Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Most of the recent literature that investigates turnout and voter mobilization finds little or no impact on turnout as a result of get-out-the-vote phone drives. This paper describes three field experiments embedded within get-out-the-vote phone drives conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area in November 2002 and October 2003 (the gubernatorial recall election), all of which focused on new registrants. Two of the drives were explicitly partisan (Democratic), and the other was strictly non-partisan. These experiments were designed to investigate whether get-out-the-vote phone drives are effective tools for increasing turnout. Neither of the partisan get-out-the-vote phone drives had no detectable effect on voter turnout. There was a positive effect on turnout from non-partisan calls, but it was only effective on Democratic registrants, and then only when the caller was representing a local organization, rather than a national one. The overall results raise continued questions about the efficacy of registration movements. The surprising finding regarding new Democratic registrants may provide insight on different dimensions of voters’ party identification.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Much has changed since the first empirical studies of Black public opinion emerged in the 1980s. African Americans have acquired significant political power and influence since then. In this paper, I seek to examine the state of Black public opinion today. In addition to determining the degree to which Black public opinion remains consistently liberal from the 1950s to 2004, I also seek to identify the degree to which race identification remains an importance force in Black public opinion. I conclude by proposing an alternative model of Black public opinion that shifts the focus from identifying grassroots level determinants to the role of political elites.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the last thirty years, the California State Assembly has become more polarized. Utilizing roll call data to calculate the distribution of influence in the legislature, we investigate the effect of institutional and contextual shifts on legislative behavior. For each vote in the State Assembly from 1975-2006, we record the intensity of similarity between any two legislators by the rate of similar votes (Yea, or Nay). We compare these distributions and the distributions of centrality scores, a network-analysis measurement of power, over time to measure ideological polarization. We are able to attribute shifts in the distribution of influence to the imposition of term limits, and estimate the effects of seniority, leadership position, committee membership, and partisan affiliation on legislative network agreement. Controlling for district-level changes via party registration, race, competitiveness, and proposition returns, we find that the shift in legislative experience corresponds to shifts in patterns of agreement on bills and in patterns of influence -- consequences that were not anticipated by supporters of term limits -- and that result in a more polarized legislature.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Mormons have long been associated with polygamous marriages, including the need for former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to defend his views on the subject, and are believed to be one of the most influential groups behind the campaign to enact Proposition 8, effectively ending access to marriage for same-sex couples in California (2008). How did this marginal religious group (2% of the US population) gain the political clout to sway the vote and what do they stand to gain from establishing themselves as a force for upholding “traditional” (heterosexual, monogamous) marriage? This paper serves as an exploration of a historically marginalized religious group and their role in the 2008 ballot measure in California, as well as within the larger context of the debate on same-sex marriage.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Culture, long a favorite stomping ground of anthropology and the humanities, has in recent decades become “discovered” with gusto by sociology, as a marked “cultural turn” has led to the formation of one of the largest sections of the American Sociological Association, the Section on Culture. As Gabe Ignatow noted in a recent issue of the section’s newsletter, Durkheim in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life and elsewhere “developed a ‘religious sociology’ that is an inspiration for much of contemporary cultural sociology.” However much sociologists have made heuristic and other use of The Elementary Forms (hereafter, The Forms) in the growth of cultural sociology, it seems to have little significance for those writing in the sociology of art, such as Nisbet, Bourdieu, Luhmann, Alexander, and Zolberg.
This paper presents materials which situates The Forms in the context of radical cultural innovations of the avant-garde in representational and performance arts in France in the same years as Durkheim was preparing and presenting The Forms. The cultural theme of “primitivism” interrelates Durkheim, Cubism, and “the Rite of Spring”, and each, respectively, provoked a “scandal”, with a common stimulus coming from tribal art and objects. Of related interest regarding the meager treatment of “Aesthetics” in the Année Sociologique is that avant-garde artists such as Picasso, Braque and others were politically inspired by the radical left (anarchism and later Communism), while the Durkheimians were predominantly center-left (today’s Social Democrats).
Much as The Elementary Forms is a foundational work in sociological theory and the sociology of religion, this paper provides an additional perspective of its being a foundational work in cultural sociology. It qualifies Durkheim, despite his personal lack of interesting the arts (unlike Weber), as a creative avant-garde artist.