• DeMora, Collingwood, and Ninci (2019)

“The role of super interest groups in public policy diffusion”
(Policy and Politics)

In recent years scholarship has drawn attention to the role of large multi-issue interest groups in policy networks and in public policy diffusion. This paper develops this field of study by demonstrating empirically the leverage of the ‘sustained organisational influence’ theory of policy diffusion. Specifically, it focuses on the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in diffusing the Stand Your Ground policy across US state legislatures. By comparing ALEC’s template policy to bills introduced and legislation subsequently enacted within state legislatures, we demonstrate that ALEC has positioned itself as a ‘super interest group’, exerting sustained organisational influence across an expanding number of states. In doing so, this paper moves theory beyond the typical advocacy coalition framework that implicitly assumes policymaking occurs discretely among specialists on an issue-by-issue basis. It also highlights the democratic implications of the role of super interest groups in shaping policy behind the scenes.

- Featured in the Discovery Society Blog -> Click here to read.
- Featured in the Policy & Politics Blog -> Forthcoming.

• Bawn, DeMora, Dowdle, Hall, Myers, Patterson, and Zaller (2019)

“Policy voting in U.S. House primaries”
(Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties)

This paper uses exit surveys of voters in four House primaries to ask how well voters are able to use primaries for the purpose of giving policy direction to their congressional parties. The surveys found that nearly half of voters could not recall the names of any candidate and that 11% were uncertain or could not recall for whom they had just voted. The surveys also found that nearly 40% of voters could not offer a political evaluation – that is, a like or dislike having political content – about any candidate, and that fewer than a quarter could offer political evaluations of as many as two candidates. The surveys found no evidence of policy-motivated voting in three of the four primaries, but substantial evidence of it in one. Yet even in that one race, voters split their support among three candidates sharing majority voter opinion on the key election issue and thereby opened the way for nomination of a candidate not sharing majority opinion. The paper concludes from this evidence that voters in these House primaries, and probably more widely, made little use of them for the purpose of giving policy direction to their parties.