Brandice Canes-Wrone: Research

Who Leads Whom?: Presidents, Policy, and the Public (2006, University of Chicago Press)

Winner of the 2007 American Political Science Association Neustadt Award for the best book published on the presidency in 2006

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Summary (from University of Chicago Press): Who Leads Whom? is an ambitious study that addresses some of the most important questions in contemporary American politics: Do presidents pander to public opinion by backing popular policy measures that they believe would actually harm the country? Why do presidents "go public" with policy appeals? And do those appeals affect legislative outcomes? Analyzing the actions of modern presidents ranging from Eisenhower to Clinton, Brandice Canes-Wrone demonstrates that presidents' involvement of the mass public, by putting pressure on Congress, shifts policy in the direction of majority opinion. More important, she also shows that presidents rarely cater to the mass citizenry unless they already agree with the public's preferred course of action. With contemporary politics so connected to the pulse of the American people, Who Leads Whom? offers much-needed insight into how public opinion actually works in our democratic process. Integrating perspectives from presidential studies, legislative politics, public opinion, and rational choice theory, this theoretical and empirical inquiry will appeal to a wide range of scholars of American political processes.

“Partisan Signals and Democratic Accountability: An Analysis of State Supreme Court Abortion Decisions” (with Richard P. Caldarone and Tom S. Clark) Forthcoming, Journal of Politics

Various literatures indicate that partisan labels increase the accountability of elected officials. Correspondingly, advocates of nonpartisan elections claim that this procedure helps liberate officials from political influence. These arguments have been prominent in recent debates regarding the selection of judges in U.S. state courts. We suggest, conversely, that on salient issues nonpartisan elections will encourage judges to issue popular decisions, particularly given developments in judicial campaigns. To test this hypothesis, we assemble a dataset that revolves around state supreme courts’ decisions on abortion cases between 1980 and 2006. The analysis—which controls for a variety of factors and uses the U.S. Senate as a comparative tool—provides strong support for the hypothesis.

“Administrative Politics and the Public Presidency” Prepared, by invitation, for Presidential Studies Quarterly

As a field we know exceedingly little about how presidents’ public relations affect administrative politics. For instance, when will presidents create new agencies to satisfy public concern about an issue? When does public opinion provoke presidents to fire officials? The dearth of scholarship on these sorts of questions is striking, particularly given the emphasis in the literature on the increased importance of public relations to the presidency. I argue that we cannot fully understand bureaucratic politics without considering the impact of this development, which scholars often call the “public presidency.” Furthermore, I argue that research on the public presidency has largely concentrated on legislative politics, which differ considerably from administrative politics. After delineating general claims, I outline theoretical and empirical considerations for two specific avenues of research. My hope is that these considerations will help stimulate attention to how administrative politics are shaped by presidents’ public relations.

“Issue Accountability and the Mass Public: The Electoral Consequences of Legislative Voting on Crime Voting” (with Jessica Bonney and William Minozzi) Under Review

“Game Theory and the Study of the American Presidency” Oxford Handbook on the American Presidency, edited by George C. Edwards III and William Howell. Forthcoming.

Research in progress

“Judicial Independence and Nonpartisan Elections.” With Tom S. Clark. Manuscript available for circulation.

“Retention Elections and Judicial Decisions.” With Tom S. Clark

“Judicial Selection, Case Facts, and Case Outcomes: An Analysis of State Supreme Court Death Penalty Decisions.” With Tom S. Clark.

“Party Support and Electoral Conditions.” With William Minozzi, Julia Rabinovich, and Craig Volden.

“The Impact of Presidential Campaigning on Midterm Elections.” With Jean-Francois Godbout.

“Electoral Uncertainty and the Housing Market.”

For published articles and book chapters, please see vitae