What is it about?
In the American federal system, the national and state level governments share jurisdiction over many policy areas. In the contemporary age, citizens and journalists pay more attention to Washington, DC, where politics also tend to be very polarized by party. When these policies are on the agendas of state legislatures, the votes that state legislators take are also more polarized by party.
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Why is it important?
This paper helps explain why some states are polarized and some are not. Specifically, states that deal with national issues like abortion and gun control can be expected to be more polarized by party.
Perspectives
I enjoyed writing this article because it forced me to answer a difficult question: how do you determine which bills at the state level are actually national bills? My solution was to look at lobbying records, because interest groups can operate at both the national and state levels, and so once I was able to crack that problem, the whole paper really came together.
Alex Garlick
College of New Jersey
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: National Policies, Agendas, and Polarization in American State Legislatures: 2011 to 2014, American Politics Research, August 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1532673x17719719.
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