Scholarly research on the diffusion of policies across state governments focuses predominantly on the pathways of information between the states. Absent from this research is a thorough discussion of the content of the information state governments use when deciding whether or not to adopt an innovative policy. Given the importance of information in decision making, we develop a model that focuses attention on one type of information, namely, the ideological position of previous adopters. Although not the only piece of relevant information, we believe that states look to the previous adopters in an effort to minimize the uncertainty about how issues fit in the liberalconservative policy space. We test this theory in three different policy areas, finding consistent evidence that ideological cues help states learn about policy innovations while replicating important findings from previous research.

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His research focuses on the management of public organizations, intergovernmental relations, and the diffusion of policy innovations among governments. Practitioner Point• Increasing the proportion of the force that is black does not appear to be an effective strategy for reducing police-involved homicides of black citizens in most large cities. Americans by the police, thanks in part to a number of now well-known specifics. The most salient of these are that Officer Wilson was white; Michael Brown was black and unarmed; there was a lack of clear evidence that Mr. Brown was doing anything that would have justified his killing; videos of his body lying in the street were replayed repeatedly by media around the nation; and a grand jury failed to indict Officer Wilson for Mr. Brown ' s death.

This study explores empirically the degree to which disciplinary decisions made in schools can help to explain observed rates of disproportionate minority contact with juvenile courts. Copyright (c) 2009 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

Work to date has not … suffi ciently explored the moderating impact of geographic region on the active representation of group interests. Scholars of representative bureaucracy have long been interested in the linkage between passive representation in public agencies and the pursuit of specifi c policies designed to benefi t minority groups. Research in this area suggests that the structural characteristics of those organizations, the external political environment, and the perceptions of individual bureaucrats each help to facilitate that relationship. Work to date has not, however, suffi ciently investigated the impact of region on representation behavior, which is surprising given the emphasis that it receives in the broader literature on race and politics. Drawing on that literature, this study argues that, for black bureaucrats, region of residence is an important moderator of active representation because it helps to determine the salience of race as an issue and the degree of identifi cation with racial group interests. It tests hypotheses related to that general argument in a nationally representative sample of more than 3,000 public schools. Th e results suggest that black teachers produce greater benefi ts for black students in the South, relative to other regions. A supplementary analysis also confi rms the theoretical supposition that race is a more salient issue for Southern black bureaucrats, when compared with their non-Southern counterparts.