Dyfuzja polityki publicznej w systemach federalnych podczas stanu wyjątkowego. Upowszechnianie polityki lockdownu podczas pandemii COVID-19 w Stanach Zjednoczonych

This paper develops a unified model of policy diffusion to analyze the speed of adoption of statewide lockdown policies within a federal system during the COVID-19 pandemic. The modified unified model was built to improve our understanding of policy diffusion in contexts where existing models fall short. The authors highlight three main policy diffusion channels: regional, vertical, and internal. The paper shows the empirical test of the model across US states and finds that vertical effects, such as higher approval ratings for President Donald Trump, as well as a comparatively high proportion of COVID-19 federal funding support, bear a strong positive association with the speed of statewide lockdown adoption policies. In addition, certain internal effects are also important - higher governor approval ratings are positively associated with the speed of statewide lockdown adoption policies, as are state and local spending, democratic state governments, and population awareness of the virus. However, other internal factors, such as the stringency of statewide lockdown policies and the relative proportion of COVID-19 deaths in a state, were minimally associated with the speed of lockdown policy adoption. Surprisingly, unlike past studies, horizontal regional effects did not play a significant role in the presented analysis - the speed of adoption of lockdown policies by neighboring states bears no association with the speed of policy adoption of statewide lockdowns. Overall, the results suggest a strong influence of political factors on the speed of statewide lockdown adoption policies in the US.Niniejszy artykuł przedstawia ujednolicony model dyfuzji polityki publicznej w celu analizy szybkości przyjmowania stanowych polityk lockdownu w systemie federalnym podczas pandemii COVID-19. Został tu zbudowany zmodyfikowany ujednolicony model w celu lepszego zrozumienia dyfuzji polityki publicznej w kontekstach, w których istniejące modele nie spełniają oczekiwań. Wyróżniono trzy główne kanały dyfuzji polityki publicznej: regionalny, wertykalny i wewnętrzny. Artykuł zawiera empiryczny test modelu na przykładzie Stanów Zjednoczonych i stwierdza, że efekty wertykalne, takie jak wyższe oceny poparcia dla prezydenta Donalda Trumpa, a także stosunkowo wysoki udział federalnego wsparcia finansowego na walkę z COVID-19, mają silny pozytywny związek z szybkością przyjmowania lockdownu. Ponadto ważne są również pewne efekty wewnętrzne - wyższe oceny akceptacji gubernatorów są pozytywnie powiązane z szybkością polityki przyjmowania lockdownu w całym stanie, podobnie jak wydatki stanowe i lokalne, demokratyczne rządy i świadomość ludności na temat wirusa. Jednak inne czynniki wewnętrzne, takie jak rygorystyczne stanowe polityki lockdownu i względny odsetek zgonów z powodu COVID-19 na poziomie stanowym, były minimalnie związane z szybkością przyjmowania polityki lockdownów. Co zaskakujące, w przeciwieństwie do wcześniejszych badań, horyzontalne efekty regionalne nie odegrały znaczącej roli w analizie - szybkość przyjmowania polityki lockdownu przez sąsiednie państwa nie ma związku z tempem przyjmowania lockdownu w całym kraju. Ogólnie rzecz biorąc, wyniki sugerują silny wpływ czynników politycznych na szybkość wdrażania polityki lockdownu w Stanach Zjednoczonych na poziomie stanowym

Rainbows for Rights: The Role of LGBT Activism in Gay Rights Promotion

Are advocacy efforts successful in improving the de jure rights of sexual minorities? In this paper, we argue that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights NGO movement has been a powerful force in the struggle against sexual discrimination. However, the work of LGBT organizations is much harder in areas of the world where pre-existing public attitudes are not supportive of the rights in question. By focusing on the issue of sexual minority rights, we are able to see how underlying public attitude divergence on a human rights issue can influence advocacy success. We test the implications of our argument cross-nationally using new data on over 4,000 organizations from 1990 to 2011

Rainbows for Rights: The Role of LGBT Activism in Gay Rights Promotion

Are advocacy efforts successful in improving the de jure rights of sexual minorities? In this paper, we argue that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights NGO movement has been a powerful force in the struggle against sexual discrimination. However, the work of LGBT organizations is much harder in areas of the world where pre-existing public attitudes are not supportive of the rights in question. By focusing on the issue of sexual minority rights, we are able to see how underlying public attitude divergence on a human rights issue can influence advocacy success. We test the implications of our argument cross-nationally using new data on over 4,000 organizations from 1990 to 2011

Replication Data for: Political and Legal Antecedents of Affirmative Action: A Comparative Framework

Much of the literature on affirmative action is normative. Further, in scholarship that takes an empirical approach to examine this topic, the object of inquiry is typically the ramifications of such provisions; most notably the extent to which they foster social transformation. Yet, we know surprisingly little about the antecedents of affirmative action. This work examines what variables systematically predict affirmative action. We focus on the policy feedback literature and compensatory justice frameworks to examine the effects of democracy, modernization and globalization on affirmative action programs. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of data for hundreds of groups from all over the globe for the period 1985-2003 confirm our hypotheses. This is the first work to examine affirmative action programs in a large-N framework of such scale. We find that such programs systematically correlate with democracy, modernization and globalization

Institutional Design and Agenda Setting Behavior: The Case of the U.S. Supreme Court

Agenda setting in political institutions plays a critical role in determining policy output. Rules governing agenda setting in turn help shape the ultimate policy choice. Using the United States Supreme Court as a case in point, we develop a voting game that takes into consideration the Court\u27s sequential voting process. As illustrated in this paper, justices\u27 position in the voting sequence—determined by seniority in the U.S. Court—influences their likelihood of voting to grant review. Our three-level mixed-effects empirical analysis demonstrates that the order of voting significantly influences the likelihood of voting to support judicial review. More importantly, contrary to the existing literature\u27s conclusion, we find that six, rather than two, of the nine justices may cast the fourth and pivotal vote for certiorari. The findings suggest that besides the usual suspects such as ideology, institutional design with respect to voting rules should be accorded an independent role in future analysis of decision making in general and judicial agenda setting in particular

Strategic Decision-Making During Cyber Conflict : The SingHealth Case

Cyber technology enables countries to act covertly. Furthermore, it is not always easy to identify who is behind a given attack. So, what leads countries that were victims of cyberattacks to reveal the incidents

Rainbows for Rights: The Role of LGBT Activism in Gay Rights Promotion

Are advocacy efforts successful in improving the de jure rights of sexual minorities? In this paper, we argue that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights NGO movement has been a powerful force in the struggle against sexual discrimination. However, the work of LGBT organizations is much harder in areas of the world where pre-existing public attitudes are not supportive of the rights in question. By focusing on the issue of sexual minority rights, we are able to see how underlying public attitude divergence on a human rights issue can influence advocacy success. We test the implications of our argument cross-nationally using new data on over 4,000 organizations from 1990 to 2011

Replication Data for: Mak, Maxwell, Andrew H. Sidman, and Udi Sommer. 2013. “Is Certiorari Contingent on Litigant Behavior? Petitioners’ Role in Strategic Auditing.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 10: 54-75.

Replication Data for Mak, Sidman, and Sommer (2013)