RESEARCH
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Methodology |
Public Opinion |
Kraft, Patrick W., Ellen M. Key and Matthew J. Lebo. 2022. "Hypothesis Testing with Error Correction Models." Political Science Research and Methods 10(4): 870-878.
Grant and Lebo (2016) and Keele, Linn, and Webb (2016) clarify the conditions under which the popular general error correction model (GECM) can be used and interpreted easily: In a bivariate GECM the data must be integrated in order to rely on the error correction coefficient to test cointegration and measure the rate of error correction between a single exogenous x and a dependent variable y. Here we demonstrate that even if the data are all integrated, the test on the error correction coefficient is misunderstood when there is more than a single independent variable. The null hypothesis is that there is no cointegration between y and any x but the correct alternative hypothesis is that y is cointegrated with at least one––but not necessarily more than one––of the x's. A significant error correction coefficient can occur when some I(1) regressors are not cointegrated and the equation is not balanced. Thus, the correct limiting distributions of the right-hand-side long-run coefficients may be unknown. We use simulations to demonstrate the problem and then discuss implications for applied examples. Alvarez, R. Michael, Ellen M. Key, and Lucas Núñez. 2018. “Research Replication: Practical Considerations.” PS: Political Science and Politics 51(2): 422-426. With the discipline’s push toward DA-RT, journal replication archives are becoming more and more common. As researchers work to ensure replication materials are provided, they should also pay attention to the content—rather than just the provision—of journal archives. Based on our experience in analyzing and handling journal replication materials, we present a series of recommendations that can help make replication materials easier to understand and use. The provision of clear, functional, and well documented replication materials is key for achieving the goals of transparent and replicable research. Furthermore, good replication materials better boost the development of extensions and related research by making state-of-the-art methodologies and analyses more accessible. Key, Ellen M. 2016. “How Are We Doing? Data Access and Replication in Political Science.” PS: Political Science and Politics 49(2): 268-272. Data access and research transparency (DA-RT) is a growing concern for the discipline. Technological advances have greatly reduced the cost of sharing data, enabling full replication archives consisting of data and code to be shared on individual websites as well as journal archives and institutional data repositories. But how do we ensure scholars take advantage of these resources to share their replication archives? Moreover, are the costs of research transparency borne by individuals or journals? I assess the impact of journal replication policies on data availability and find articles published in journals with mandatory provision policies are twenty-four times more likely to have replication materials available than articles in journals with no requirements. Key, Ellen M. and Matthew Lebo. 2015. "Political Science, Time Series, and Pooled Cross-Sectional Time Series Analysis." International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition. Key, Ellen M. and Matthew Lebo. 2012. "Time Series Software: Stata 12 versus RATS 8." The Political Methodologist 20(1) 8-9. |
Lebo, Matthew J., Ellen M. Key, and Michael H. Driggers. Forthcoming. "Revisiting Clarke and Stewart's (1995) Investigation of PM Approval and Vote Intentions in the UK." Electoral Studies.
Economic Evaluations, Prime Ministerial Approval and Governing Party Support: Rival Models Reconsidered by Harold D. Clarke and Marianne Stewart (1995) makes major contributions both substantive and methodological. Substantively, the article contributes to literatures on economic voting and the presidentialization of British politics. Methodologically, the paper is a model of how to conduct cointegration and error correction analyses between closely related political time series. In all, the authors established a long-run equilibrium between prime ministerial approval and vote intentions for the governing party. The two variables may diverge for short periods, but vote intentions will always revert back to a level that is in line with the popularity of the PM. We extend Clarke and Stewart’s data to the present day and examine how the PM-vote intention link has endured while the effects of the economy on vote intentions have varied. We also show that, while time series analysis in political science has undergone several revolutions, Clarke and Stewart’s process of conducting two-step cointegration analysis (Engle and Granger, 1987) stands up 30 years later as a blueprint for how to investigate long-run relationships with political data. Donovan, Kathleen, Kellstedt, Paul M., Ellen M. Key and Matthew J. Lebo. 2020. "Motivated Reasoning, Public Opinion, and Presidential Approval." Political Behavior 42(4): 1201-1221. Presidential approval is a desirable commodity for US presidents, one that bolsters re-election chances and the prospects of legislative success. An important question, then, is what shapes citizens' approval of the executive. A large body of literature demonstrates that the president's handling of issues, particularly the economy, is an important component. A similarly large literature confirms that evaluations of the president, like most political objects, are filtered through partisan lenses. Due to changes in the US political environment in the last few decades, we suspect that the relative importance of these components has changed over time. In particular, we argue that polarization has increased partisan motivated reasoning when it comes to evaluations of the president. We support this empirically by disaggregating approval ratings from Reagan to Obama into in- and out- partisans, finding that approval is increasingly detached from economic assessments. This is true for members opposite the president's party earlier than it is for in-partisans. While the president has been over-attributed credit and blame for economic conditions, the increasing impact of partisanship on approval at the expense of economic sentiment has generally negative implications when it comes to electoral outcomes and democratic accountability. Ondercin, Heather L. and Ellen M. Key. 2020. "Women's Political Involvement in the 100 Years since the Nineteenth Amendment." PS: Political Science & Politics 53(3): 465-469. August 19, 2020 marks the centennial of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of sex. The Nineteenth Amendment did not radically transform women's political activism; rather, it was a product of women's political activism. By the time the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, women had been voting for almost 50 years in localities where they had already secured the right to vote. The 100th anniversary is an opportune time to reflect on women's continued involvement in politics. Key, Ellen M. and Kathleen Donovan. 2017. “The Political Economy: Political Attitudes and Economic Behavior.” Political Behavior 39(3): 763-7866. It has long been recognized that voters bring their political behaviors in line with economic assessments. Recent work, however, suggests that citizens also engage in economic behaviors that align with their confidence – or lack thereof – in the political system. This alignment can happen consciously or, as we suggest, unconsciously, in the same way that positivity carries over to other political behaviors on a micro-level. Using monthly time series data from 1978 to 2008, we produce further evidence of this relationship by demonstrating that political confidence affects consumer behavior at the aggregate level over time. Our analyses employ measures that capture nuanced shifts in the public while simultaneously accounting for the complex relationships between subjective and objective economic indicators, economic behavior, political attitudes, and the media. Our results suggest that approval of the president not only increases the electorate’s willingness to spend money, but also affects the volatility of this spending. These findings suggest that the economy is influenced by politics beyond elections, and gives the “Chief Economist” another avenue by which they can affect the behavior of the electorate. Eskridge, Robert and Ellen M. Key. 2016. “Elements of Trust in Municipal Government.” in Social Capital in Mexico and the United States: Reflections and Research. Jose Luis Sergio Sosa-Gonzales and Carrie Blanchard Bush eds. Puebla, Mexico: BUAP Printing Press. Local government is often characterized as the least important level of government; however governments at the local level provide many of the vital services that people rely on for daily life. In delivering these services to citizens, it is the municipal level of government that most people come into contact with in a direct way. This direct contact can have a bearing on the image of government that citizens develop and can consequently affect the behavior of those citizens toward government. In this chapter we explore one of the primary elements of cognitive social capital, trust. First we compare the trust levels that citizens have in their local government in Mexico, South Africa, and the United States. Next, using a survey of chief officials in U.S. municipalities, we examine variables that contribute to the level of trust citizen’s place in their local municipalities. We find several factors including the quality of services delivered, the level of income inequality, and the degree of social heterogeneity have a significant effect on trust levels in these U.S. communities. We offer these findings as suggestions for possible ways that municipal leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere may look to increase trust levels within their communities and thereby increase their levels of social capital. We conclude with a few suggestions for future research. |
Sociology of Academia |
Judicial Politics |
Farris, Emily M., Ellen M. Key, and Jane L. Sumner. Forthcoming. "Understanding Variation in Start-Up Funds." Journal of Politics.
Recent research in political science has uncovered and theorized about inequalities within the field. In this paper, we explore a lesser publicly discussed difference that likely impacts the research process: start-up funding. We surveyed assistant professors in U.S. political science departments about their start-up packages, and we find that characteristics of the institution, prestige of the researcher’s Ph.D. alma mater, and having competing offers predict receiving a start-up fund at all and receiving more research money in that start-up fund. The evidence also suggests that women’s offers are more sensitive to alma mater prestige, with women from the least prestigious alma maters receiving less funding than men from similarly ranked schools. Notably, publishing more does not seem to help women or men, suggesting that women from low-prestige departments in particular cannot work their way out of this disadvantage. Farris, Emily M., Ellen M. Key, and Jane L. Sumner. 2023. “‘Wow, I Didn’t Know These Options Existed’: Understanding Tenure-Track Start-Up Packages.” PS: Political Science and Politics 56(1): 75-81. Start-up packages vary enormously, particularly across institutions, and not all faculty know what items they may negotiate for to support their probationary period. To demystify this part of the hidden curriculum, we discuss the components of start-up packages and other benefits that may be provided to new faculty at the time of hire. We focus on five broad topics: compensation and personal support, general support, research support, teaching support, and service and professional development. Drawing on the results of a survey of tenure-track assistant political science professors in the United States, we also provide an overview of the prevalence of a variety of items at different types of institutions and discuss other considerations in the negotiation process to close the knowledge gap for candidates during negotiations. Key, Ellen M. and Jane Lawrence Sumner. 2019. "You Research Like a Girl: Gendered Research Agendas and their Implications." PS: Political Science and Politics 52(4): 663-668. Political science, like many disciplines, has a "leaky-pipeline" problem. Women are more likely to leave the profession than men. Those who stay are prompted at lower rates. Recent work has pointed toward a likely culprit: women are less likely to submit work to journals. Why? One answer is that women do not believe their work will be published. This article asks whether women systematically study different topics than men and whether these topics may be less likely to appear in top political science journals. To answer this question, we analyzed the content of dissertation abstracts. We found evidence that some topics are indeed gendered. We also found differences in the representation of "women's" and "men's" topics in the pages of the top journals. This suggests that research agendas may indeed be gendered and that variation in research topic might be to blame for the submission gap. Key, Ellen M. and Phillip J. Ardoin. 2019. "Students rate male instructors more highly than female instructors. We tried to counter that hidden bias." The Washington Post 8/20/2019. Holman, Mirya, Ellen Key and Rebecca Kreitzer. 2019. “Evidence of Bias in Standard Evaluations of Teaching.” |
Grogan, Matthew and Ellen M. Key. 2023. "Reproductive Healthcare in a Post-Dobbs United States." Journal für Medizin- und Gesundheitsrech 8: 67-72.
The constitutional right to privacy that forms the basis for reproductive healthcare law in the United States is rooted in cases about the prevention or termination of pregnancy. In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned its 1974 decision establishing a national fundamental right to abortion. We explain how the new legal landscape of abortion care is greatly influenced by geographic location and financial means. We also discuss associated constitutional questions of federalism, the preemption of state laws, and the future of other fundamental rights including contraceptive use. Rivero, Albert H., Ellen M. Key, and Jeffrey Segal. 2022. "Invisible Constitutions: Concurring Opinions and Plurality Judgements under Marks v. United States." Justice System Journal 43(3): 323-338. The Supreme Court’s decision in Marks v. United States instructs lower courts interpreting plurality judgments to follow the opinion concurring on the narrowest grounds, or the opinion closest to the dissent, creating the possibility that the position of the Court may not be one favored by the median justice. While the Marks doctrine creates a problem theoretically, it is unclear how frequently these problems materialize. In this paper, we explore how frequently the Marks doctrine actually results in non-median outcomes. We conclude with thoughts about the importance of these cases and speculate about the future of the Marks doctrine. Moyer, Laura and Ellen M. Key. 2018. “Why’s Everybody Always Picking on Me?’ Court Curbing Legislation and the Ninth Circuit." Justice System Journal 39(2): 155-170. While a considerable body of scholarship has investigated court-curbing attempts by Congress that are focused on the Supreme Court, less attention has been paid to court-curbing bills directed at the lower federal courts. However out of all the federal appellate courts, only one circuit has been consistently targeted in court curbing bills over a lengthy period of time: the Ninth Circuit. Over the course of seven decades, members of Congress have repeatedly sponsored legislation that would alter the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit by creating a new circuit and dividing up the existing jurisdictional area. This paper investigates whether the splitting bills that target the Ninth Circuit can be understood as part of broader trends in court curbing in the federal judiciary. Are these bills linked with attempts to rein in the Supreme Court, or are other factors driving these proposals? Using an original dataset of all bills to split the Ninth Circuit, we test competing explanations for this lengthy fixation on a single court. Lebo, Matthew and Ellen Key. 2022. “Can Americans be Shielded from the U.S. Supreme Court?” The Conversation 7/4/2022. Key, Ellen M. 2020. "Constitutional Disfunction on Trial: Congressional Lawsuits and The Separation of Power , by Jasmine Farrier. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. 188pp. Hardcover: $115.00. ISBN: 1-501-702505. Paper $29.95. ISBN: 1-501-74710-X." Law and Politics Book Review 30(8): 128-131. |