This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a decision that... more This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a decision that could have important impacts on the rights and representation of minorities. Using new research, Paru Shah, Melissa Marschall and Anirudh Ruhil find that the number of cities covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act with at least one African-American city council member increased by 82 percent between 1981 and 2001. They also argue that coverage by the Voting Rights Act seems to amplify the effects of minority voting strength, council size, and electoral structures in cities.
Viola pubescens is a perennial, mixed breeding herb that produces both chasmogamous and cleistoga... more Viola pubescens is a perennial, mixed breeding herb that produces both chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers at different times of the season. Once bud type is specified, it does not convert from one form to the other. While temporal production of the two flowers is known to be influenced by environmental factors, the specific environmental cues that signal emergence of each flower type have not been empirically studied. To investigate the environmental parameters driving seasonal development of chasmogamous versus cleistogamous flowers, a native V. pubescens population was examined during the spring and summer of 2016 and 2017. Measurements of light quantity, canopy cover, photoperiod, temperature, soil moisture, soil pH, and the number of chasmogamous and cleistogamous buds were collected on either a weekly or biweekly basis. Independent zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regressions were used to model the odds of bud production (0 versus 1 bud) and bud counts (� 1 bud) as a function of the environmental variables. Results of the ZINB models highlight key differences between the environmental variables that influence chasmogamous versus cleistogamous bud development and counts. In addition to the ZINB regressions, individual logistic regressions were fit to the bud data. The logistic models support results of the ZINB models and, more crucially, identify specific environmental thresholds at which each bud type is probable. Collectively, this work offers novel insight into how environmental variables shape temporal development of chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers, suggests distinct threshold values that may aid in selectively inducing each flower type, and provides insight into how climatic change may impact mixed breeding species.
Aggregate party identification (macropartisanship) has exhibited substantial movement in the U.S.... more Aggregate party identification (macropartisanship) has exhibited substantial movement in the U.S. electorate over the last half century. We contend that a major key to that movement is a rare, massive, and enduring shift of the electoral equilibrium commonly known as a partisan realignment. The research, which is based on time-series data that employ the classic measurement of party identification, shows that the 1980 election triggered a systematic growth of Republican identification that cut deeply into the overwhelming Democratic lead dating back to the New Deal realignment. Although short-term fluctuations in macropartisanship are responsive to the elements of everyday politics, neither presidential approval nor consumer sentiment is found responsible for the 1980 shift.
Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public pol... more Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public policy outcomes, with mixed findings. These inconsistencies may stem, in part, from researchers' failure to recognize that direct democracy institutions are distributed nonrandomly across the American states. That is, certain factors may lead a state to adopt the initiative process and influence other policy choices. We revisit the question of how the initiative influences state fiscal policy using panel data from 1960-2000 and a full-information maximum likelihood estimator that explicitly accounts for the endogeneity of the initiative. Our findings suggest that failure to endogenize the initiative in empirical analyses leads to substantially biased estimates of its effects. In particular, we find that once factors that predict whether a state has adopted the initiative are controlled, the initiative has a positive effect on state revenue generation and spending.
Traditional studies of minority incorporation focus on the redistribution of public resources tha... more Traditional studies of minority incorporation focus on the redistribution of public resources that purportedly follows black gains in representation. Thepresent study departsfrom this approach byfocusing on the attitudinal effects of black leadership. Two research questions guide this study: To what extent do blacks' assessments of neighborhood services and conditions stem from black representation in local executive and legislative offices? Are these attitudinal effects rooted in policy and service delivery outcomes? Employing survey data from 3,000 blacks embedded in 52 cities and 53 school districts, this study reveals that blacks report higher levels of satisfaction with their neighborhood conditions, police services, and public schools when represented by blacks in city hall and on school boards and that these evaluations are most positive when improvements in local services are conspicuous. Overall, these findings extend conventional conceptualizations of substantive benefits and challenge more pessimistic accounts regarding the effects of black representation in local politics.
This case study documents the second year of implementation of the Collaborating on Economic Succ... more This case study documents the second year of implementation of the Collaborating on Economic Success in Appalachia (COESA) partnership. COESA was one of fourteen high school-higher education alignment consortia funded by the Ohio Department of Education to address the curricular misalignment between high school and college that contributes to close to half of Ohio’s college freshman enrolling in remedial coursework during their freshman year of college. COESA completed a planning/gap analysis phase in 2012 and implemented Year 1 of alignment work during the 2012-13 academic year. This case study focuses on the perspectives of participating high school teachers and higher education faculty regarding high school-higher education alignment and measures the initial network development among the consortium participants.
The Collaborating on Economic Success in Appalachia (COESA) partnership was one of fourteen high ... more The Collaborating on Economic Success in Appalachia (COESA) partnership was one of fourteen high school-higher education alignment consortia funded by the Ohio Department of Education to address the curricular misalignment between high school and college that contributes to close to half of Ohio’s college freshman enrolling in remedial coursework during their freshman year of college. COESA completed a planning/gap analysis phase in 2012 and implemented Year 1 of alignment work during the 2012-13 academic year. This case study focuses on the perspectives of participating high school teachers and higher education faculty regarding high school-higher education alignment and measures the initial network development among the consortium participants.
Objective: To determine factors contributing to successful diabetes self-management in Appalachia... more Objective: To determine factors contributing to successful diabetes self-management in Appalachia, as evidenced by daily blood glucose monitoring. Methods: A telephone survey (N=3841) was conducted to assess health status and health care access. The current investigation is limited to the subset of this sample who report having diabetes (N=529). Results: A multivariate logistic regression model established that having attended a diabetes education class (P<.01) was the most significant predictor of successful diabetes self-management. The inability to pay for care, demographic variables, and health risk indicators were not found to be significantly related to self-management. Conclusions: This study identifies the role of education in successful diabetes self-management for patients in the Appalachian region.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
The history of the rise and diffusion of the merit principle in American government is common lor... more The history of the rise and diffusion of the merit principle in American government is common lore to students of public administration and political science. Several descriptive accounts notwithstanding, scholars have ignored an intriguing puzzle vis-à-vis state merit adoptions: Why did some states adopt merit systems early in the twentieth century while other states followed suit decades later, and then only when they were forced to do so by the federal government? When we analyze state merit adoptions that occurred between 1900 and 1939 we find nationwide and state-specific demographic, economic, structural, and political factors-for example, growth in patronage constituencies; the use of the Australian ballot; political party competition; dwindling patronage resources post-Pendleton; and the onset of the Great Depression-that shifted politicians' preferences for the merit principle rather than patronage. Our research thus breaks sharply with the extant literature by emphasizing the political undercurrents of merit reform.
The Ohio Education Research Center was tasked with examining and reporting on the early implement... more The Ohio Education Research Center was tasked with examining and reporting on the early implementation stages of the new Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) and the Ohio Principal Evaluation System (OPES). The research team conducted interviews and focus groups with teachers and principals and analyzed the 2013-14 statewide teacher and principal evaluation data extracted from Ohio’s new Electronic Teacher and Principal Evaluation System (eTPES). This report contains detailed analyses of both the qualitative and quantitative data gathered on Year 1 of OTES and OPES.
BACKGROUND: As the prevalence of diabetes increases, so does the importance of understanding whic... more BACKGROUND: As the prevalence of diabetes increases, so does the importance of understanding which factors most strongly contribute to successful diabetes self-management. In order for this to be best accomplished, unique geographic regions must be studied, allowing for the development of strategies that will successfully promote self-management of this disease and improve overall health within these distinct areas. Working toward this goal, nine counties in Appalachian Ohio were surveyed, verifying that the prevalence rate of diabetes is considerably elevated in this rural region compared to state and national rates. Next, a statistical examination of the data was undertaken to determine which factors predict successful diabetes self-management. METHODS: A large-scale telephone survey (N = 3,841) was conducted to assess health status, chronic disease rates, relevant risk factors, and health care access, with a special emphasis on diabetes. The data were entered into a multivariate ...
This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a decision that... more This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a decision that could have important impacts on the rights and representation of minorities. Using new research, Paru Shah, Melissa Marschall and Anirudh Ruhil find that the number of cities covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act with at least one African-American city council member increased by 82 percent between 1981 and 2001. They also argue that coverage by the Voting Rights Act seems to amplify the effects of minority voting strength, council size, and electoral structures in cities.
Viola pubescens is a perennial, mixed breeding herb that produces both chasmogamous and cleistoga... more Viola pubescens is a perennial, mixed breeding herb that produces both chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers at different times of the season. Once bud type is specified, it does not convert from one form to the other. While temporal production of the two flowers is known to be influenced by environmental factors, the specific environmental cues that signal emergence of each flower type have not been empirically studied. To investigate the environmental parameters driving seasonal development of chasmogamous versus cleistogamous flowers, a native V. pubescens population was examined during the spring and summer of 2016 and 2017. Measurements of light quantity, canopy cover, photoperiod, temperature, soil moisture, soil pH, and the number of chasmogamous and cleistogamous buds were collected on either a weekly or biweekly basis. Independent zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regressions were used to model the odds of bud production (0 versus 1 bud) and bud counts (� 1 bud) as a function of the environmental variables. Results of the ZINB models highlight key differences between the environmental variables that influence chasmogamous versus cleistogamous bud development and counts. In addition to the ZINB regressions, individual logistic regressions were fit to the bud data. The logistic models support results of the ZINB models and, more crucially, identify specific environmental thresholds at which each bud type is probable. Collectively, this work offers novel insight into how environmental variables shape temporal development of chasmogamous and cleistogamous flowers, suggests distinct threshold values that may aid in selectively inducing each flower type, and provides insight into how climatic change may impact mixed breeding species.
Aggregate party identification (macropartisanship) has exhibited substantial movement in the U.S.... more Aggregate party identification (macropartisanship) has exhibited substantial movement in the U.S. electorate over the last half century. We contend that a major key to that movement is a rare, massive, and enduring shift of the electoral equilibrium commonly known as a partisan realignment. The research, which is based on time-series data that employ the classic measurement of party identification, shows that the 1980 election triggered a systematic growth of Republican identification that cut deeply into the overwhelming Democratic lead dating back to the New Deal realignment. Although short-term fluctuations in macropartisanship are responsive to the elements of everyday politics, neither presidential approval nor consumer sentiment is found responsible for the 1980 shift.
Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public pol... more Several recent studies have investigated the relationship between direct democracy and public policy outcomes, with mixed findings. These inconsistencies may stem, in part, from researchers' failure to recognize that direct democracy institutions are distributed nonrandomly across the American states. That is, certain factors may lead a state to adopt the initiative process and influence other policy choices. We revisit the question of how the initiative influences state fiscal policy using panel data from 1960-2000 and a full-information maximum likelihood estimator that explicitly accounts for the endogeneity of the initiative. Our findings suggest that failure to endogenize the initiative in empirical analyses leads to substantially biased estimates of its effects. In particular, we find that once factors that predict whether a state has adopted the initiative are controlled, the initiative has a positive effect on state revenue generation and spending.
Traditional studies of minority incorporation focus on the redistribution of public resources tha... more Traditional studies of minority incorporation focus on the redistribution of public resources that purportedly follows black gains in representation. Thepresent study departsfrom this approach byfocusing on the attitudinal effects of black leadership. Two research questions guide this study: To what extent do blacks' assessments of neighborhood services and conditions stem from black representation in local executive and legislative offices? Are these attitudinal effects rooted in policy and service delivery outcomes? Employing survey data from 3,000 blacks embedded in 52 cities and 53 school districts, this study reveals that blacks report higher levels of satisfaction with their neighborhood conditions, police services, and public schools when represented by blacks in city hall and on school boards and that these evaluations are most positive when improvements in local services are conspicuous. Overall, these findings extend conventional conceptualizations of substantive benefits and challenge more pessimistic accounts regarding the effects of black representation in local politics.
This case study documents the second year of implementation of the Collaborating on Economic Succ... more This case study documents the second year of implementation of the Collaborating on Economic Success in Appalachia (COESA) partnership. COESA was one of fourteen high school-higher education alignment consortia funded by the Ohio Department of Education to address the curricular misalignment between high school and college that contributes to close to half of Ohio’s college freshman enrolling in remedial coursework during their freshman year of college. COESA completed a planning/gap analysis phase in 2012 and implemented Year 1 of alignment work during the 2012-13 academic year. This case study focuses on the perspectives of participating high school teachers and higher education faculty regarding high school-higher education alignment and measures the initial network development among the consortium participants.
The Collaborating on Economic Success in Appalachia (COESA) partnership was one of fourteen high ... more The Collaborating on Economic Success in Appalachia (COESA) partnership was one of fourteen high school-higher education alignment consortia funded by the Ohio Department of Education to address the curricular misalignment between high school and college that contributes to close to half of Ohio’s college freshman enrolling in remedial coursework during their freshman year of college. COESA completed a planning/gap analysis phase in 2012 and implemented Year 1 of alignment work during the 2012-13 academic year. This case study focuses on the perspectives of participating high school teachers and higher education faculty regarding high school-higher education alignment and measures the initial network development among the consortium participants.
Objective: To determine factors contributing to successful diabetes self-management in Appalachia... more Objective: To determine factors contributing to successful diabetes self-management in Appalachia, as evidenced by daily blood glucose monitoring. Methods: A telephone survey (N=3841) was conducted to assess health status and health care access. The current investigation is limited to the subset of this sample who report having diabetes (N=529). Results: A multivariate logistic regression model established that having attended a diabetes education class (P<.01) was the most significant predictor of successful diabetes self-management. The inability to pay for care, demographic variables, and health risk indicators were not found to be significantly related to self-management. Conclusions: This study identifies the role of education in successful diabetes self-management for patients in the Appalachian region.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
The history of the rise and diffusion of the merit principle in American government is common lor... more The history of the rise and diffusion of the merit principle in American government is common lore to students of public administration and political science. Several descriptive accounts notwithstanding, scholars have ignored an intriguing puzzle vis-à-vis state merit adoptions: Why did some states adopt merit systems early in the twentieth century while other states followed suit decades later, and then only when they were forced to do so by the federal government? When we analyze state merit adoptions that occurred between 1900 and 1939 we find nationwide and state-specific demographic, economic, structural, and political factors-for example, growth in patronage constituencies; the use of the Australian ballot; political party competition; dwindling patronage resources post-Pendleton; and the onset of the Great Depression-that shifted politicians' preferences for the merit principle rather than patronage. Our research thus breaks sharply with the extant literature by emphasizing the political undercurrents of merit reform.
The Ohio Education Research Center was tasked with examining and reporting on the early implement... more The Ohio Education Research Center was tasked with examining and reporting on the early implementation stages of the new Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) and the Ohio Principal Evaluation System (OPES). The research team conducted interviews and focus groups with teachers and principals and analyzed the 2013-14 statewide teacher and principal evaluation data extracted from Ohio’s new Electronic Teacher and Principal Evaluation System (eTPES). This report contains detailed analyses of both the qualitative and quantitative data gathered on Year 1 of OTES and OPES.
BACKGROUND: As the prevalence of diabetes increases, so does the importance of understanding whic... more BACKGROUND: As the prevalence of diabetes increases, so does the importance of understanding which factors most strongly contribute to successful diabetes self-management. In order for this to be best accomplished, unique geographic regions must be studied, allowing for the development of strategies that will successfully promote self-management of this disease and improve overall health within these distinct areas. Working toward this goal, nine counties in Appalachian Ohio were surveyed, verifying that the prevalence rate of diabetes is considerably elevated in this rural region compared to state and national rates. Next, a statistical examination of the data was undertaken to determine which factors predict successful diabetes self-management. METHODS: A large-scale telephone survey (N = 3,841) was conducted to assess health status, chronic disease rates, relevant risk factors, and health care access, with a special emphasis on diabetes. The data were entered into a multivariate ...
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Papers by Anirudh Ruhil