The Dynamics of State Policy Liberalism, 1936-2014
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Caughey_The dynamics.pdf
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1.39 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Caughey, Devin
Warshaw, Christopher S
Date Issued
October 2016
Journal
American Journal of Political Science
Publisher
Wiley Blackwell
Citation
Caughey, Devin, and Christopher Warshaw. “The Dynamics of State Policy Liberalism, 1936-2014: THE DYNAMICS OF STATE POLICY LIBERALISM.” American Journal of Political Science 60.4 (2016): 899–913.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Applying a dynamic latent-variable model to data on 148 policies collected over eight decades (1936–2014), we produce the first yearly measure of the policy liberalism of U.S. states. Our dynamic measure of state policy liberalism marks an important advance over existing measures, almost all of which are purely cross-sectional and thus cannot be used to study policy change. We find that, in the aggregate, the policy liberalism of U.S. states steadily increased between the 1930s and 1970s and then largely plateaued. The policy liberalism of most states has remained stable in relative terms, though several states have shifted considerably over time. We also find surprisingly little evidence of multidimensionality in state policy outputs. Our new estimates of state policy liberalism have broad application to the study of political development, representation, accountability, and other important issues in political science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12219
