Abstract: Metropolitan cities can serve as laboratories of sustainable development by experimenting with innovative sustainability programs while leveraging the advantages of metropolitan areas. With the importance of cities’ sustainability efforts, scholars have increasingly explored what factors motivate local governments to implement voluntary sustainability programs by focusing on internal government and community characteristics. However, what is missing in the previous discussion is whether city governments respond to sustainability efforts by other government entities, especially neighboring local governments. Drawing on institutional and […]

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Abstract: This article explores the conditions under which revolutionary mass uprisings are likely to occur. We offer a probabilistic explanation of the social and political conditions that make people rise against autocrats. The article presents a medium-n dataset of 79 revolutionary mass uprisings in 165 autocracies since 1945. Since revolutions are rare events, a combination of factors must come together to trigger them. Drawing on the extant literature on revolutionary change, we find initial support for a range of discrete […]

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Abstract: Although many studies have found that women legislators pursue policies important to women, we know relatively little concerning the effect of women’s descriptive representation (WDR) on women’s quality of life. We address this question by examining the relationship between the election of women state legislators and public health. Specifically, we estimate the effect of WDR on premature death rates from 1982 to 2010. We find that WDR serves to improve the well-being of both women and men. However, the […]

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Abstract: Interlocal collaboration is considered an important tool for cost‐saving. States, therefore, have incentivized interlocal collaboration in different ways. To understand the budgetary consequences of interlocal collaboration and state incentives, we examine counties in Nebraska where the State uses two incentive mechanisms—resource restrictions and additional access to restricted revenues granted to counties with collaboration. This study finds that county expenditures are lower when they spend more through collaboration. While this lower spending is related to lower revenues in counties less […]

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Abstract: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is an infectious respiratory illness afflicting people to a degree not seen since the flu pandemic of 1968 when approximately one million lives were lost worldwide. What makes COVID-19 distinct is the rate at which it spread throughout the world, stress-testing health care systems and stymieing global economies. To confront this unprecedented crisis, nearly every country has been developing a wide range of policy responses, including fiscal measures. This study aims to discuss government fiscal […]

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Abstract: Local governments nationwide have been adopting a variety of sustainability practices in the absence of strong federal guidance. The collection of these practices, which differ in design, forms the local government’s sustainability strategy. Some local governments may develop a more focused sustainability strategy to achieve more predictable environmental benefits around a narrower array of environmental issues. By contrast, other local governments are developing a more comprehensive sustainability strategy that is more broadly focused to address complex, interconnected environmental issues. […]

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Abstract: In this project, we will conduct a series of analyses to better understand the community-level factors contributing to hate crime commission. Our study is unique in several respects. First, while most studies of local variation in hate crime rates rely on law enforcement data reported to the FBI, our analysis will be the first to utilize victim reports of hate crimes from the National Criminal Victimization Survey (NCVS). Second, our analysis will represent the first comprehensive consideration of the […]

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Abstract: Palmyra’s capture and destruction by ISIS resonated widely with an international audience. Drawing on Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and affect theory’s key insights on object attachment, this article argues that the attachment to Palmyra manifests desire for a particular “good life” of an idealized liberal multiculturalism: a virtuous cycle of trade and tolerance represented by aesthetic flourishing. This widely circulated representation is grounded on excisions of power and inequality. I analyze the political stakes of such […]

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Summary: UNESCO’s world heritage regime was founded in 1972 to identify and protect cultural and natural sites of ‘outstanding universal value,’ which constitute humanity’s common heritage. The identification and proper valuation of these sites, it was hoped, would interpellate a common humanity and foster identification with this humanity, thereby contributing to peaceful global relations. This chapter argues that the world heritage regime is a diversity regime that curates the world’s cultural diversity as part of world order-making. In turn, the […]

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Abstract: Research on the determinants of the U.S. Supreme Court’s institutional support among the public focuses on three factors at the level of the individual, including satisfaction with its performance, knowledge of the judiciary, and support for democratic values. Evidence from the group level has revealed that the relative importance of these factors can vary, despite the predictions of positivity theory that the effects of all factors should be similar across all subsets of the U.S. population. We seek to […]

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Abstract: In the 20th century, disasters triggered by natural hazards have led to an accumulative economic loss of roughly seven trillion USD and have resulted in eight million deaths worldwide. Given the escalating risk of natural hazards for communities, scholars and practitioners are emphasizing the importance of disaster risk mitigation as a strategy for enhancing community resilience. However, little is known about the extent to which governments’ disaster risk reduction efforts have enhanced community resilience outcomes. We bridge this gap […]

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Abstract: This article presents a systematic analysis of military coups following popular mass uprisings in nondemocratic regimes, conceptualized as endgame coups. Drawing on our original, medium-n data set of revolutionary situations, we find that such endgame coups form a distinct type of military intervention in politics. Compared to regular coups, episodes of popular mass contestation prompt conservative interventions in politics of the military’s leadership aimed at preserving the regime’s authoritarian infrastructure. A systematic test of factors characterizing postcoup political trajectories is […]

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