The State of State Politics Research

Abstract

Reviewers of the state of state politics research often lament the field's lack of theoretical progress and its fragmented character These conditions persist yet a review of this research published in the professions top journals over the past decade reveals a substantively rich and often methodologically sophisticated body of scholarship. Applying an inclusive approach, this essay examines all research published on state politics over the last decade in the profession's six top journals: APSR, AJPS, JOP, PRQ Polity and SSQ. Trends in substantive focus and the findings of this research are described, as are methodological approaches and innovations. The study takes stock of the progress the field has made and identifies promising avenues for future inquiry. The subfield could advance by emphasizing its unique comparative analytical advantages. These advantages provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate the impact of institutional and environmental contexts on political behavior, processes and outcomes. The field needs to emphasize the importance of modeling political behavior across contexts, and interactively across contextual and individual levels of analysis. By so doing, the subfield can show how states matter and also assess the generality of models that focus too often on behavior or process within single contexts.Reviews of the state politics subfield typically deplore the field's lack of progress and complain about the disunity in approaches and subject matter that characterize the field's research. On one level, this review departs from that tradition. Studies appearing in the professioris top journals make clear that there has been notable progress in the study of state politics over the past decade. Those laboring in the field have contributed to knowledge about state politics including the interplay of states within a national setting, the effects NOTE: Aubrey Jewett provided enormous assistance in compiling the bibliography used in this essay. His diligent and extraordinary efforts were instrumental in the completion of this study. The study benefited as well from the thoughtful input of John Geer and the anonymous reviewers he selected.

The Florida State University State Politics and Policy Data Archive

“…Indeed, early comparative state studies emphasized this comparability as justification for the study of state politics and policymaking on the grounds that the states presented ideal laboratories for studying who gets what in democracies (Hofferbert 1972). As has been noted elsewhere (Brace and Jewett 1995), a review of the research making use of the comparative state research design reveals the widespread use of a core set of indicators (e.g., measures of party competition and strength, measures of legislative professionalism) with sometimes different policy or political measures em-ployed as dependent variables. Given this reliance upon what appears to be an accepted set of measures, one would expect there to be a core data set or archive upon which researchers might draw for data sources.…”

“…1 And while many of us are fortunate enough to work in institutions that are members of the Inter-university Consortium of Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and thus able to use its extensive data archive, many researchers, particularly those at smaller institutions, are not. Furthermore, Brace and Jewett (1995) demonstrate that state politics scholarship is undertaken most often by researchers at public institutions. A free archive may prove an especially important resource to those researchers.…”

Whose Variance Is It Anyway? Interpreting Empirical Models with State-Level Data

“…Authors have periodically lamented the paucity of serious academic attention by political scientists to the politics of the states (Brace and Jewett 1995;Herson 1957;Jewell 1982). One contributing reason for this historical disregard is attributable to the data.…”

How Can We Make the Pain Go Away? Public Policies to Manage Pain at the End of Life

“…First, we determine the extent to which the public has shaped the provision of pain management at the end of life through legislation, regulation, and other forms of policy. Such formal analyses of policy activity pertaining to the aging population and the end of life are rare (Brace & Jewett, 1995; Kaskie, Knight, & Liebig, 2001). Second, our examination can assist advocates interested in defining directions for public policy activity, and we point researchers toward critical issues that require further attention.…”

“…It can be strategic for politicians and advocates who seek to advance state policy making. It can be informative for analysts and researchers who wish to ascertain why state governments create such variable outputs (Biggs & Helms, 2006; Brace & Jewett, 1995). In consideration of this, Imhof and Kaskie (in press) applied an event history analysis and tested how well a theoretical model of policy formation explained the passage of four different types of state board policies pertaining to pain management: (a) integrating pain management as a part of medical practice, (b) establishing that opioids are part of professional practice, (c) determining that pain management should not be defined by restrictive dosage levels, and (d) protecting practitioners’ fear surrounding professional scrutiny of the dispensation of medications to relieve pain.…”