Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions

Transcription

1 Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions Vanderbilt University Year-end Review

2 Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI) is a non-partisan multidisciplinary research program that was established at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2009 to support systematic theoretical and empirical research on questions central to the health and survival of democratic institutions in the United States and abroad. As we enter the 21st century, civil society is faced with a wide range of social, economic, and political changes that naturally lead to conflicts between various public and private interests. The aim of the center is to support an intellectual environment that will provide insights into how different political institutions, meaning those arenas within which these conflicts can be resolved, can effectively structure political debate, ameliorate conflicts, and influence policy outcomes. Since its inception in the fall of 2009, the center has expanded in several directions, both in regards to its staff and programmatic focus. The center is currently run by an executive committee consisting of five co-directors: Professor Larry M. Bartels, the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Sciences; Associate Professor Joshua D. Clinton; John G. Geer, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science; David E. Lewis, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Political Science; and Associate Professor Alan E. Wiseman. All members of the executive committee make programmatic decisions jointly, with one member of the committee serving as a lead co-director on a rotating basis to oversee the day-to-day operations of the center and execute the decisions of the executive committee. Alan Wiseman served as the lead co-director for the academic year. The center is staffed by Program Coordinator Jayne Cornwell, who handles many of the day-to-day administrative duties that come with running CSDI. Additionally, Ms. Cornwell helps plan public events, maintains the CSDI website, and serves as a liaison between CSDI and external stakeholders. The center supports four graduate student affiliates that have offices within CSDI, and also it supports and houses several post-doctoral fellows. For the academic year, four post-doctoral fellows were in residence at CSDI. The activities of CSDI are organized around four distinct research concentrations that are established and re-evaluated on a five-year cycle. For the academic years , the center is focusing on the following concentrations: Legislative Politics and Policymaking (LPP), Executive Politics and Regulatory Policymaking (EPRP), Elections and Electoral Rules (EER), and Media and Democratic Systems of Governance (MDSG). To facilitate and publicize research in these different areas, CSDI supports a wide range of outreach efforts, including the hosting of weekly academic lunchtime seminars, topicfocused academic conferences, and general-interest public events and workshops. CSDI also aids in the production of working papers and policy briefs and hosts scholars-in-residence who are pursuing their own research projects while visiting. During the course of the academic year, the center supports a wide range of activities to achieve three fundamental and interrelated goals. First, CSDI seeks to be the primary nexus for the generation of new cutting-edge research on political institutions and public policy related to those institutions at Second, CSDI seeks to promote the research activities of its co-directors and other affiliates to academic and non-academic audiences. It is the hope of the co-directors that CSDI will be a valuable resource to scholars, journalists, and other members of the public who are interested in the wide range of topics that are studied at the center. CSDI aims to be readily available to help inform the political and policy debates involving political institutions and democracy. Third, the center seeks to be a valuable resource for the teaching and training of graduate and undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University who have interests in political institutions. By guiding graduate students in their curriculum and supervising them in their work, CSDI will ensure that the next generation of scholars is able to conduct research on political institutions at the frontier of current knowledge. Moreover, by involving undergraduates in CSDI s activities, students are exposed to the scientific study of politics and are provided with a greater appreciation of the influence of political institutions on contemporary policy debates. In the pages that follow, we provide further information about the organizational structure of CSDI, the activities that were conducted by CSDI during the academic year, and plans about future activities that will be supported by CSDI. 1

3 Executive Committee Larry M. Bartels Joshua D. Clinton John G. Geer The Executive Committee of CSDI consists of five faculty members whose primary appointments at Vanderbilt University are in the Department of Political Science and whose research interests collectively span the full array of the four research concentrations of CSDI. They pursue very active research agendas and collectively contribute to numerous outreach efforts as part of CSDI. The complete list of their activities for the academic year can be found in Appendix A. Larry M. Bartels (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Sciences, and joined the Vanderbilt faculty (and CSDI) in fall (He came from Princeton University, where he was the Donald E. Stokes Professor of Public and International Affairs.) His primary research interests focus on American democracy, including public opinion, electoral politics, public policy, and representation. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and three books on these topics. His most recent book, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton University Press, 2008) won the Gladys M. Kammerer Award for the year s best book on U.S. national policy. It also appeared on David Leonhardt s Economics Books of the Year list in the New York Times, and was cited by (then-candidate) Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign trail. Bartels has served as vice president of the American Political Science Association (and also president of its Political Methodology section), chair of the Board of Overseers for the American National Election Studies, and he was the founding director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics in Princeton s Woodrow Wilson School. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the National Academy of Sciences. Joshua D. Clinton (Ph.D., Stanford University) is associate professor of political science and one of the founding co-directors of CSDI and joined the Vanderbilt faculty in (He came from Princeton University, where he was an associate professor of politics.) His primary research interests include the U.S. Congress, campaigns, elections, the testing of theories using statistical models, and the uses and abuses of statistical methods for understanding political phenomena. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on these topics in prominent political science journals and other outlets. He has held visiting fellowships at the Wallis Institute at the University of Rochester and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Since 2010, he has been a Decision Desk analyst for NBC News in New York City, where he has been involved in covering and analyzing congressional and presidential election returns on election night. He is currently a co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and along with John Geer, he is a co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, which is administered through CSDI. John G. Geer (Ph.D., Princeton University) is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science (with a secondary appointment in the Peabody College of Education and Human Development) and one of the founding co-directors of CSDI. He has been a member of the Vanderbilt faculty since 1995 when he arrived from Arizona State University where he was an associate professor of political science. His primary research interests are American politics, with a focus on elections, public opinion, and political communication. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles on these topics and has published several books, including In Defense of Negativity (University of Chicago Press, 2006). He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards at Vanderbilt University and has held visiting fellowships at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. He was the editor of the Journal of Politics from 2005 to 2009 and is currently the chair of the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt. Along with Josh Clinton, he is also a co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, which is administered through CSDI. David E. Lewis Alan E. Wiseman Jayne Cornwell David E. Lewis (Ph.D., Stanford University) is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Political Science (with a secondary appointment in law) and one of the founding codirectors of CSDI. He joined the Vanderbilt faculty in the fall of 2008, when he arrived from Princeton University where he was an assistant professor of politics and public affairs. His primary research interests include the presidency, executive branch politics, and public administration. He is the author of two books and numerous articles and book chapters on these topics. His most recent book, The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton University Press, 2008), received the Herbert A. Simon Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association s Public Administration Section and the Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association s Presidency Research Section. He is the recipient of the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Vanderbilt University and is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration (he was elected in 2012). He is currently on the editorial board of Public Administration and served as associate chair of the Department of Political Science from 2010 to Alan E. Wiseman (Ph.D., Stanford University) is associate professor of political science (with a secondary appointment in law) and joined the Vanderbilt faculty (and CSDI) in fall (He came from The Ohio State University where he was an associate professor of political science and the director of the public policy minor in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.) His primary research interests revolve around American political institutions and positive political economy, with a substantive focus on legislative politics, regulation and bureaucratic politics, and business government relations. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on these topics and is the author of The Internet Economy: Access, Taxes, and Market Structure (Brookings Institution Press, 2000). He has held a visiting fellowship at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and is currently on the editorial boards of American Politics Research, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. Prior to joining the academy, he served as a visiting economic scholar at the United States Federal Trade Commission, and during the academic year, he served as the lead co-director of CSDI. In addition to the five co-directors, Jayne Cornwell (B.A., Belmont University; M.A., Middle Tennessee State University) serves as the program coordinator for CSDI. She has been part of the Vanderbilt community for more than 10 years and has held previous positions as special events coordinator in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Public Affairs, and Department of Student Athletics. She is responsible for many of the day-to-day administrative duties that come with running the center, which include managing event logistics, maintaining the CSDI website, and serving as a liaison between CSDI and external stakeholders. 2 3

4 Claire Abernathy Evan Haglund CSDI Graduate Affiliates and Post-Doctoral Fellows CSDI currently supports several graduate students (referred to as CSDI graduate affiliates) and post-doctoral fellows during each academic year. The graduate affiliates range in their tenure from being in their second year in the Ph.D. program up to advanced degree candidates, and the topics of their dissertation research (and other projects) are closely related to the research foci of CSDI. CSDI graduate affiliates work closely with at least one CSDI co-director, attend CSDI-sponsored events, and are given opportunities for research promotion and support. In addition to having research interests related to the core foci of CSDI, all CSDI graduate affiliates are tied together by a common methodological training. More specifically, all CSDI graduate affiliates are expected to have successfully completed (or be in the process of taking) the entire empirical methods sequence offered in the Department of Political Science, the introductory formal theory course, in addition to the advanced formal theory and/or experimental methods courses offered in the Department of Political Science (or equivalent coursework). The CSDI graduate affiliates for the academic year were all students in the Department of Political Science, and the complete list of their activities can be found in Appendix B. Claire Abernathy (B.A., Furman University; M.A., The Ohio State University) is a doctoral candidate in political science who has research interests in legislative institutions and representation. She is completing her dissertation under the direction of Co-Director Alan Wiseman and is analyzing the different ways that legislative offices in Washington, D.C., receive, process, and use constituency correspondence and how these different processing methods affect constituent representative relationships. Gary Hollibaugh Saul Jackman Gary Hollibaugh (Ph.D., University of Rochester) has research interests in executive and legislative politics, and his dissertation focuses on how institutional rules affect executive decision making in the United States, with a substantive focus on the appointment process. Beginning in fall 2013, he will be taking a position as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia. Saul Jackman (Ph.D., Stanford University) has research interests in executive politics, and is the coauthor (along with William G. Howell and Jon C. Rogowski) of The Wartime President (University of Chicago Press, 2013). In July 2013, he assumed the position of research fellow in the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Joshua Murray (Ph.D., Stony Brook University) is a sociologist by training and has research interests in political and economic sociology, organizational theory, historical and comparative sociology, and social movements. His dissertation focuses on the interlocking networks among high-ranking executives in global corporations. Beginning in fall 2013, he will be taking a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Sarah Niebler (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) has research interests in political behavior, campaigns, elections, and public opinion. Her dissertation examines the structure and substance of presidential nominating contests, and she has published several peerreviewed articles on these topics. Beginning in fall 2013, she will be taking a position as an assistant professor of political science at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Evan Haglund (B.A., University of Chicago) is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science and has research interests in executive politics, bureaucracy, and public administration. CSDI Visiting Scholars Mark Richardson Jennifer L. Selin Mark Richardson (B.S., University of Tennessee at Martin; M.P.A., Columbia University) is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science and has research interests in executive politics, bureaucracy, and regulation. Jennifer L. Selin (B.A., Lebanon Valley College; J.D., Wake Forest University) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science and has research interests in executive politics, bureaucracy, and public administration. She is completing her dissertation under the direction of Co-Director David Lewis, and her dissertation focuses on how differences in the internal features of administrative agencies influence the extent of political control exercised by the president and Congress. In addition to these graduate affiliates, CSDI supports at least two post-doctoral fellows every academic year. Post-doctoral fellows spend a year in residence at CSDI and are selected based on a competitive application process. Post-doctoral fellowships come with no teaching obligations, but fellows are expected to remain in residence during the academic year and participate in the weekly CSDI seminar (including at least one presentation of their research in the seminar). Several fellows also collaborate with the CSDI co-directors and graduate affiliates on new research projects that are related to at least one of the research foci of CSDI. During the academic year, CSDI supported four post-doctoral fellows, and a list of their activities can be found in Appendix B. Joshua Murray Sarah Niebler In addition to supporting graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, CSDI offers the opportunity for senior scholars at other universities to visit the center for up to a full academic year. The center covers the visitors travel and living expenses during their time in residence and provides them with office space and computing facilities. Visitors are expected to remain in residence during the period of their visit, to participate in the CSDI weekly seminar (if their visit is occurring during the academic year), and to present their own work in the seminar (if scheduling permits). Visiting scholars are selected as the result of a competitive application process based on how well their proposed research correlates with the center s research, and of course, the relevant space and budget constraints during the time of the proposed visit. During the academic year, CSDI hosted three visiting scholars: Laurel Harbridge (Ph.D., Stanford University) is an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University who studies the United States Congress, congressional elections, political parties, and public policy. She visited CSDI for approximately one month during fall During her time at CSDI she corresponded with Co-Directors Alan Wiseman and Josh Clinton, as well as several members of the Department of Political Science faculty, to obtain feedback on her book manuscript that explores the prospects for bipartisanship in today s U.S. Congress. 4 5

5 Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action. Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt logo are registered trademarks and service marks of Produced by Vanderbilt University Creative Services and Vanderbilt Printing Services, This publication is recyclable. Please recycle it. The Miller-Stokes conference was co-sponsored with Vanderbilt Law School and brought together more than 60 invited attendees from 27 universities to explore the legacy of the seminal political science article Constituency Influence in Congress. Jennifer Merolla (Ph.D., Duke University) is an associate professor of politics and policy at Claremont Graduate University who studies how the political environment shapes individual attitudes and behavior. She visited CSDI for approximately three weeks during fall During her time at CSDI she collaborated with Co-Director John Geer and Associate Professor of Political Science Brett Benson on an ongoing research project on the role of anti-mormon bias in presidential elections; she also corresponded with frequent collaborator Associate Professor of Political Science Elizabeth Zechmeister about a series of ongoing projects. Alexander Theodoridis (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Merced, who studies American politics, political behavior, and electoral institutions. He visited CSDI for two months during the summer of During his time at CSDI he corresponded with all of the co-directors to obtain feedback on several ongoing research projects, and he presented his work in the Summer Behavioral Research Group Colloquium, which is directed by Professor Cindy Kam (Department of Political Science). CSDI Faculty Affiliates To build bridges between CSDI and scholars across the Vanderbilt campus who share similar research interests, CSDI has cultivated relationships with a collection of faculty in departments outside of political science who are collectively known as CSDI faculty affiliates. There are currently 22 CSDI faculty affiliates drawn from: the Departments of Communication Studies, Economics, English, History, Mathematics, and Sociology, the Owen Graduate School of Management, Peabody College, and Vanderbilt Law School. CSDI faculty affiliates are invited to all CSDI-sponsored events and they are expected to present their research in at least one weekly seminar every five years. CSDI also makes efforts to promote the faculty affiliates research by way of the CSDI Working Paper Series, the CSDI Policy Brief Series, and the CSDI website. A complete list of current CSDI faculty affiliates can be found in Appendix C. CSDI Seminar Series and Conferences As part of the effort to cultivate new research in CSDI s areas of concentrations, the center hosts a lunchtime seminar nearly every Friday during the fall and spring semesters. The seminar speakers are drawn either from the Vanderbilt community (i.e., CSDI co-directors, graduate affiliates, postdoctoral fellows, etc.) or from external institutions. A complete list of the weekly seminars that were held this past academic year is provided in Appendix D. As is evident from the list, a wide range of topics are explored during the seminars, ranging from the scope of presidential influence during wars (i.e., William G. Howell on September 21, 2012) to the relationships between campaigning and governing in the contemporary U.S. Senate (i.e., Frances E. Lee on April 5, 2013). POLITICAL REPRESENTATION March 1-2, 2013 Flynn Auditorium, Vanderbilt University Law School damentals of book publishing, which was open to all political science students, CSDIaffiliated students, and post-doctoral fellows. The complete program and list of attendees can be found in Appendix E. The second substantial academic conference took place on March 1 2, 2013, and was titled Political Representation 50 Years after Miller and Stokes. The conference was co-sponsored with Vanderbilt Law School and brought together more than 60 invited attendees from 27 universities to explore the legacy of the seminal political science article Constituency Influence in Congress, which was co-authored by Warren Miller and Donald Stokes and published in the American Political Science Review in In addition to presenting and discussing original scholarly papers that related to questions of political representation, the conference provided an opportunity for Bingham G. Powell, the Marie C. Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and the president of the American Political Science Association (APSA), to give his annual presidential address. (The address was meant to be delivered at the 2012 Annual APSA meeting, but was unfortunately cancelled when the annual meetings were cancelled due to severe weather in New Orleans over the Labor Day weekend.) A dinner reception after the first night of the conference was held at the Chancellor s residence, and a copy of the program and list of attendees can be found in Appendix F. Other Public Events As part of the effort to promote research on political institutions and make it accessible to a broad audience, CSDI supports and participates in several public events that are geared towards student and/or more general-interest audiences (rather than what is typically encountered at an academic conference). Given that 2012 was an election year, the topics that are studied by CSDI-affiliated scholars were of particular interest to several audiences. In fall 2012, CSDI co-sponsored (along with the First Amendment Center and the Vanderbilt Speakers Committee) the 2012 Election Series, which was held at the First Amendment Center and brought three prominent figures in journalism and electoral campaigns to discuss the contemporary political environment with John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, in sessions that were moderated by Co-Director John Geer. The first event in the series brought Amy Walter, the political director of ABC- News.com to campus, while the second event brought Republican campaign strategist Fred Davis. The third event brought former Newsweek editor and Pulitzer Prize winning biographer John Meacham, who discussed his perspectives on the presidential admin- In addition to hosting a weekly seminar series, CSDI also aims to sponsor at least one substantial conference each academic year that is organized around a specific topic of inquiry. In the academic year, CSDI co-hosted two such conferences. First, on October 5 6, 2012, CSDI co-sponsored a workshop on Larry Bartels s Unequal Democracy, which brought more than 10 scholars from various institutions to Vanderbilt to analyze and discuss each chapter of Unequal Democracy and also to highlight points that might be worthy of further exploration in a new edition of the book. The workshop was open to Department of Political Science faculty and graduate students; several political science faculty members participated in sessions. In addition, the Department of Political Science took advantage of Princeton University Press s political science editor Chuck Myers being on campus for the book conference to host a seminar on the fun- 6 7

6 The first event in the 2012 Election Series brought Amy Walter, the political director of ABCNews.com to campus, while the second event brought Republican campaign strategist Fred Davis. The third event brought former Newsweek editor and Pultizer Prizewinning biographer John Meacham. istration of Thomas Jefferson and its relevance to contemporary electoral politics. A dinner reception was held at the residence of the dean of The Ingram Commons (Associate Professor of History Frank Wcislo) following the Meacham event, where a group of first-year undergraduates had the opportunity to interact with Meacham and a collection of faculty, including several of the CSDI co-directors. In October 2012, CSDI co-sponsored a Federal Forum panel discussion with Vanderbilt s Office of Federal Relations, which focused on the impending election and the likely political outcomes under a lame-duck congress. Co-Directors Larry Bartels, Josh Clinton, and John Geer represented CSDI in the discussion. That same evening, Co-Directors Larry Bartels and Josh Clinton, along with Professor Marc Hetherington (Department of Political Science), participated in a student-led question-and-answer session on the forthcoming election in a Vandy Votes event at The Commons Center, which was co-sponsored by CSDI, Hank Ingram Hall, and the dean of The Ingram Commons. Also in October 2012, CSDI co-sponsored (along with the Owen Graduate School of Management) the screening of two political campaign oriented films in the VU International Lens film series. The Candidate (1972) was introduced by CSDI Affiliate Bruce Barry (Brownlee O. Currey, Jr., Professor of Management at the Owen School); and following the screening of the film, a post-film discussion took place between Professor Barry, Co-Director John Geer, and members of the audience. The second film, Primary Colors (1998), was also introduced by Professor Barry, with Professor Barry and Co-Director Alan Wiseman facilitating a post-film discussion with audience members. In January 2013, Co-Director David Lewis served as a speaker in the Vanderbilt University Lunch and Learn lecture series, which is organized by the Vanderbilt Office of Community, Neighborhood, and Government Relations. Addressing a packed audience at the Nashville Public Library downtown, Professor Lewis discussed contemporary presidential politics, with a specific focus on what issues President Obama might be expected to engage during his second term. In early March 2013, CSDI hosted an afternoon meet-and-greet session between Vanderbilt undergraduates, faculty, and former U.S. Senator and U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland George Mitchell. Senator Mitchell, who was on campus to participate in the Vanderbilt IMPACT Symposium, spoke with students and faculty in an informal format about his perspectives on contemporary political issues and debates. In March and April 2013, Co-Directors Josh Clinton, John Geer, David Lewis, and Alan Wiseman, and CSDI Affiliate Jason Grissom (assistant professor of public policy and education at Peabody) participated in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute lecture series to present a total of six lectures that collectively spoke to Governing in an Era of Polarization in Washington and Beyond. The topics of the individual talks ranged from the effectiveness of female lawmakers to methods for increasing accountability in Tennessee schools. The Vanderbilt Poll One of the most notable ways that CSDI has helped to inform the debate over contemporary political issues is through its support of the Vanderbilt Poll. In January 2011, CSDI launched the Vanderbilt Poll, which surveys individuals 18 and older who are residents of the state of Tennessee. The goal was and is to provide a non-partisan and scientifically based reading of public opinion within the state. The Vanderbilt Poll is bi-annual with surveys conducted prior to the start of the state legislative session and at its conclusion. There are occasional surveys around important elections (such as the February 2012 Republican Presidential Primary Poll), but the focus is to accurately measure what Tennesseans think about important state and national issues and then make that information available to citizens, policy-makers, and scholars. CSDI Co-Directors Joshua Clinton and John Geer have served as co-directors of the Vanderbilt Poll since its inception. To ensure that the VU Poll identifies the most important issues facing the state and asks questions that avoid ideological bias, Clinton and Geer have appointed a bi-partisan board of advisers to provide guidance on the poll; and the board evaluates the poll prior to its going in the field. CSDI conducted the fifth and sixth Vanderbilt Polls during the academic year (in December 2012 and May 2013, respectively). The results of both polls were initially presented at news conferences at Vanderbilt, which were managed by VU News and Communications; the results were then posted online at the CSDI website. In addition to presenting their findings to the Tennessee Press Association in December 2012 and the Associated Press in 2013, Clinton and Geer have also provided a report of the poll results to Governor Bill Haslam s office following each poll and met with members of his staff. Clinton and Geer have also met with U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander and his chief of staff, as well as U.S. Senator Bob Corker s chief of staff to discuss the poll results. 8 9

7 Results from the Vanderbilt/ YouGov Ad Rating Project provided journalists, pundits, and interested citizens with some of the first real-time public opinion analysis of actual voters of campaign commercials in real time. Promotion of Research and Outreach In addition to the various seminars, conferences, and public events that were sponsored and/or co-sponsored by CSDI in the past academic year, the center also took steps to promote the research of its co-directors and its affiliates. For academically oriented audiences, CSDI has continued to promote new and cuttingedge research through its working paper series. All CSDI-affiliated scholars are encouraged to submit drafts of manuscripts that they are ready to put into the public domain for consideration for inclusion in the working paper series, and if accepted, the working papers are posted to the CSDI website. During the academic year, 15 new working papers were added to the working paper series and they draw on topics that covered each of the research concentrations that are promoted by CSDI. A complete list of the new working papers can be found in Appendix G. In an effort to make the research of CSDI-affiliated scholars more readily accessible to external audiences (particularly those research activities that have clear policy-relevant implications), CSDI began a new enterprise during the academic year: the creation of a policy brief series. All CSDI affiliates who have completed a recent policy-relevant study (be it published or in working paper format) are encouraged to submit the study for consideration as the foundation for a CSDI policy brief. A team of CSDI graduate affiliates reads the studies and writes 1,000-to-1,500-word summaries that identify the main findings and policy implications of the scholarship. The graduate affiliates are supervised by Co-Director Alan Wiseman, who edits the briefs and has worked with Vanderbilt University Creative Services to format these policy briefs into an attractive, deliverable presentation that is posted on the CSDI website. The policy briefs are forwarded to Vanderbilt University News and Communications, where they might provide the foundation for more extensive stories (and are subsequently circulated to media outlets). The briefs are also circulated to representatives from Vanderbilt s Office of Community, Neighborhood, and Government Relations, as well as Vanderbilt s Office of Federal Relations, where they are often incorporated into the VU Brief Newsletter that is circulated around Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The first policy brief was released in January 2013, and seven were released by the close of the academic year. A complete list of the policy briefs can be found in Appendix H, and they focus on topics ranging from presidential staffing of the executive branch, to the effects of third-party litigation funding in tort litigation. One policy brief in particular, ( : The Legislative Productivity of Congressional Women ) based on a study that was co-authored by Co-Director Alan Wiseman, received notable media attention, including being the focus of a front-page story in the New York Times in March In addition to the research activities of CSDI affiliates that have been promoted through the working paper and policy brief series, there are several notable research endeavors that have been undertaken during the past academic year and deserve further mention here. In July 2012, CSDI, under the direction of Co-Director John Geer, partnered with You- Gov, a prominent survey research firm, to launch the Vanderbilt University/YouGov Ad Rating Project in an effort to ascertain voters reactions to various campaign advertisements in the midst of the presidential campaign season. In the months leading up to the presidential election, YouGov exposed a representative sample of 600 Americans (with an over-sample of 200 pure independents) to campaign advertisements and asked them a series of questions, including how the ads made them feel, how believable the ads were, and the like. The polls were usually conducted within 36 hours of the debut of an ad and results were posted online at the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project website (my.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbiltyougovadratingproject). In addition to creating a unique data source for future scholarship on the role and impact of campaign advertisements in electoral politics, the results provided journalists, pundits, and interested citizens with some of the first real-time public opinion analysis of actual voters of campaign commercials in real time. Another notable project that was undertaken during this past academic year was the creation of the Sourcebook of United States State Executive Agencies, which Co-Director David Lewis had been requested to write by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). Throughout the summer of 2012, Professor Lewis oversaw a team of graduate student research assistants who helped to identify 55 different statutory characteristics of bureaucratic organization and how they related to 10 agencies in the Executive Office of the President, 15 executive departments, and 81 independent agencies. The final report, which was coauthored by Professor Lewis and CSDI Graduate Affiliate Jennifer Selin, was released in December 2012, and was delivered by Lewis and Selin to a plenary session of ACUS. In addition to the report, an electronic database was released with information on all federal agencies and their characteristics on the CSDI website for public access (vanderbilt.edu/csdi/sourcebook.php). A third notable development followed up on an earlier CSDI-sponsored event. In July 2013, a special issue of the Journal of Theoretical Politics (JTP) was published, containing a collection of revised papers that had been presented at the 2011 CSDI-cosponsored conference on Government Expertise: Information and Political Institutions. The motivation for the 2011 conference was to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the publication of Collective Decision-Making and Standing Committees: An Informational Rationale for Restrictive Amendment Procedures by Tom Gilligan and Keith Krehbiel in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization and to discuss how the field had evolved in its treatment and understanding of the role of information in political institutions. The conference brought together a collection of more than 60 scholars from the United States and Europe from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, economics, law, and business. Several of the scholars who presented original research at this conference revised their manuscripts for inclusion in the special issue of JTP, which was guestedited by CSDI Co-Director Alan Wiseman, who provided an introductory essay for the issue. Finally, it is worth noting the extensive amount of media coverage that the CSDI codirectors and affiliates drew during this past academic year. Despite being on research leave, Larry Bartels gave frequent interviews to national and international news outlets, and he was a frequent contributor to The Monkey Cage (themonkeycage.org) political science blog. In addition to numerous local television broadcasts and stories composed by VU News and Communications, CSDI co-directors and their research were featured in 13 multimedia spots, 24 op-eds and/or blog postings, and 24 print and/or Internetbased news stories in national and international media outlets

8 Future Directions for CSDI The academic year will be a very busy time for CSDI, with several visitors spending time in residence at the center and numerous events currently being planned. On the research side, the co-directors are involved in several projects that will be moving towards publication. Larry Bartels is studying the politics of austerity in the wake of the Great Recession in the U.S. and elsewhere. His essay on The Political Effects of the Great Recession will appear later this year in a special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Also, a volume he edited with Nancy Bermeo of Oxford University entitled Mass Politics in Tough Times: Opinions, Votes and Protest in the Great Recession is scheduled for publication in December by Oxford University Press. Joshua Clinton is currently working on two projects related to the CSDI research aims. First, with collaborator John Lapinski (associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania), he is looking at polarization in the U.S. House and Senate since Reconstruction to explore the extent to which political polarization exists across different policy issue areas and the implications that such variation has, if any, on congressional lawmaking and position taking. The goal is to better understand the nature and extent of political polarization among elites and to use historical patterns to draw inferences about the likely consequences of current-day politics. Second, with CSDI Graduate Affiliate Mark Richardson, Clinton is exploring lawmaking efforts related to the creation and extension of charter schools by state governments since Drawing on this analysis, Clinton and Richardson are examining which features best explain the existence and magnitude of change in state laws governing charter schools and the extent to which such changes are related to the preferences of critical political actors and the institutional arrangements of the various state governments. John Geer is working on a series of papers on campaigns and advertising. One paper grapples with how best to define the term negativity, using an array of new data generated by the Vanderbilt/YouGov Ad Rating Project. Another paper looks at how citizens choose ads. The prevailing industry model for campaign advertisements considers a scenario where viewers do not have any choice instead, consultants do the choosing (deciding, in particular, where to air the ads). With the growth of Internet advertising, however, the public now plays an active and understudied role in the process, as well. Geer is also working on a series of papers that explore the scope of bias that Mormons face in elections, using the recent nomination of Mitt Romney as the basis for that study. Geer has also begun a new project, in collaboration with Joshua Clinton, about the power of micro-targeting, which will be developed in future years. David Lewis is working on two substantial projects that focus on agency performance in public bureaucracies. The first project, which is a collaborative effort with Charles Cameron (professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University) and John de Figueiredo (the Edward and Ellen Marie Schwarzman Professor of Law and professor of strategy and economics at Duke University), examines government agencies ability to recruit high-quality individual talent, to develop their employees expertise within those agencies, and to retain the best and brightest in government service. The second project is a collaborative effort with several CSDI graduate affiliates that seeks to identify measures of government performance that are comparable across different agencies and contexts in order to determine factors that can lead to high-performing public organizations. Alan Wiseman is completing a book manuscript, co-authored with Craig Volden (professor of public policy and politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia), on legislative effectiveness in the United States Congress. As part of the project, they have coded every bill that was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives between the 93rd and 110th Congress ( ) to develop legislative effectiveness scores for every member of the U.S. House of Representatives A group of Washington, D.C.-based political journalists will also be participating in the discussion, which will engage the ways that political scientists can help to inform those who cover politics in the media. during this time period. These scores are analyzed to identify why some representatives are more effective lawmakers than others and to explore what this variation implies for the creation of public policy in the United States. They are in the process of updating their data to the most recent 113th Congress, and upon publication of the book, all data will be posted on the CSDI website so that it is easily accessible to scholars and other interested members of the public. In August 2013, CSDI will welcome two new post-doctoral fellows who will be spending the academic year in residence at CSDI. Kathleen Doherty (Ph.D., University of Virginia) has research interests in executive and bureaucratic politics, with a substantive focus on Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy. She will be using her time at CSDI to work on several research projects that aim to understand how bureaucratic agencies generate expertise given limited resources and the constraints of the civil service system, focusing, in particular, on the role of advisory committees in lawmaking processes in the United States. Steven Rogers (Ph.D., Princeton University) has research interests in American politics and electoral politics. He will be using his time at CSDI to work on several projects that explore the nature of accountability in state legislative elections in the United States. In addition to these post-doctoral fellows, CSDI will be hosting several visiting scholars for portions of the academic year: Barbara Geddes, professor of political science at UCLA, will be spending the entire year in residence as a visiting professor. Professor Geddes is a leading scholar on democratization, authoritarian transitions, and political development, with a substantive focus on Latin American politics. She is the author of Politician s Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America (University of California Press, 1994) and Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics (University of Michigan Press, 2003), in addition to numerous articles in prominent political science journals. John Zaller, professor of political science at UCLA, will also be spending the entire year in residence as a visiting professor. Professor Zaller is among the foremost experts on the role of public opinion in American politics, and he is the author of several books, including the path-breaking The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge University Press, 1992), as well as numerous articles in prominent political science journals. Keith Krehbiel, the Edward B. Rust Professor of Political Science at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, will return to CSDI again (having visited twice before) to be in residence at CSDI for six weeks beginning in late-september Professor Krehbiel studies American political institutions with a particular focus on legislative politics, and he is the author of two award-winning books: Information and Legislative Organization (University of Michigan Press, 1991) and Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking (University of Chicago Press, 1998). In addition, he is the author of a wide array of peer-reviewed articles. Jonathan Woon, associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, is scheduled to spend the month of February 2014 in residence at CSDI. Professor Woon studies how strategic incentives that arise from political power and asymmetric information influence representation and policy outcomes through the use of laboratory experiments and the analysis of observational data. He has published several peer-reviewed articles on these topics in prominent political science outlets. In addition to these new visitors to CSDI, the center will continue to hold its weekly lunchtime seminar series, and CSDI affiliated scholars will continue to present their scholarship in various public forums. The Vanderbilt Poll will continue to be held (at least) twice a year, and plans are currently being developed for several substantial academically oriented conferences and more general-interest events for the public

9 14 During the fall semester, two events are being developed, which are co-sponsored by the First Amendment Center. The first event would bring Associate Professor of Political Science John Sides (of The George Washington University) and Associate Professor of Political Science Lynn Vavreck (of UCLA) to Vanderbilt to discuss their recent book on the 2012 presidential campaign, titled The Gamble. A group of Washington, D.C.-based political journalists will also be participating in the discussion, which will engage the ways that political scientists can help to inform those who cover politics in the media. The second event will aim to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address and will bring Lincoln biographer David Von Drehle, author of Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America s Most Perilous Year (2012), and other Lincoln scholars to campus to discuss Lincoln s place in the contemporary American polity. In December 2013, CSDI will co-sponsor a one-day workshop with Vanderbilt Law School on the topic of private governance. The goal of the workshop (organized by Co- Director Alan Wiseman and Professor Michael Vandenbergh of Vanderbilt Law School) will bring together a small group of scholars from economics, political science, and law and business schools who study the ways in which private interests can create rules of order that are substantively identical to public laws and regulations. Among the topics for exploration will be the efficacy of self-regulatory programs in different industries, the usefulness of third-party seal programs in contemporary markets, and the complementarities between public law and private rules and standards. The discussions at this workshop will hopefully pave the way for a more substantial conference on these topics that will be jointly sponsored by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University at a future date. During the spring semester (2014), Larry Bartels will be organizing an accountability and democracy workshop to explore a book manuscript that he is co-authoring with Christopher Achen, the Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences at Princeton University. Similar in format to the Unequal Democracy conference that was held this past academic year, this workshop will bring a collection of scholars to campus that are prominent contributors to accountability literature to discuss the manuscript and offer suggestions to the authors for their consideration before the manuscript is submitted for publication. As we look forward to the coming academic year, CSDI is excited to expand the scope of its activities to become an increasingly active presence both inside and outside the Vanderbilt community, and to provide informed, rigorous, and relevant insights on contemporary political and policy debates. [APPENDIX A] Professional Activities of CSDI Co-Directors PUBLICATIONS Bartels, Larry M., Mass Politics in Tough Times: Opinions, Votes and Protest in the Great Recession. (ed. with Nancy Bermeo.) New York: Oxford University Press. (accepted in 2013.) Bartels, Larry M., Mass Politics in Tough Times. (with Nancy Bermeo.) In Nancy Bermeo and Larry M. Bartels, eds., Mass Politics in Tough Times: Opinions, Votes and Protest in the Great Recession. New York: Oxford University Press. (accepted in 2013.) Bartels, Larry M., Ideology and Retrospection in Electoral Responses to the Great Recession. In Nancy Bermeo and Larry M. Bartels, eds., Mass Politics in Tough Times: Opinions, Votes and Protest in the Great Recession. New York: Oxford University Press. (accepted in 2013.) Bartels, Larry M., Political Effects of the Great Recession. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. (accepted in 2013.) Bartels, Larry M., A Generational Model of Political Learning. (with Simon Jackman.) Electoral Studies. (accepted in 2013.) Bartels, Larry M., Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans. (with Benjamin I. Page and Jason Seawright.) March, Perspectives on Politics 11 (1): Bartels, Larry M., The 1% Aren t Like the Rest of Us. (with Benjamin I. Page.) March 22, The Los Angeles Times. Bartels, Larry M., The Political Education of John Zaller Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 24 (4): Bartels, Larry M., A New Deal Fantasy Meets Old Political Realities In Theda Skocpol, Obama and America s Political Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Bartels, Larry M., The Muddled Majority. July/ August Boston Review. Clinton, Joshua D., Representation. (with Larry M. Bartels and John G. Geer.) In Robert C. Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, and Richard M. Valelly (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development. Clinton, Joshua D., Influencing the Bureaucracy: The Irony of Congressional Oversight. (with David E. Lewis and Jennifer L. Selin.) American Journal of Political Science. (accepted in [Formerly, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions Working Paper # ] Clinton, Joshua D., Robo-Polls: Taking Cues from Traditional Sources? (with Steve Rogers.) PS: Political Science & Politics. 46(2): Clinton, Joshua D., Where Measures Meet History: Party Polarization During the New Deal And Fair Deal. (with Ira Katznelson, and John S. Lapinski.). In Alan Gerber and Eric Schickler (eds.), Governing in a Polarized Age: Elections, Parties, and Representation in America. (accepted in 2013.) Clinton, Joshua D., Using Roll Call Estimates to Test Models of Politics Annual Review of Political Science. Vol. 15: Geer, John G., The News Media and the Rise of Negativity in Presidential Campaigns PS: Political Science. 45: Geer, John G., Negativity, Information, and Candidate Position-Taking. (with Lynn Vavreck.) Political Communication. (accepted in 2013.) Geer, John G., Wendy J. Schiller, Jeffery A. Segal, and Dana K. Glencross Gateways to Democracy: An Introduction to American Government, The Essentials, second edition. Stamford (CT): Cengage. Lewis, David E., Policy Influence, Agency-Specific Expertise, and Exit in the Federal Service. (with Anthony M. Bertelli.) Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 23(2): [Formerly, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions Working Paper # ] Lewis, David E., Politics Can Limit Policy Opportunism in Fiscal Institutions: Evidence from Official General Fund Revenue Forecasts in the American States. (with George A. Krause and James Douglas.) Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 32(2): [Formerly, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions Working Paper # ] Lewis, David E., The Invisible Presidential Appointments: An Examination of Appointments to the Department of Labor, (with Richard W. Waterman.) Presidential Studies Quarterly. 43 (1): Lewis, David E., Presidential Politicization of the Executive Branch in the United States in Martin Lodge and Kai Wegrich, eds. Executive Politics in Times of Crisis. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. [Formerly, CSDI Working Paper # 02-09] Lewis, David E., Policy Durability and Agency Design in Jeffery A. Jenkins and Eric Patashnik, eds., Living Legislation: Political Development and Contemporary American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Formerly, CSDI Working Paper # 04-09] Lewis, David E., Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies. (with Jennifer L. Selin) Report for the Administrative Conference of the United States. Lewis, David E., Strong Executive Branch Leadership Crucial for Policy Implementation. (with James P. Pfiffner, Dwight Ink, and Anne Joseph O Connell.) The Public Manager. 41 (4): Lewis, David E., Reducing the Number of Political Appointees. Memos to National Leaders Project, National Academy of Public Administration. [ Wiseman, Alan E., Information and Political Institutions Journal of Theoretical Politics. 25 (3): Wiseman, Alan E., Price Effects and the Commerce Clause: The Case of State Wine Shipping Laws. (with Jerry Ellig.) Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. 10 (2): Wiseman, Alan E., When Are Women More Effective Lawmakers than Men? (with Craig Volden and Dana E. Wittmer.) American Journal of Political Science. 57 (2): Wiseman, Alan E., Legislative Effectiveness and Representation. (with Craig Volden.) in Dodd, Lawrence C., and Bruce I. Oppenheimer. Congress Reconsidered, 10th Ed. Washington D.C.: CQ Press. AWARDS AND GRANTS Bartels, Larry M., Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (for Wealthy Americans, Democracy, and the Common Good, in collaboration with Benjamin I. Page, Fay Lomax Cook, Christopher Jencks, and Jason Seawright) Lewis, David E., Election to the National Academy of Public Administration Lewis, David E., Research Scholar Fellowship, Vanderbilt University, Effectiveness, Control, and Competence in Public Agencies. ($36,750) Lewis, David E., Collaborative Research: Effectiveness, Control, and Competence in Public Agencies, National Science Foundation Grant (SES# ). $177,616 (Vanderbilt portion $69,662) INVITED ACADEMIC SEMINARS AND LECTURES Bartels, Larry M., Tax Policy Colloquium, New York University Law School. (2013) Bartels, Larry M., Jerome Weinstein Memorial Lecture, Franklin & Marshall College. (2013) Bartels, Larry M., Department of Political Science, University of Maryland. (2013) Bartels, Larry M., Featured Speaker at the 25th Annual Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Milan. (2013) Bartels, Larry M., Dean s Lecture, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. (2012) Bartels, Larry M., Conference on Effects of the Great Recession, University of Michigan. (2013) Bartels, Larry M., Conference on The Political Unconscious and the 2012 Election, University of Virginia. (2012) Bartels, Larry M., W. Lewis and Helen R. Abbott Memorial Lecture, Colorado College. (2012) Bartels, Larry M., Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Toronto. (2012) 15