Professor, and Director of Graduate Studies, Dan Butler, has recently published two new articles in the journals Political Behavior and Administration & Society.
In Political Behavior, Butler co-authored the article, "Information and Perceptions of Electability in Primary Elections", with Sarah E. Anderson (University of California-Santa Barbara), Barry C. Burden (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Laurel Harbridge-Yong (Northwestern University), and Timothy J. Ryan (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill). The article is an extensive study of primary voters during the 2022 statewide primary elections. The study shows that providing voters with information about candidate fundraising increases their perceptions of that candidate's electability in the general election.
In Administration & Society, Butler worked with former WashU PhD student, David Miller (American University), on the article, "The Implications of Loper Bright for Bureaucratic Human Capital." The article studies the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. It shows that surveys of state bureaucrats suggest that the court decision is unlikely to have any short-term negative impacts on bureaucrats willingness to stay on the job or on their willingness to invest in developing expertise.
Read the full articles at the links above and their abstracts below.
"Information and Perceptions of Electability in Primary Election" abstract:
When citizens vote in primary elections, they have good reason to consider each candidate’s electability—the chances of winning the general election if they become their party’s nominee. Although electability perceptions are potentially a critical determinant of who wins, little is known about how voters form such perceptions. Using a pre-registered survey experiment conducted on voters in advance of several real competitive senatorial and gubernatorial primary elections in 2022, we examine three candidate attributes that plausibly shape and are correlated with voters’ perceptions of electability: ideological moderation, experience in elected office, and campaign fundraising success. We find evidence that providing new information about candidate attributes affects perceptions of electability, with fundraising being most important. Subsequent analysis shows that this effect is largely driven by Republican voters. Our results highlight the need to better understand differences across the parties in perceptions of electability and how voters learn about campaign finance information.
"The Implications of Loper Bright for Bureaucratic Human Capital" abstract:
While the Supreme Court’s ruling in Loper Bright has immediate implications for administrative rulemaking, it may also have deleterious consequences for bureaucratic human capital. We argue constrained discretion and increased uncertainty may make bureaucrats less likely to remain in government and develop expertise. We assess the short-term effects of Loper Bright with a priming experiment conducted with state-level bureaucrats. While we find no evidence of immediate effects of Loper Bright on turnover intention or willingness to invest in expertise, human capital may erode as bureaucrats internalize how Loper Bright hampers their ability to perform their jobs in the long-term.
