Department of Political Science

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    The Filibuster, the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers
    (2003-04) Blake, William D
    The filibuster is inconsistent with the vision of the Senate expressed by the Framers in the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and early congressional history.
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    Jurisprudence Transcending Time and Space: Affirmative Action and the Revolution of 1937
    (2005-04) Blake, William D
    The purpose of this paper is to compare the jurisprudential debate on affirmative action to economic rights questions facing the Court during the Lochner Era. Proponents of the antidiscrimination principle believe that all racial classifications, including affirmative action, are unconstitutional, a view that corresponds with Lochner v. New York. Supporters of the anti-caste principle support affirmative action programs as a means to ensure that the circumstances of one's birth do not preclude the opportunity to succeed, a principle similar to West Cost Hotel v. Parish. These similarities demonstrate that legal principles reflect evolving notions of American ideals present throughout our history.
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    “The Brooding Spirit of the Law”: Supreme Court Justices Reading Dissents from the Bench
    (2010-01) Blake, William D; Hacker, Hans J
    In rare instances, a Supreme Court justice may elect to call attention to his or her displeasure with a majority decision by reading a dissenting opinion from the bench. We document this phenomenon by constructing a data set from audio files of Court proceedings and news accounts. We then test a model explaining why justices use this practice selectively by analyzing ideological, strategic, and institutional variables. Judicial review, formal alteration of precedent, size of majority coalition, and issue area influence this behavior. Ideological distance between the dissenter and majority opinion writer produces a counterintuitive relationship. We suspect that reading a dissent is an action selectively undertaken when bargaining and accommodation among ideologically proximate justices has broken down irreparably.
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    Gender and Physiological Effects in Connecting Disgust to Political Preferences
    (2011-12) Friesen, Amanda; Jacobs, Carly M
    Sensitivity to disgust predicts social attitudes, but this relationship can shift depending on gender and whether response to disgust is measured through surveys or physiological tests. We are interested in exploring the relationship between gender, political preferences, and different measures of disgust. Methods We systematically evaluate these interrelationships by comparing self-reported disgust sensitivity and changes in skin conductance while viewing disgusting images, accounting for gender and attitudes toward gay marriage. Results We find that although there is no physiological difference between genders, opponents of gay marriage conform to gender-role expectations in self-reports, with women reporting higher levels of disgust than males. For males, physiological response better predicts attitudes on gay marriage because there are physiological, but not self-reported, differences between supporters and opponents. Self-report and physiology both predict gay marriage attitudes for females. Conclusion Our findings suggest that combining traditional survey and physiological measures provides leverage in exploring questions related to social behaviors and their origins.
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    Beyond the Three “Bs” How American Christians Approach Faith and Politics
    (2012-08) Friesen, Amanda; Wagner, Michael W
    While it is well known that religiosity measures inform modern political alignments and voting behavior, less is known about how people of various religious orthodoxies think about the role of religion in society. To learn more about this veritable “black box” with respect to whether and why people connect their spiritual life to the political world, we conducted several focus groups in randomly selected Christian congregations in a mid-sized Midwestern city. Our analysis offers confirmatory, amplifying, and challenging evidence with respect to the “Three Bs” (believing, behaving, and belonging) perspective on how religion affects politics. Specifically, we show that while contemporary measures of religious traditionalism accurately reflect individuals’ partisan, ideological, and issue preferences, attitudes regarding the broad intersection of faith and politics are perhaps best understood via the presence (or absence) of denominational guidance on questions of the role of religion in society. We conclude by offering suggestions for future survey research seeking to explain the relationship between religion and politics.
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    Pyrrhic Victories: How the Secularization Doctrine Undermines the Sanctity of Religion
    (2013-03) Blake, William D
    Over the past 25 years, federal courts have sanctioned displays of religious symbols on public property – including the crèche, the Ten Commandments, and the Latin cross – by privileging their secular value or because nearby secular symbols wash away their religiosity. This paper contends that these cases have resulted in government secularization of the religious. Though the appearance of religion has increased in the Public Square, this effort has been partially self-defeating because the distinctive substance of religion has been eroded by this jurisprudence, thereby weakening the sanctity of religion. Minimizing the religious import of these symbols makes dialogue over the proper reach of the Establishment Clause effectively impossible.
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    The Physiology of Political Participation
    (2013-03) Gruszczynski, Michael W; Friesen, Amanda; Jacobs, Carly M; Smith, Kevin B; Hibbing, John R
    Political involvement varies markedly across people. Traditional explanations for this variation tend to rely on demographic variables and self-reported, overtly political concepts. In this article, we expand the range of possible explanatory variables by hypothesizing that a correlation exists between political involvement and physiological predispositions. We measure physiology by computing the degree to which electrodermal activity changes on average when a participant sequentially views a full range of differentially valenced stimuli. Our findings indicate that individuals with higher electrodermal responsiveness are also more likely to participate actively in politics. This relationship holds even after the effects of traditional demographic variables are taken into account, suggesting that physiological responsiveness independently contributes to a fuller understanding of the underlying sources of variation in political involvement.
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    Religion, Politics and the Social Capital of Children
    (2013-07) Friesen, Amanda
    Using a national data set, this study demonstrates that religious traditionalism and political conservatism are positively related to family size and the interactions between these measures result in increased political participation. Combining the social capital of children and religiosity, these findings suggest that choosing to have more children may be based on beliefs about traditional gender roles and the importance of family in society, which in turn result in political engagement around these issues.
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    The Politics of Denying Communion to Catholic Elected Officials
    (De Gruyter, 2013-12) Blake, William D; Friesen, Amanda
    In his 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry, a Catholic, was threatened with being denied Holy Communion because of his pro-choice voting record. This article investigates the extent to which communion denial impacted Catholic elected officials and analyzes public attitudes regarding communion denial for Kerry. The results of our analysis suggest that, despite heavy media coverage, few bishops endorsed the communion denial and few pro-choice Catholic officials were threatened. While the data also indicate there are meaningful political implications for public attitudes on communion denial, the tactic does not command support from many Catholics.