemental caregiver benefits to those of states that do not. Recommendations for policy and practice are discussed.

“Don't Say Gay”: The influence of state political factors

AbstractRecently, several states have introduced legislation designed to limit discussion around sexual orientation and gender identification. These types of legislation have been widely referred to as “Don't Say Gay” bills. Three state political characteristics: political culture, interparty competition, and general policy liberalism, which are deeply rooted in the political science literature, were used to examine a state's tendency to introduce or pass “Don't Say Gay” legislation. By using these variables, the state was not viewed in the Democratic/Republican dichotomy but rather by aspects enshrined in the state's political system. Using correlation analysis, the results from this study show that all three state political variables are correlated with introducing or passing a “Don't Say Gay” bill, while binary logistic regression results show that only political culture and interparty competition are statistically significant predictors of a state introducing or passing a “Don't Say Gay” bill.

Campus Reopening in Fall 2020: Linked More to Political Leadership and Institutional Characteristics than to COVID-19 Pandemic Severity

The COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to reexamine their modes of instruction for the Fall 2020 semester. Some institutions chose to reopen for in-person instruction, others chose online or hybrid modalities. Leveraging data for 2,458 colleges and universities, we examined how political, epidemiological, economic, and institutional characteristics correlated with Fall 2020 reopening plans. We found no discernible relationship between county-level or state-level COVID-19 case counts and reopening plans. Campus demographics (such as White student enrollment) and state political characteristics were related to campus mode of instruction decisions for Fall 2020. The findings highlight the continued, and perhaps increasing, relevance of sociopolitical factors to higher education leaders’ decisions.

Environmental standards and political federalism: Do labor legislations matter?

The relevance of labor laws in affecting the environment has not been adequately addressed in the literature. Employing data on Indian states for 1981–2000, the results appear to suggest that different labor laws exert an uneven impact on the environment, either directly or in association with state political characteristics. Importantly, we also find strong complementarities between dispute resolution mechanism and other relevant labor laws.

The Politics of Public College Tuition and State Financial Aid

What explains the different levels of tuition and financial aid observed in the United States? This study hypothesizes that state-level political characteristics account for much of the variation observed. Of particular importance are the ideology of state legislators and the relative influence of public and private institutions. Estimates of a simultaneous equation model utilizing panel data for 47 states over 15 years supports the hypothesis that state political characteristics are associated with the observed differences in tuition and financial aid across states.

State political culture and support for Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries

Though ideologically similar, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appealed to different types of voters in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and demographically the candidates’ support varied considerably. Relative to the demographics of the primary electorates, however, we find that state political culture played an outsized role in determining which candidate emerged victorious in a particular state. When the size of demographic groups in the 2008 Democratic primaries are utilized in ordinary least squares regression models as independent variables with state political characteristics and Daniel Elazar's state political culture typology, political culture proves to be an important determinant of the level of support given to Obama in a state. States that are characterized by a more moralistic political culture are more likely to have given Obama a greater share of the primary vote and states that are characterized by a more traditionalistic or individualistic culture were less likely to support Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

Uniting Secondary and Postsecondary Education: An Event History Analysis of State Adoption of Dual Enrollment Policies

This study, as the first empirical test of P–16 policy antecedents, reports the findings from an event history analysis of the origins of state dual enrollment policies adopted between 1976 and 2005. First, what characteristics of states are associated with the adoption of these policies? Second, to what extent do conventional theories on policy adoption help explain the rise of dual enrollment? We find state political characteristics, organizational structures, and policy conditions are associated with the spread of dual enrollment policies. Also, some states appear to have a climate for reform activity, resulting in a tendency to engage in innovative education policy making.

Sources of Variation in the Frequency of Statewide Initiatives: The Role of Interest Group Populations

In this article I study the factors that determine the number of initiatives that appear on statewide ballots, with an emphasis on the characteristics of state interest group populations. In particular, I test whether the size of state citizen or economic group populations influences the frequency of initiative use. The relationship between these two categories of groups and initiative use is important in light of recent claims that the initiative process no longer benefits citizen groups and is now dominated by economic interests. In addition, I consider the role of other factors, including initiative regulations, state political characteristics, state economic performance and state demographic characteristics. My results indicate that states with more citizen groups have more initiatives overall and in specific issue areas and that the number of economic groups has a negative or negligible effect.

State Experimentation With Time-Limited AFDC Benefits: What Differentiates Reform-Minded States From Others?

This study examines states' experimentation with time-limited Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits prior to the passage of the 1996 welfare reform legislation. The data reveal substantial variation in states' definitions of time-limited benefits adopted under the federal waivers. Some states adopted a "2 years and you're out" policy (i.e., AFDC cash benefits would be cut off), whereas others interpreted time limits much more leniently. Next, this study examines the economic, social, and political characteristics of states most likely associated with their adoption of this policy, both broadly and narrowly defined. The findings suggest that ability to pay, willingness to pay and political climate are among the factors that distinguish "reform-minded" states from others. These same factors are likely to be importantfollowing the 1996 legislation, as states assume much greater control than in the past m designing their welfare plans.

Explaining Cross-State Variation in Independent Identification

The proportion of a state's residents who consider themselves to be independents varies vastly across the states, from a high of 60 percent in Rhode Island to a low of 20 percent in South Dakota. The state-level nature of independence has been ignored by those studying partisanship, who view independence as an isolated individual phenomenon, and by those studying state politics, who examine interparty competition instead. The analysis presented in this article demonstrates that the cross-state variation in independent identification is due to variations in state political characteristics such as interparty competition, organizational strength of parties, type of primary, and primary turnout. However, the effects of these variables are not uniform across all the states. Rather, the effects of interparty competition are specified by region, and primary turnout is only significant in southern states.

Malapportionment and Roll-Call Voting in Indiana, 1923-1963: A Computer Simulation

Previous articleNext article No AccessMalapportionment and Roll-Call Voting in Indiana, 1923-1963: A Computer SimulationC. Richard HofstetterC. Richard Hofstetter Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 33, Number 1Feb., 1971 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2128534 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1971 Southern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Eric M. Uslaner Comparative State Policy Formation, Interparty Competition, and Malapportionment: A New Look at "V. O. Key's Hypotheses", The Journal of Politics 40, no.22 (Oct 2015): 409–432.https://doi.org/10.2307/2130094Horst-Dieter Rönsch Zur Anwendung von Simulationsmodellen in der Sozialgeschichtlichen Forschung, (Jan 1972): 200–220.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-83551-2_9