Publications

2024.  "The Particular and Diffuse Effects of Negative Interactions on Participation: Evidence from Responses to Police Killings." (with Kelsey Shoub), Policy Studies Journal

Replication Archive | LSE USAPP Post

Abstract

The relationship between the public and local government is crucial for the success of government in carrying out its duties. Despite this, the public is not always willing to engage with government. Previous research tells us that negative personal bureaucratic interactions can politically demobilize. However, little is known about whether feedback effects on participation are particular to offending government agencies or similarly felt by other organizations in a community. Building on studies of policy feedback, this study investigates how police killings, a form of community police contact, influence the public's willingness to engage with both local police and other local public services. Negative events, even when not directly experienced, disempower the public and undermine legitimacy, depressing participation. We test the effects of policing killings on participation using both observational data on 911 calls and 311 requests and a survey experiment where we manipulate exposure to a community police killing. We find evidence of decreased participation with local police and local government more broadly, contributing to our understanding of policy feedback, policing, and provision of public services. 

2021. "Under Pressure: Centralizing Regulation in Response to Presidential Directives." (with Jennifer Selin, Hanna Brant, Nicholas Brothers, and Jordan Butcher), Presidential Studies Quarterly

Abstract

The modern presidency is one of administration, where presidents seek to further their own agendas by directing administrative behavior throughout the executive branch. Yet little research explores how executive agencies organize their policy processes in response to publicly articulated presidential priorities. Using two novel datasets that allow us to examine the regulatory priorities of presidents and how executive agencies organize their rulemaking processes, we find that executive agencies respond to presidential policy preferences by centralizing policymaking to the top of an agency’s hierarchy, placing regulation in the hands of political appointees.

2020.  "The Importance of Oversight and Agency Capacity in Enhancing Performance in Public Service Delivery." (with Lael R. Keiser), Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

Abstract

Government agencies often encounter problems in service delivery when implementing public programs. This undermines effectiveness and raise questions about accountability. A central component of responsiveness and performance management is that agencies correct course when problems are identified. However, public agencies have an uneven record in responding to problems. In this paper we investigate whether, and to what extent, capacity both within the agency and within institutions performing oversight, improves agency responsiveness to poor performance indicators. Using panel data on eligibility determinations in the Social Security Disability program from U.S. state agencies from 1991-2015 and fixed effects regression, we find that indicators of agency and oversight capacity moderate the relationship between poor performance and improvement. Our results suggest that investments in building capacity not only within agencies, but also within elected institutions, are important for successful policy implementation. However, we find evidence that while agency capacity alone can improve responsiveness to poor performance, the effect of oversight capacity on improving performance requires high agency capacity.

2019. "Taking Time (and Space) Seriously: How Scholars Falsely Infer Policy Diffusion from Model Misspecification." (with Christopher Gandrud and Laron K. Williams), Policy Studies Journal

Replication Archive

Abstract

Scholars have long been interested in how policies and ideas spread from one observation to another. Yet, the spatial and temporal dynamics of policy diffusion present unique challenges that empirical researchers often neglect. Scholars often use temporally lagged spatial lags (TLSL)—such as the number (or percentage) of prior adopters in a neighborhood—to test various mechanisms of delayed policy diffusion but are largely unaware of two under appreciated issues. First, the effects are not limited to one time period but persist over time by changing the future value of neighboring observations. Second, minor, yet common, choices in model specification—such as omitting spatially correlated and/or autoregressive covariates—can increase the risk of falsely inferring that the outcome is a result of spatial diffusion. Indeed, we offer two applications where small changes to the model specification of an otherwise well‐specified model result in drastically different inferences about policy diffusion. We argue that scholars should avoid haphazardly including TLSLs without considerable theoretical justification, and we conclude on an optimistic note by offering straightforward solutions and new software to address these issues.