Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

What Your Cell Phone Data Actually Looks Like—and How It Might Be Used Against You

June 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
cell-site

David Simon, the creator of HBO's epic series The Wire, has weighed in on the recent disclosure that the National Security Agency has been combing through our cell phone records as part of its anti-terrorism efforts. It's an interesting read, particularly coming from the guy who wrote such interesting stories (presumably based on what he saw as a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun) about police surveillance. Basically, his take is that using broad swathes of cell phone data (numbers dialed, minutes used, locations, etc.) is not particularly invasive, is perfectly legal, and has been a ... Read More

Just How Much of a Problem Is Campaign Money?

June 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
campaign-finance

Some recent pieces by Ezra Klein (here and here) and Jonathan Bernstein (here) made the very important point that 2012 was supposed to be the year that donors bought the election, but that basically didn't happen. As Ezra wrote: [I]t’s hard to look at the 2012 election, with its record fundraising and the flood of super PACs, and all the rest of it, and come away really persuaded that money was a decisive player. And yet the way we talked about money in the run-up to the 2012 election, we really suggested it would be a decisive player. In fact, we suggested, quite often, that it wouldn’t ... Read More

10 Fascinating Things About State Politics You Probably Didn’t Know

May 28, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
illinois-capitol

I just came back from the 13th annual State Politics and Policy Conference, held this year in Iowa City, Iowa. I’m a big fan of this conference—it reliably features really innovative work on state politics, which unfortunately rarely gets a lot of national (or international) attention. The lessons we glean from state politics are actually incredibly valuable for people concerned with American politics. The U.S. state political systems are all largely based on the federal government, but they feature interesting variations and quirks that offer useful lessons about things like governing ... Read More

Why Haven’t Obama’s Scandals Hurt His Approval Ratings?

May 20, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
obama-shot

Last week, Obama's presidency, long noted for its dearth of major scandals compared to previous administrations, somehow pulled a hat trick. Benghazi, the IRS, and the Associated Press leak stories suddenly dominated all the available media coverage of the White House, and it was hard for anyone paying even modest attention to national politics to not get the impression that something bad was going on. And yet, at least up until now, these scandals do not seem to be hurting Obama's approval ratings. Indeed, by some indicators, more Americans approve of his performance now than did so a week ... Read More

Our Political Parties Have Polarized, But They Have a Lot Further to Go

May 14, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
us-reps

Last week, I wrote up a post describing how the parties in Congress have polarized in part because they represent more ideologically distinct districts and states than they used to. I produced a chart showing how the states themselves are polarizing; to the extent senators are simply representing their states today, that would lead to much more partisan behavior than it would have a few decades ago. Here's the same sort of chart showing the presidential vote by congressional district. It's a similar story. The red columns show the number of congressional districts in the 1968 presidential ... Read More

Members of Congress Are Elected to Represent, Not to Get Along

May 7, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
congress-washington

In case you've missed it, there's been a spate of op-eds recently blaming President Obama for a lack of leadership; Obama could have gotten Republican members of Congress to agree on gun control, tax increases, and many more of his legislative priorities if only he knew how to lead. What "leading" means is usually left rather vague. Ron Fournier believes it just involves "rising above circumstance," E.J. Dionne thinks it means showing how much you enjoy your job, and Maureen Dowd thinks it means writing the names of persuadable senators on a chart, just like in an Aaron Sorkin movie. The ... Read More

Are Incumbents Invulnerable?

April 30, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
george-h-w-bush

Being an incumbent politician seems like a pretty good gig. Members of Congress usually win re-election more than 90 percent of the time. Even in famously tough "anti-incumbent" years like 2010, 87 percent of those who sought re-election won it. And, of course, we're on our third consecutive two-term presidency right now. Incumbents seem to get all the breaks—they have an easier time raising money than their challengers, they're better known, they're more experienced, etc. Is it even worth it to try to unseat an incumbent? In a thoughtful post a few weeks ago, Jonathan Bernstein pushed ... Read More

Crowd-Sourcing Big Brother

April 22, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
dark-knight-masket

Last week, Boston law enforcement authorities and the FBI found themselves in a tough situation. A heinous crime had been committed, but they had no suspects or leads. So they asked for help. If you had photos or video from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, they said, send it in. People responded with great enthusiasm, submitting terabytes of data. Included in the many images were the now-iconic pictures of the two suspects, one of whom is now dead, the other in custody. This series of events served as an important lesson about the government's surveillance capabilities. Almost no ... Read More

Political Science in the Raw: The Papers That Could Change Politics in the Coming Years

April 17, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
mpsa-conference

I’ve just returned from the Midwest Political Science Association’s annual conference in Chicago. This conference is always a favorite of mine. It’s quite big, but it tends to draw a large proportion of people who study American politics and methods—my kind of folks. It also draws a healthy combination of graduate students using cutting-edge techniques and established scholars with practical experience, and allows opportunities for mentorship and the sharing of ideas. I wanted to use this opportunity to highlight just a handful of papers I saw that struck me as interesting and ... Read More

Institutions Worthy of Our Parties: Should the U.S. Switch to a Parliamentary System?

April 9, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
parliament-house

Rick Hasen has a really interesting paper up discussing partisan polarization and the possibility of changing the Constitution to deal with it. (And you should really read Jonathan Bernstein's response, too.) Hasen starts off by asking whether we should be considering moving toward a more parliamentary style of government. It's a fair question. We have what looks like a serious mismatch between our parties and our governing institutions. We live in an era of sharply distinct, internally disciplined, programmatic parties with very different visions of how the nation should be run. That's ... Read More