Representation in Local Politics in the United States
Sarah Anzia, Professor
Public Policy
Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.
The research is focused on local politics in the United States and will support a project about decision-making in local government.
This project explores: 1) what local officials vote on in in US local government, 2) the role of partisanship in voting, and 3) how municipality size conditions the role of partisanship in local government. Two parts of this project requiring assistance. The first focuses on officials’ voting decisions in local meetings in a sample of municipalities across the US. The second focuses on partisan elements of municipal candidate statements.
Role: Students working on this project will work on two main tasks over the course of the semester. First, they will hand-code the topic of votes and who votes in what direction in meeting minutes according to a codebook. They will also note anything that goes beyond the scope of the codebook to build a more detailed codebook. Additional data collection tasks relating to these meeting minutes may be required as well. Students will hand-enter data and keep a clean set of spreadsheets for future analyses. Second, they will follow a detailed manual outlining measures for partisanship in local policy to code candidate statements.
The students will learn about local government decision-making structure across various municipalities, what types of issues are most important to local governments, the role of partisan divisions in nonpartisan governments, and how characteristics beyond partisanship play a role in the election of these officials.
Qualifications: Qualifications: Must be interested in learning more about American politics, specifically local politics (e.g., city/town governments), with a demonstrated capacity for conducting independent research. Experience with excel is a plus.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Anna Weissman, Ph.D. candidate in Political Science, Ph.D. candidate
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Students will meet on-campus for meetings with Anna Weissman every 1-2 weeks, but they can otherwise work remotely.
Social Sciences