Publications by Year: 2018

2018
Bonica, Adam, Adam Chilton, Kyle Rozema, and Maya Sen. 2018. “The Legal Academy’s Ideological Uniformity.” Journal of Legal Studies 47 (1): 1-43. Publisher's Version Abstract
We study of the ideological balance of the legal academy and compare it to the ideology of the legal profession more broadly. To do so, we match professors listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers and lawyers listed in the Martindale-Hubbell directory to a measure of political ideology based on political donations. We find that 15 percent of law professors, compared to 35 percent of lawyers, are conservative. This may not simply be due to differences in their backgrounds: the legal academy is still 11 percentage points more liberal than the legal profession after controlling for several relevant individual characteristics. We argue that law professors’ ideological uniformity marginalizes them, but that it may not be possible to improve the ideological balance of the legal academy without sacrificing other values.
law-prof-ideology.pdf
Acharya, Avidit, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen. 2018. “Analyzing Causal Mechanisms in Survey Experiments.” Political Analysis 26 (4): 357-378. Publisher's Version Abstract

We present an approach to investigating causal mechanisms in survey experiments that leverages the provision or withholding of information on potentially important mediating variables. The designs we propose can identify the controlled direct effect of a treatment and also what we call an intervention effect. These quantities can be used to address substantive questions about causal mechanisms, can be identified under weaker assumptions than current approaches to causal mechanisms, and can be estimated with simple estimators using standard statistical software. Furthermore, these methods are compatible with a broad range of experimental designs, including survey vignettes and conjoint designs. We illustrate the approach via two examples, one on evaluations of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees and the other on public perceptions of the democratic peace.

Acharya, Avidit, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen. 2018. “Explaining Attitudes from Behavior: A Cognitive Dissonance Approach.” The Journal of Politics 80 (2): 400-411. Publisher's Version Abstract

The standard approach in positive political theory posits that action choices are the consequences of preferences. Social psychology—in particular, cognitive dissonance theory—suggests the opposite: preferences may themselves be affected by action choices. We present a formal framework that applies this idea to three models of political choice: (1) one in which partisanship emerges naturally in a two party system despite policy being multi-dimensional, (2) one in which interactions with people who express different views can lead to empathetic changes in political positions, and (3) one in which ethnic or racial hostility increases after acts of violence. These examples demonstrate how incorporating the insights of social psychology can expand the scope of formalization in political science.

cognitive-dissonance-theory.pdf
Hochschild, Jennifer, and Maya Sen. 2018. “Americans' Attitudes on Racial or Genetic Inheritance: Which is More Predictive?” Reconsidering Race: Social Science and Racial Categories in the Age of Genomics. Oxford University Press.
reconsidering-race.pdf