Institutional Design and the Polarized Views of State Governments

• In Event: New Measurements for Studying Representation in State Politics

Abstract

As American politics becomes increasingly polarized scholars have documented a growing gap in how partisans approve of governments. Gaps between Republican and Democratic views of the federal government, particularly the presidency, are at all-time highs. However, there is substantial variation in how state level politicians and governments are perceived, with some having near consensus levels of support across parties (such as Governor Charlie Baker), and others being deeply polarizing (Scott Walker). I argue that a state’s institutional context plays a large roll in explaining partisan gaps in approval because institutional design structures the extent to which electoral winners see policy gains as well as how much electoral losers can block policy change. I combine unique survey data on approval of state governments with a new measure of state institutional design that measures the extent to which state institutions incentivize responding to public opinion and the strength of the checks and balance system in a state. The winner-loser gap in approval is smaller when a state’s institutions are set up to incentivize responsiveness to public opinion because public opinion, rather than the party in power, will be the driver of policy outcomes. Additionally, a strong checks and balance system reduces the winner-loser gap because electoral losers can prevent policy from moving away from their preferred locations.

Author

• Scott James LaCombe, Smith College