Emma Vaughan ('26) is examining how local and state law enforcement offices differ in their implementation of Miranda Rights. Miranda Rights -- "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law..." -- should be read to suspects in the same way everywhere. However, local and state interpretations of Miranda Rights vary in the manner, time, and context in which suspects are informed of their rights. This project documents state and local variation in Miranda Rights to assess the causes of variation and the potential impact on law enforcement outcomes.
Sergio Peña Velasco ('26) is the exploring the impact of social welfare and income redistribution programs on the political attitudes of Americans. This project assesses how different generations of Americans vary in their knowledge about and support for Social Security, Medicare, housing subsidies, federal student loans, and other social spending programs. The project uses both administrative data and survey data on federal taxes and spending.
Daphna Fineberg ('26) is studying what people think are the most important problems facing the country. A series of ongoing survey experiments use open-ended questions to prompt subjects to write what they think are the most important issues or problems in the United States today. Daphna is analyzing the open-ended responses using computational text analysis to determine how question wording, question placement, and the political and demographic characteristics of survey-takers affect responses.
Vynateya Purimetla ('25) is studying the effect of elite partisan messages on public opinion, particularly public support for fossil fuel pipelines. A survey experimented conducted in Fall 2023 presented subjects with a description of the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia followed by information about whether Democratic and Republican Party leaders supported or opposed the pipeline. The project reveals the extent to which partisans are swayed not only by the positions of their own party's leader but also by the position of the other party.
Devan Fink ('23), Eleanor Hackett ('23), and Ashkaan Mahjoob ('23) are working on several studies of attitudes toward abortion in the United States. One study focuses on the voting decisions of people whose attitudes toward abortion conflict with their party identification. A second study uses a survey fielded in 2023 to examine how people connect abortion laws to other issues, such as family leave, subsidized contraception, and public funding for low income families. A third study gauges public knowledge of state-level changes in abortion laws.
Beatrice Burack (’25), Shaochen Shi (’25), and Mei Xu (’25) are collaborating with Professor Yusaku Horiuchi to study how the general public values the “legislative effectiveness” of members of Congress. Legislative effectiveness is defined by political scientists as the number of bills that each member of Congress sponsors, the success of the bills through the legislative process, and the policy impact of the bills. Burack, Shi, and Xu designed a survey experiment presented to a sample of Americans to determine whether voters give higher approval ratings to effective legislators or to legislators described as partisan or ideological purists.
William Eaton (‘22) worked on a theory of the roots of civil unrest in societies. Through analysis of several 20th century revolutions as well as the Middle East and North African (MENA) regional uprisings collectively termed the Arab Spring, William identified political and sociological mechanisms that have historically helped to shape the outset and outcomes of unrest. William wrote a paper developing a novel qualitative model of civil unrest that hinges on the treatment of social mobilization movements as a contest between three groups: those that abhor the regime; those who will support the status quo even in the face of mass protest; and the moderate body of the population, a group which may choose to support the interests of either of the former groups in response to the actions of these groups and a number of external shocks.
Natasha Raman ('23) is working with Professor Dean Lacy to assess how the language of multiracial or mixed race identities in survey questions and news coverage affects how the growing numbers of multiracial Americans identify themselves and are identified by others. Part of the project assesses how different question formats for asking respondents' about their race and ethnicity may produce different estimates of the composition of the US population. In particular, does allowing respondents to check multiple racial identities lead to different responses than allowing only a single identity with categories such as "two or more races" or "mixed race" included as response options? Natasha is also examining how media coverage of and speeches by Kamala Harris describe her as "Black," "Asian," "Indian," and "mixed race" in different times and contexts.
Andrew Culver ('22), collaborating with Professor Joe Bafumi, is examining the queuing effects of political issues on potential voters. Andrew designed a survey experiment prior to the November 2020 election in which respondents were split into 3 groups of 200 participants each. Each group was asked a series of questions gathering party affiliation and political opinions on key issues included in the study. Each group then read an article – a “treatment” in the experiment -- on either the Supreme Court vacancy, the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, or both. Respondents were then asked about their political opinions once again. The hypothesis is that the treatment articles that expose respondents to different political news will shift their answers on the political opinion questions. The purpose of the study is to determine how news and issues can influence or frame voters’ opinions on politics.
Melissa Barales-Lopez ('22), working with Dean Lacy, is studying the relationship between opinions on immigration and health care in the US public. Data from surveys conducted from 2012 through 2020 show that public support for a national health care system depends on public policy toward immigration: support for a national health care system increases if respondents believe the government is restricting immigration. Melissa has also compiled data from politicians’ speeches, the news media, Google searches, and Twitter to examine whether the connection between immigration policy and health care is driven by messaging from political elites.
Victor Wu ('22), collaborating with Dean Lacy, is studying how politicians and the general public perceive and communicate connections between issues, especially immigration, police powers, and gun control. Victor is using a combination of media stories and public opinion surveys to determine which issues are frequently connected to each other by the general public and by political candidates and elected officials.
THESES SUPPORTED IN 2021-22
Emilia Hoppe (’22), advised by Professor Charles Crabtree, wrote a thesis on disability rights. The Politics & Law Program funded a survey experiment for Emilia to gather data for the project.
Abstract: People with disabilities have long been excluded from full participation in American society. Over the course of recent decades, the policy environment has drastically changed to permit a wider degree of inclusion, yet marginalization persists. In an attempt to shed light on these issues, I investigate disability in American civic society through the lens of policy feedback theory. I collected novel data through a survey experiment designed to probe the underlying mechanisms that drive feedback effects and performed a case study on the relationship between two pieces of landmark disability legislation—Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. I conclude that policy feedback theory can be applied in the realm of disability politics and propose a new theoretical mechanism for policy feedback effects in civil rights legislation.
Chantal Elias (’22), advised by Professor Ben Valentino, wrote a thesis examining public support for U.S. intervention in humanitarian crises abroad. The Politics & Law Program funded Chantal’s survey experiment.
Abstract: Great variation exists in the U.S.’s response to crimes against humanity. To date, we do not understand why such variation exists. As a democratic nation, the U.S. government looks to the public for authorization to engage in humanitarian military interventions, whether unilaterally, through the United Nations, or in another multilateral arrangement. Without a nuanced understanding of the drivers of variation in public support for humanitarian intervention, elites do not know how to best design and frame humanitarian missions to garner sufficient levels of public support. Limited polling of Americans during past humanitarian interventions suggests that many of the factors that are salient to Americans in traditional military interventions, such as low costs and troop fatalities, are also important to Americans when a mission is humanitarian. However, a great deal of questions remain, including the effect that a mission’s humanitarian scope will have on the traditional variables that usually determine support for the use of force. To answer these unknowns, I designed a national survey experiment that was fielded by Qualtrics to 705 Americans. In this experiment I test the effect that six different treatments— U.S. intervention, U.N. intervention, national interest, high efficacy, low troop fatalities, and genocide—have on American public support for humanitarian intervention. In addition to identifying what drives Americans to support humanitarian missions, I also investigate which Americans are more supportive of interventions and under what conditions. I found that Americans are significantly more supportive of interventions that are led by the U.N. compared to unilateral U.S. missions. I did not find the other tested variables to hold any significance in explaining variation in support. I found that Democrats are significantly more supportive of humanitarian interventions than non-Democrats and that Democratic support for intervention increases significantly when American civilians are at risk and when a genocide is occurring.
Tanner Bielefeld-Pruitt (’22), advised by Dean Lacy, wrote a senior thesis assessing how political candidates should respond to attack advertisements during political campaigns. The Politics & Law Program paid for part of Tanner’s survey experiment.
Abstract: When a candidate is attacked by an opponent in a political debate, what is the most effective response? Previous studies find that attacking on policy issues is more effective than attacking on character issues in political debates. Prior studies explore the effectiveness of responses to attacks in advertisements and direct mail, but without a consensus. Previous research on political debates has not explored the question of the effectiveness of different styles of responses to attacks in debates. This thesis examines the effectiveness of three response strategies—acclaim, explain, and counterattack—to character-based and policy-based attacks in a primary debate setting. A survey experiment in which 3,742 respondents read transcripts of hypothetical political debates in a party primary shows that acclaim responses are the most effective at improving four key metrics—vote intent, approval, trust, and effectiveness—when responding to both policy and character attacks. Explain responses were the second-most effective, while counterattack responses were not effective. Additionally, character-based attacks are more effective than policy-based attacks. Acclaim is the most effective response because voters dislike mudslinging and prefer candidates who emphasize positive aspects about themselves, rather than negative aspects of their opponents.