John Sides

This is a guest post from my colleagues Brandon Bartels and Jake Haselswerdt, which is substantially more interesting than the title that I gave the post: In response to Suzanne Mettler’s post on Monday, commenter Josh asked for clarification regarding the importance of policy delivery mechanism (e.g., direct cash payment vs. tax break) to citizen […]

William Galston: The third argument for mandatory voting goes to the heart of our current ills. Our low turnout rate pushes American politics toward increased polarization. The reason is that hard-core partisans are more likely to dominate lower-turnout elections, while those who are less fervent about specific issues and less attached to political organizations tend […]

Political scientists Regina Smyth and William Bianco have written a pithy and interesting analysis of the sorts of deals that might emerge from the Super-Committee and, perhaps more importantly, the kinds of side-payments that party leaders might have to make if one of those deals is to win enough support in each chamber. Here is […]

Twenty years ago today, Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV-positive.  In my newest post at 538, I discuss how this affected public opinion, drawing on a 1994 paper by political scientist Philip Pollock.  The upshot: Johnson’s announcement led the public to think about HIV and AIDS in terms of opinions about heterosexual sex, rather […]

It is well-known that non-human animals respond to information encoded in vocal signals, and the same can be said of humans. Specifically, human voice pitch affects how speakers are perceived. As such, does voice pitch affect how we perceive and select our leaders? To answer this question we recorded men and women saying “I urge […]

Overall, then, I’d say there’s evidence that a white-knight candidate can succeed in executive office if he comes either from a government-dominated business sector such as telecoms where lobbying and politics are a major part of the business, or if he has been a senior officer in the secret police. White-knight leaders’ terms, if politically […]

The American Prospect has begun syndicating content from The Monkey Cage on their newly redesigned website.  You’ll see us listed on their homepage at right; clicking that there takes you to a dedicated page for Monkey Cage content.  They even gave us a new logo that looks more like an actual monkey.  Obviously, if you […]

We are pleased to welcome Larry Bartels as an occasional contributor at The Monkey Cage.  He is Professor of Political Science and Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University.  His most recent book, Unequal Democracy, was the subject of a roundtable here on the blog.  A copy of his vita is […]

If you crunch the numbers, Republicans are more ideologically consistent than Democrats—but not by much.

My new post at 538 discusses a forthcoming paper by political scientists Joseph Uscinski and Arthur Simon.  They argue that certain kinds of previous experience, including military service and tenure as the governor of a large state, are associated with “presidential greatness,” as gauged by surveys of historians.  “Washington outsiders,” by contrast, fare poorly. The […]