Wolves in sheeps' clothing: Creationist manipulation of Kansas science standards

So the question that animates this paper is this: what happens when a state's education policy seeks to make popular social and religious values a central part of its education standards in direct confrontation with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? I will try to answer that question in three ways. First, I will examine the tactics used in the manipulation of curricula to reflect social and religious values, with special focus on the Kansas case. Second, I will try to ascertain the determinants of success in these efforts; under what conditions are movements to impose creation science on public school curricula likely to succeed, and when to fail? Third, I will try to place these struggles over educational curricula, and between religion and science, in broader context, focusing on what they tell us about the nature of public policy making in the contemporary United States.

Incumbency Reconsidered: Prospects, Strategic Entry, and Incumbent Quality in U.S. House Elections

Efforts to estimate the magnitude of the incumbency effect in U.S. House elections and assess its political meaning have been complicated by two omitted-variables problems. First, in the absence of an adequate measure of incumbent prospects, estimates of the magnitude of the incumbency effect fail to control for selection effects associated with the decision incumbents make about whether to run for reelection. Strategic incumbents enter races they think they can win and withdraw when they expect to lose. The consequence is an upward bias in estimates of incumbents’ electoral advantages. Second, the normative implications of high reelection rates cannot be assessed without measuring incumbent quality, since a possible explanation for their electoral success is that incumbents are of high quality and doing a good job. We propose a strategy for measuring incumbent prospects and quality, demonstrate the strategic nature of incumbent and challenger entry, re-estimate the incumbency effect, and show that incumbent quality has an impact on electoral outcomes. Our conclusion is that incumbents’ advantages in House elections have been over estimated while the positive basis of incumbent safety is typically under appreciated.