Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The EITC, a wage subsidy for the working poor, is now the largest income support policy from which working age Americans have ever benefited. I argue that the interests of low wage employers has played a substantial role in its growth.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Local African politics are typically understood as loyalty to a Big Man in exchange for services. Using a natural experiment in Northern Ghana, I show that the onset of crisis can alter these relationships, leading individuals to favor family and community over the Big Man.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: How can we explain the variation in political participation across and within cities? For mayoral elections, what levels of voter turnout currently exist in major American cities, and how has it changed over the last twenty years? What demographic, political, civic and institutional factors structures turnout? Using multilevel modeling, I analyze 290 elections occurring over 24 years from 36 cities American cities that have had populations over 500,000. I find that while on the whole turnout is lower in municipal elections than most other elections, under certain condition cities have had higher levels of local participation than national. Socioeconomic factors play little role; rather high turnout elections occur primarily as a result of the structure of local government and elections, factors internal to the campaign, and the interaction of strong racial cleavages with the presence of black candidates.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Sociological research has long pursued insight into the relationship between the state and society in formal policy creation and implementation, but the question of the role of informal doctrine on policy processes has been of less concern. Furthermore, the concern with how corporate interests become particularly privileged in policy processes has commonly been pursued in the context of national relationships. But in an increasingly globalized political economy, what affect do processes of globalization have on corporate-state relations and the ability of corporate actors to gain their objectives in state policy and practice? We explore these questions through an analysis of the informal state doctrine of “too big to fail” and its extension of “too big to deny” in the case of Wal-Mart. We find that many of the same elements identified by state theory as privileging corporate interests in formal policy processes to operate in the production and implementation of informal state doctrine. Moreover, we find that increasing global economic relationships further empower corporate actors like Wal-Mart to make effective use of their considerable resources, so that decisions state managers may make become increasingly constrained by corporate actors whose growth is enhanced and accelerated by their extensions into the global marketplace. Finally, we find that an analysis of the relationship between the state and corporate actors must include the role of regulators and the courts in the implementation of policy, both formal and informal. Their decisions and applications of policy are likely to set the stage for future policy processes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While spending on many programs for the poor has dropped significantly since President Clinton’s 1996 reform that ‘ended welfare as we knew it’, spending on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), currently around 44 billion dollars a year, has largely offset these reductions. The EITC, a wage subsidy for the working poor, is now the largest income support policy from which working age Americans have ever benefited. What explains its growth? I argue that business interests play a substantial role. While bearing some similarities to both Keynesianism and neoliberal retrenchment, the EITC is distinct in its benefits for business. In short, the EITC represents a new kind of welfare state—a relatively large and generous welfare state—but one that it is particularly beneficial for business. I argue that common explanations for its success, including its link to work, the fact it is concealed within the tax system, and its ambiguity that has allowed it to be interpreted as everything from progressive tax policy to family policy, fail to fully explain the rise of the EITC. Business interests explain what these theories fail to explain.