Citizens’ ideology drives ideological polarization and partisanship in U.S state legislatures

The increasing partisanship and polarization present Congress has been subject to a great deal of study and many explanations as to its causes have been put forward. Justin H. Kirkland takes a different line in investigating polarization, by looking at how it varies between state legislatures. Using survey and roll call vote data from across the country, he argues that in those states with more ideologically disparate populations, legislative districts will become more extreme as people sort into them. This in turn will lead to their legislators expressing a higher degree of partisanship in the state legislature

The Relational Determinants of Legislative Success: Strong and Weak Ties Between Legislators

In the repeated interactions of a legislative session, legislators develop working relationships that can be used in the pursuit of legislative goals. I develop a theory of influence diffusion across a legislative network of relations based on strategic actors building relationships in order to increase legislative success. Building on sociological theory initially developed by Granovetter, my research indicates that it is the weak ties between legislators that are the most useful in increasing legislative success. I test my theory using state legislative data from eight state legislatures, along with a second analysis of the US House of Representatives. Empirical analysis provides consistent support for the notion that weak ties lead to legislative success

Small Molecule Activation by Transition Metal Complexes: Studies with Quantum Mechanical and Machine Learning Methodologies

One of the largest areas of study in the fields of chemistry and engineering is that of activation of small molecules such as nitrogen, oxygen and methane. Herein we study the activation of such molecules by transition metal compounds using quantum mechanical methods in order to understand the complex chemistry behind these processes. By understanding these processes, we can design and propose novel catalytic species, and through the use of data-driven machine learning methods, we are able to accelerate materials discovery

For many ideologues in Congress, voting against their party when they are in power may be a sound electoral strategy.

In recent years, legislators on both sides of the aisle in Congress have often voted against their own party's legislation when they are in power. But why are some members of Congress disloyal when they have the chance to get things done? Jonathan Slapin and Justin Kirkland argue that this behaviour is a form of grandstanding whereby ideological extremists symbolically ..

Herox Design Competition - Boiler Buddy

The Raminar Flow team was tasked with the completion of an entry to the Herox Fluid Systems of Tomorrow Design Challenge. This international design competition challenged participants to design and submit a new product that relates to fluid systems in a home. The product, in addition to its relation to fluid systems, has to present consumers with a significant cost savings over current commercially available alternatives (if any exist), and it must be environmentally sustainable. To meet these design requirements, the team decided to focus on household water heating. Since most hot water heating is done with a dedicated water heater, it was decided that the best approach was to create a supplemental device that could o set some of the cost associated with water heating. Through research, it was determined that most commercially available devices heated water with solar heat, but it was also found that people in rural areas have been experimenting with water heating with compost as a fuel source. Since the technology seemed promising and under-developed, the team decided to design a device that would harness the heat production of compost for use as a supplemental water heater. Design specifications were developed for the project, and compost properties and methods were researched. Conceptual designs were then generated by the team. These designs were judged based on merit, and many of the 90 concepts that were generated have a place in the final design. An engineering analysis was done of the various facets of the design, and these calculations and considerations were used to prove that the concept of a compost-powered water heater has merit. A financial analysis of the project was performed, and the Boiler Buddy (the name given to the compost powered water heater) met or exceeded all design specifications. The team then constructed a test apparatus and conducted experiments. Overall, the Boiler Buddy product proves to be a sustainable way to decompose organic waste and heat water for a home

The relational nature of legislating

Since the economic revolution of the 1970's legislative scholars have produced important works examining the relationships between policy preferences and individual choices in a legislature. This focus on understanding individual preferences versus outcomes has led scholars to ignore potential inter-legislator influences on choices. In other words, in the study of relationships between a bill and a legislator scholarship has overlooked the importance of the relationship between one legislator and another legislator. These studies represent an effort to push our theoretical understanding of inter-legislator dynamics forward and build a more comprehensive understanding of how legislators influence, collaborate with, and cooperate with one another. Taken together they provide a unified picture of influence diffusion across a chamber by examining both how relationships between legislators affect outcomes and how institutions affect the formation of legislative relationships. Building on seminal sociological work on the importance of tie strength towards achieving an exogenous goal, I generate a novel theory of influence in a legislature. It will turn out that only the weakest ties between legislators actually produce changes in the probability a legislator will experience success. This is because weak ties between legislators are attempts to generate novel cooperation and support. Strongly tied legislators are strongly tied because of implicit support, thus the observation of the relational tie tells us nothing about their behaviors we could not have learned before a legislative session ever began. Strong ties do not indicate cooperation, they indicate similarity. Weak ties, however, occur between legislators fundamentally different most of the time, but who cooperate on some legislation in order to improve its odds of survival. It will also turn out that the formation of these cooperative ties is fundamentally effected by the behavioral constraints of a chamber. In particular, the nature of an electoral district and the size of a legislative chamber will play key roles in the development of cooperative relationships between legislators

The Relational Determinants of Legislative Outcomes: Strong and Weak Ties Between Legislators

In the repeated interactions of a legislative session, legislators develop working relationships that can be used in the pursuit of legislative goals. I develop a theory of influence diffusion across a legislative network of relations based on strategic actors building relationships in order to increase legislative success. Building on sociological theory initially developed by Granovetter, my research indicates that it is the weak ties between legislators that are the most useful in increasing legislative success. I test my theory using state legislative data from eight state legislatures, along with a second analysis of the U.S. House of Representatives. Empirical analysis provides consistent support for the notion that weak ties lead to legislative success

Ideology, Grandstanding, and Strategic Party Disloyalty in British Parliament

Strong party discipline is a core feature of Westminster parliamentary systems. Parties typically compel Members of Parliament (MPs) to support the party position regardless of MPs' individual preferences. Rebellion, however, does occur. Using an original dataset of MP votes and speeches in the British House of Commons from 1992 to 2015, coupled with new estimations of MPs' ideological positions within their party, we find evidence that MPs use rebellion to strategically differentiate themselves from their party. The strategy that MPs employ is contingent upon an interaction of ideological extremity with party control of government. Extremists are loyal when their party is in the opposition, but these same extremists become more likely to rebel when their party controls government. Additionally, they emphasize their rebellion through speeches. Existing models of rebellion and party discipline do not account for government agenda control and do not explain these patterns

Understanding the Relationship between Health PACs and Health Lobbying in the American States

We examine whether and how health PAC activity in the states is connected to lobbying. Is the political money that health interest organizations bring to the policy process a powerful, independent means of influence or is it better understood more narrowly as a lobbing tactic used to support lobbying? We examine a range of conjectures on the relationship between campaign contributions and lobby activity and the limited work that has been conducted on them and raise a number of questions about the process by which they are connected. We test these hypotheses with 1998 data on state lobbying and PAC activity. We conclude that PAC activity is best viewed as an adjunct of lobbying rather than an independent form of political activity

Replication data for: Hypothesis Testing for Group Structure in Legislative Networks

Scholars of social networks often rely on summary statistics to measure and compare the structures of their networks of interest. However, measuring the uncertainty inherent in these summaries can be challenging, thus making hypothesis testing for network summaries difficult. Computational and nonparametric procedures can overcome these difficulties by allowing researchers to generate reference distributions for comparison directly from their data. In this research, I demonstrate the use of nonparametric hypothesis testing in networks using the popular network summary statistic network modularity. I provide a method based on permutation testing for assessing whether a particular network modularity score is larger than a researcher might expect due to random chance. I then create a simulation study of network modularity and its simulated reference distribution I propose. Finally, I provide an empirical example of this technique using cosponsorship networks from U.S. state legislatures