Dynamic Democracy

Devin Caughey is associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Unsolid South. Christopher Warshaw is associate professor of political science at George Washington University.

• 1. Introduction1.1 Plan of the Book2 Measurement: Public Opinion and State Policy2.1 The Challenge of Measurement2.2 Data and Measures2.2.1 Policy and Survey Data2.2.2 Measures of State Policy and Mass Preferences2.3 Summary2.A Technical Appendix on Measurement Models2.A.1 Issue-Specific Opinion2.A.2 Ideological Summarization2.A.3 Commonalities among the Ideological Models3 Preferences: Partisanship and Ideology in State Publics3.1 Partisan and Ideological Trends in the States3.1.1 Partisanship3.1.2 Ideology3.1.3 Evolution and Stability3.2 The Alignment of Ideology and Partisanship3.3 The Ideological Nationalization of Partisanship3.4 Summary4 Policies: The Outputs of State Government4.1 Trends in State Policy Ideology4.2 Policy, Preferences, and Party5 Parties: The Policy Effects of Party Control5.1 Theoretical Framework5.2 Policy Effects of Party Control5.3 Regression Discontinuity Estimates5.4 Dynamic Panel Estimates5.5 How Much Does Party Control Matter?5.6 Summary6 Elections: Selection, Incentives, and Feedback6.1 Selection and Incentives6.2 National Tides and Partisanship6.3 Partisan Selection6.4 Candidate Positioning and Electoral Success6.5 Collective Accountability and Negative Feedback6.5.1 Electoral Feedback6.6 Summary7 Responsiveness: The Public’s Influence on State Policies7.1 Operationalizing Responsiveness7.2 Position Responsiveness7.3 Policy Responsiveness7.3.1 Heterogeneity: Era and Region7.3.2 Mechanisms: Turnover versus Adaptation7.3.3 Cumulative Responsiveness7.4 Summary8 Proximity: The Match between Preferences and Policies8.1 Data on Policy-Specific Representation8.2 Policy Bias8.3 Policy Proximity8.3.1 The Dynamics of Policy Proximity8.4 Summary9 Deficits: Gaps in American Democracy9.1 The Jim Crow South9.1.1 Racial Disparities in Representation9.2 Legislative Malapportionment9.3 Partisan Gerrymandering9.4 Summary10 Reforms: Improving American Democracy10.1 Background on Institutional Reforms10.1.1 Citizen Governance10.1.2 Voting10.1.3 Money in Politics10.1.4 Labor Unions10.2 The Effects of Institutional Reforms10.3 Summary11 Conclusion11.1 Normative Implications11.2 Prospects for Reform11.3 Whither State Politics?11.4 Implications for Future ResearchAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

Named one of "The Best Scholarly Books of 2022":"It is easy to be pessimistic about American democracy. Elected officials appear far more interested in scoring partisan points than crafting policy that represents their constituents...Dynamic Democracy presents a powerful, data-drenched rejoinder to this line of thinking. The authors argue that, at the state level, policy has been surprisingly reflective of public preferences. Slowly but surely, as voters’ preferences change, so too have the policies of the states in which they live. In the typically staid field of quantitative American politics, Caughey and Warshaw have written a book that speaks to urgent concerns about the state of our democracy."