Princeton University

Specialization: Representation, accountability, public opinion, direct democracy, electoral politics.

Jeff Tessin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics. In addition to his dissertation work, he has written on "fire alarm" oversight of representatives in Congress; retrospective voting in local elections; and the strategic use of cues and heuristics by House candidates. He is a recipient of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (honorable mention), and the Beinecke Scholarship.

M.A., Politics, Princeton University; B.A., Political Science, Vassar College

Thesis Title: Policy Performance and Responsiveness to Public Opinion

Committee: Christopher Achen (chair), Brandice Canes-Wrone, Larry Bartels, Martin Gilens, Jessica Trounstine

Abstract: The link between public opinion and the behavior of representatives has been the subject of significant research in the past five decades. In much of this work, a stronger relationship between public opinion and government outputs has been regarded as effective representation. Yet this conclusion ignores evidence that citizens often do not have the political knowledge necessary for complex policy debates. In this dissertation, I directly test whether citizens can produce median-preferred policy outcomes when they are given more or less control over representatives and the creation of public policy. To do so, I leverage new institutional variation across local governments in the United States, which vary widely in the degree to which voters may constrain policy decisions.

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Link to: Personal Web site

Link to: Curriculum Vitae