Income inequality and political polarization have both increased dramatically in the United
States over the last several decades. A small but growing literature has suggested that these …

What is the effect of gerrymandering on the partisan outcomes of United States
Congressional elections? A major challenge to answering this question is in determining the …

Using new data on roll-call voting of US state legislators and public opinion in their districts,
we explain how ideological polarization of voters within districts can lead to legislative …

Democratic theory's deliberative turn has hit a dead end. It is unable to find a good way to
scale up its small-scale, formally-organized deliberative mini-publics to embrace the entire …

Many political advocacy groups, journalists, and scholars view redistricting as a major force
to insulate legislative incumbents from electoral defeat. Motivated by this concern, reformers …

The responsiveness of individual legislators to their constituents creates an indirect electoral
connection between the aggregate preferences of citizens and the behavior of legislative …

• The key features of the new era of electoral competition are a closely divided electorate at
the national level, one-party domination of most states and congressional districts, and a …

I show in this article how changes in the information environment have contributed to the
nationalization of legislative behavior. Access to technologies like broadband have eroded …

Recent analyses of American politics often invoke the term “culture war” depicting sharp and
increasing divisions within the American polity. Most of this research defines culture in terms …

Competitive elections are essential for democratic accountability, yet most US House of
Representatives elections are uncompetitive. Using district-level data from 1982 to 2018, I …