IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/publus/v47y2017i3p314-341..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Governors and Partisan Polarization in the Federal Arena

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer M. Jensen

Abstract

Governors have always had to balance state interests with political party interests. However, governors’ role in the federal arena, which historically has had a significant bipartisan element, has shifted somewhat, today placing a greater emphasis on party interests. This change is one of the degree; it is less a sea change than a change in the salinity of the sea. I provide evidence of this move to more partisan behavior and explore two sets of interrelated factors that have influenced this change: party polarization in Congress and state legislatures and among voters, and the structure, activities and influence of the National Governors Association, Democratic Governors Association, and Republican Governors Association. This article represents an initial effort to tease out some of the varied causal effects and establish a framework for scholars to further explore the dual gubernatorial responsibilities of advancing state interests and party interests.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer M. Jensen, 2017. "Governors and Partisan Polarization in the Federal Arena," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 47(3), pages 314-341.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:publus:v:47:y:2017:i:3:p:314-341.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjx035
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy J. Conlan & Paul L. Posner, 2016. "American Federalism in an Era of Partisan Polarization: The Intergovernmental Paradox of Obama’s "New Nationalism"," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 46(3), pages 281-307.
    2. Bednar,Jenna, 2009. "The Robust Federation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521703963, January.
    3. Bednar,Jenna, 2009. "The Robust Federation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521878999, January.
    4. Elizabeth Rigby & Jake Haselswerdt, 2013. "Hybrid Federalism, Partisan Politics, and Early Implementation of State Health Insurance Exchanges," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 43(3), pages 368-391, July.
    5. James H. Read, 2016. "Constitutionalizing the Dispute: Federalism in Hyper-Partisan Times," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 46(3), pages 337-365.
    6. J. Mitchell Pickerill & Cynthia J. Bowling, 2014. "Polarized Parties, Politics, and Policies: Fragmented Federalism in 2013–2014," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 44(3), pages 369-398.
    7. Nolan McCarty & Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 2009. "Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 666-680, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Murray, Gregg R. & Murray, Susan M., 2020. "Following Doctors’ Advice: Explaining the Issuance of Stay-at-Home Orders Related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by U.S. Governors," OSF Preprints 92ay6, Center for Open Science.
    2. Jessica Weinkle, 2022. "An evaluation of North Carolina science advice on COVID-19 pandemic response," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tobias Arnold & Sean Mueller & Adrian Vatter, 2021. "Shock or Design: What Drives Fiscal De/Centralization? A Comparative Analysis of Twenty-Nine OECD Countries, 1995–2017," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 51(1), pages 1-26.
    2. repec:gig:joupla:v:5:y:2013:i:2:p:133-150 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bernard Hoekman & Douglas Nelson, 2020. "Rethinking international subsidy rules," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(12), pages 3104-3132, December.
    4. Gemma Sala, 2014. "Can Courts Make Federalism Work? A Game Theory Approach to Court-Induced Compliance and Defection in Federal Systems," Economies, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-25, December.
    5. Adolph, Christopher & Greer, Scott L. & Massard da Fonseca, Elize, 2012. "Allocation of authority in European health policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(9), pages 1595-1603.
    6. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2020. "Do rights to resistance discipline the elites? An experiment on the threat of overthrow," Munich Papers in Political Economy 08, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    7. T. Clark Durant & Michael Weintraub, 2014. "How to make democracy self-enforcing after civil war: Enabling credible yet adaptable elite pacts," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(5), pages 521-540, November.
    8. Liesbet Hooghe & Gary Marks, 2012. "Beyond Federalism - Estimating and Explaining the Territorial Structure of Government," KFG Working Papers p0037, Free University Berlin.
    9. Bettina Petersohn & Nathalie Behnke & Eva Maria Rhode, 2015. "Negotiating Territorial Change in Multinational States: Party Preferences, Negotiating Power and the Role of the Negotiation Mode," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 45(4), pages 626-652.
    10. T. Durant, 2011. "Making executive politics mutually productive and fair," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 141-172, June.
    11. Estache, Antonio & Garsous, Grégoire & Seroa da Motta, Ronaldo, 2016. "Shared Mandates, Moral Hazard, and Political (Mis)alignment in a Decentralized Economy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 98-110.
    12. Richard M. Bird, 2015. "Fiscal Decentralization and Decentralizing Tax Administration: Different Questions, Different Answers," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1509, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    13. Konstantin Chatziathanasiou & Svenja Hippel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2022. "Does the Threat of Overthrow Discipline the Elites? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 289-320.
    14. Alan Fenna, 2019. "The Centralization of Australian Federalism 1901–2010: Measurement and Interpretation," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 49(1), pages 30-56.
    15. Garzarelli, Giampaolo, 2018. "Internal Organization in a Public Theory of the Firm: Toward a Coase-Oates Federalism Nexus," MPRA Paper 86955, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Stuart Kasdin, 2016. "The Decision to Grant," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 68-84, February.
    17. Weingast, Barry R., 2014. "Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: Political Aspects of Decentralization and Economic Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 14-25.
    18. Shannon Conley & David M Konisky & Megan Mullin, 2023. "Delivering on Environmental Justice? U.S. State Implementation of the Justice40 Initiative," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 53(3), pages 349-377.
    19. Shannon Jenkins & Douglas D. Roscoe, 2014. "Parties as the Political Safeguards of Federalism: The Impact of Local Political Party Activity on National Elections," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 44(3), pages 519-540.
    20. Alexander Libman, 2015. "Words or deeds: what matters? On the role of symbolic action in political decentralization," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 801-838, November.
    21. Srinivas C. Parinandi, 2020. "Policy Inventing and Borrowing among State Legislatures," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 852-868, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:publus:v:47:y:2017:i:3:p:314-341.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/publius .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.