Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Very little research has attempted to measure the National Governors' Association's lobbying impact at the federal level. This paper examines the factors that drive the association's success in lobbying Congress.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: U.S. governors lead overseas missions seeking investment and promoting trade, establish international offices, meet with heads of government, receive ambassadors and take positions on foreign policy. This paper attempts to describe how governors are involved in participating in U.S. foreign policy and explain why governors seek to voice their views and play an active role in working with leaders and issues beyond their state’s borders. The paper draws upon theories of international relations, federalism and foreign policy analysis and argues that U.S. states and governors need to be better conceptualized and considered in each. Analysis reveals that U.S. states with higher levels of foreign investment and lower unemployment rates as well as governors with greater degrees of institutional and personal powers and prior jobs such as a member of Congress, U.S. Senator, or Ambassador are more likely to have higher degrees of foreign policy activity. Findings also indicate that governors are more likely to participate in foreign policy during wartime and more likely to be Republicans.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In state policy making, governors are the only political actors that represent an entire state rather than a legislative subdivision. Governors, with their power of initiation, hold a significant advantage over the state legislatures in setting the policy agenda (Jewell and Morehouse 2001). Despite this key role governors play in shaping policy, the study of what factors influence governors’ policy agendas has received little attention in the scholarly literature. What research that has been done on state policy agendas focuses only on governors in several states (Morehouse 1998; Van Assendelft 1997) or on other inputs to the policy making process. In this latter regard, state policy has been found to be reflective of both electoral (legislatures) (Erikson, Wright, and McIver 1993) and party activist coalitions (Morehouse 1998). The representational bond, as analyzed by Erikson, Wright and McIver (1993), appears strongest between aggregated opinion of the mass electorate and elected officials. Owing to “measurement considerations, rather than a disregard for the governor’s role in the legislative process,” the role of the governor is not included in these models of policy representation (Erikson, Wright and McIver 1993, 126). Morehouse (1998), however, suggests that the policy process frequently begins with the governor. We propose to examine the factors that affect the ideological directions of governors’ agendas by first developing a reliable way to systematically measure those dispositions. We then consider the state level indicators that shape the political bent of governors’ agendas.

Since a governor’s “state of the state” address outlines the main political priorities he or she wants enacted, they provide the best insight into the governor’s political agenda (Coffey 2005). We conduct a content analysis of state of the state speeches from 1991 through 1993 and 2000 through 2002 to measure the ideology of governors’ legislative agendas. We then use data from the mass electorate, party activists, state legislatures, and state-level contextual data to test hypotheses about how governors’ policy agendas respond ideologically to both elite and mass constituents, political actors in the legislature, and the nature of their states. To develop measures of governor ideology, we rely on content analytic techniques developed by Laver and Benoit (2003) and Laver, Benoit, and Garry (2003). We employ the 1992 and 2000 Convention Delegate Studies to measure elite attitudes ideology as well as data from 1992 and 2000 exit polls to measure the ideology of mass partisans.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Gubernatorial scholars have suggested that governors’ institutional powers provide important resources that they may use when acting as their states’ “chief legislator.” Several studies have examined whether stronger institutional powers enhance a governor’s legislative success. In this paper, I study a different dimension of gubernatorial power and examine whether governors’ institutional powers influence the number or types of policies they propose to the legislature. In my study, I focus on governors’ economic development proposals from all fifty states during the period from 1997 to 2006.

I propose a theory in which a governor’s institutional powers, such as appointment power, veto authority, and tenure potential, provide resources that are useful in bargaining with legislators for their support of the governor’s legislative proposals. I hypothesize that during periods of divided government, strong governors will adopt more ambitious legislative agendas than weak governors because they can use their bargaining resources to overcome resistance to their policies by members of the opposition party. I also hypothesize that the influence of these powers on a governor’s agenda will decline as the strength of the opposition party increases. My preliminary findings indicate that strong governors do propose larger agendas than weak governors, but I find no evidence that this effect of strong powers diminishes as the strength of the opposition increases. These findings suggest that I need to expand my conception of institutional powers beyond bargaining resources to include enabling resources, such as gubernatorial staff, that allow a governor to formulate a larger legislative agenda.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: For teachers who want to help their students become better citizens, the contemporary climate presents many challenges. Aside from the apathy and frustration with which many young people view politics, the brightest students often see their schooling in instrumental terms -- as a way to get into a "good" college or lucrative profession rather than to develop self-knowledge and worldy wisdom.
In 2004, we revamped the New Jersey Governor's School for Public Issues -- a state-run program for 100 high-school seniors -- to respond to this environment. We created a intense residential learning environment that combined classroom learning, interaction with the "real world" of politics, and participation in civic activities. Organized around a theme, "Public Policy and Children: Reestablishing the Social Contract in New Jersey," our curriculum connected public life to the students' private passions. We encouraged student ownership of events while holding students to high standards -- without grades.
During the month, students got increasingly interested in public life. Without prodding, students organized political coalitions, groups to discuss various religions, a speaker series, and community service activities. Since the program ended, the students' civic interest has not waned. They have created internet networks (with 95 of 100 scholars participating) in order to: organize political protests, go to speeches by candidates, encourage the formation of Model UN and debate teams at each others' schools, invite speakers to their communities, and donate money to nonprofits.
Students report that the program "changed [their] lives." Our paper shows how the 2004 Governor's School program, in whole or in its individual parts, can serve as a model for civic education and politically-minded learning communities.