Accountability in American Legislatures
Our core understanding of democracy suggests that officeholders should be electorally punished when they perform poorly or fail to represent their constituents. My book manuscript – Accountability in American Legislatures – evaluates the extent to which theories of political accountability apply to state legislatures by addressing the question: do elections hold state legislators accountable for their own performance? Building upon the work from my award-winning dissertation, my analyses of candidate decision-making, voter knowledge, and elections outcomes show that rather than being a referendum on how state legislators perform, state legislative elections are dominated by national politics. An outline of the manuscript can be found here with versions of chapters below:
| Chapter 2: Challenger Entry in State Legislative Elections - Download Draft |
| Chapter 3: Voter Knowledge of State Legislatures- Download Draft |
| Chapter 4: Electoral Accountability for State Legislative Roll-Calls and Ideological Representation - Download Draft |
| Chapter 5: How Parties Perform in Office and Elections- Download Draft |
| Chapter 6: "Accountability" in Primary Elections - Download Draft |
| Chapter 7: You can't fire me...I quit! - Download Draft |