Dissertation
My dissertation, tentatively entitled “Three Essays on the Redistricting Cycle in American State Politics begins with the stylized fact that redistricting has created a predictable, ten-year cycle of politics. I focus on how the redistricting cycle affects redistricting strategy and party finance strategy.
With regard to redistricting strategy, the author of a redistricting plan must look ten years ahead, both through her own eyes and the eyes of the incumbents who will be seeking re-election under the new plan. First, how might the plan affect her party’s fortune taking into consideration the great uncertainty of projecting eight years ahead? Secondly, how will incumbents react to the plan? Given that progressive ambitions and retirements are alternatives in the face of unpleasant re-election prospects, how must the redistricting plan’s author strike a balance so that incumbent assets are not lost in the zeal to win more seats or lock in an existing advantage?
Incumbents staring in the face of a new redistricting cycle must also look ahead, and assess how redistricting outcomes affect their future plans. First, do they intend to spend the next ten years in their current position, or do they harbor progressive ambition should an appropriate opportunity arise? And under what circumstances should an incumbent seek higher office or retire rather than suffer a potentially career-ending defeat? I develop and test a model of state legislative redistricting that addresses all of these questions.
With regard to party finance strategy, the party financier must decide how to allocate money for candidates in a given year. Depending on the amount of available money, the national and local landscape, and the specific candidates, it may be feasible to win control of the chamber, or it may be more practical to target a few winnable seats or a few that must be defended. But the redistricting cycle should condition these decisions as well: winning control of the legislature becomes considerably more valuable in the election which determines control of the redistricting process (in states where the legislature controls it). And in the election after the redistricting process, the party financier also faces an altered landscape: uncertainty about districts and constituencies is at its highest, and seats that may be attainable in this election may not be attainable for the rest of the decade if the opportunity is lost. In the remaining sections of my dissertation, I study the patterns with emerge from these two types of elections.
The first paper attached here, was presented at the conference of the Midwest Political Science Association in April 2006, focuses on the redistricting data, and discusses why the broader project requires a conception of optimal redistricting that incorporates multiple types of constituencies.
Incumbent Decision-Making in Response to State Legislative RedistrictingThe second paper here, was presented at the conference of the American Political Science Association in August 2006, and received the Best Graduate Student Paper award from the organized section on State Politics and Policy. It presents some preliminary analysis of how parties allocate money in years prior to redistricting.
Party Finance Strategy and the Redistricting Cycle
Other Projects
The Role of Policy Attributes in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations (with Craig Volden)
Presented at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Conference, January 5-8, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia.
