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4 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Media coverage of Congress is overwhelmingly focused on heated conflict. Coverage of social problems can be more substantive, but the focus moves to political conflict once policies are being debated

Combative Politics
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
Process conflict media coverage of Congress tends to reduce bill support & highlight extremism. The dynamic is made worse by the incentives of backbenchers to generate attention on their efforts, which tends to make it harder for leaders to corral votes
niskanencenter.org/how-media-cove…
Contentious media coverage can reduce support for bills, but does not always do so. Media coverage of legislative debate never seems to increase support for bills. Coverage of heated conflict is more likely to reduce support

Combative Politics
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
I discussed the implications of this for the infrastructure bill at the beginning of the process (better to be quiet):
fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-t…

Also note the discussion of how to make your way up in Congress now: through communications, which amps up the incentives for conflict.

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More from @MattGrossmann

Matt Grossmann Profile picture
22 Sep
2-track “plan” was not a party agreement; it was a leadership promise with implausible timing made to pass the bipartisan Senate bill followed by another leadership promise with implausible timing made to pass the budget; next is the implausible promise for Monday’s vote or delay
Biden is meeting with everyone today but we don’t know if he is whipping votes for ~Monday or asking to postpone. Seems impossible not to break one of the prior promises. But their tendency is to make more promises to get past the vote in front of them.
Unclear if there was a WH plan today to encourage either yes votes or postponement. If so, it doesn’t appear to have changed much:
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
19 Sep
Democrats have increasingly focused on appeals to their affiliated identity groups in recent years, without much change among Republicans
#polisciresearch diss

escholarship.org/content/qt4k12…
Republicans have increased their appeals to conservatism lately but referenced liberalism a lot less often

escholarship.org/content/qt4k12…
The diss finds limited evidence that identity appeals increase affective polarization, though affective polarization is increasing with Democratic diversification. Interestingly, the Republican Party is relatively stable on racial & religious composition
escholarship.org/content/qt4k12…
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
7 Sep
My new book thread 1/n

"How Social Science Got Better: Overcoming Bias with More Evidence, Diversity, & Self-Reflection" is now published & available in stores!

You can order with a 30% discount at Oxford with this code: ASFLYQ6
global.oup.com/academic/produ…
It was a privilege to delve into great progress being made across economics, psychology, sociology, political science, & anthropology & return to fundamental questions in the history & philosophy of science. Thanks @OUPAcademic & all those who helped.

2/n
It is more difficult (but not impossible) to reach consensus cumulative knowledge in social sciences, but that is due to the diversity of human experience & the complex, cross-level processes we study, rather than our methods. Social scientists recognize their uphill battle

3/n
Read 15 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
29 May
Left parties in many countries have exchanged support from low-education voters for high-education voters since 1970, but without becoming parties of the rich; the right in many places has become a coalition of the rich & the uneducated

economist.com/graphic-detail…
The reversal of the educational cleavage in most countries is strongly linked to the emergence of a new sociocultural axis of political conflict & the rise of Green & anti-immigration politics

From a new version of
“Brahmin Left versus Merchant Right”
wid.world/document/brahm…
While the shift is global, the US stands out as moving from almost no left/right division on education & a large division on income in 1970 to a large division on education & almost no division on income by 2010 (by this measure)
Read 5 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
12 May
Long way to go, but more traditional NSF funding & DOE national lab funding have successfully attached themselves as solutions to today’s focus problem of Chinese technology competition; also, the distributed locations of national labs & grant-seeking universities still matter
Compared to other issue areas, significant science & tech policy changes involve more leadership from administrative agencies; but the policymaking network is sparsely connected with no core; there has long been high international but low public influence
amazon.com/Artists-Possib…
There is now a good chance that we'll more than double traditional NSF directorate funding (while creating a new directorate & funding national labs) under the guise of an anti-China technology competition bill

Senate bill now more closely tracks the House bill, but with more $
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
11 May
Polled issue opinions are associated with ballot initiative outcomes but popular policies underperform; voters systematically prefer the "no" option
#polisciresearch
dropbox.com/s/zn2uf6kyv8id…
Great generalization of the research on how Washington's real-world campaigns reduced support for climate initiatives by 20 percentage points:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
CW among consultants is that an initiative should start with 2/3 support in the polls to pass (with 50%), usually explained not just as status quo bias but responsiveness to negative information; eg, con spending on initiatives is more important than pro:
amazon.com/Populist-Parad…
Read 4 tweets

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