Research agenda

Questions the book has planned but not written, by part.

49 questions in 8 parts.

These are questions the book has planned but not written. Each is planned as a section of an existing chapter, as a companion to one, or deferred. None of them is part of the main reading sequence. Each links to a page that states its question and the data it would use.

Part I, Labels and beliefs

The conservative label
Who calls themselves conservative, how has that group changed, and how many self-identified conservatives want more government spending?
Planned as a section of Chapter 1.1, Party and ideology.
Non-placement on the left-right scale
Who declines to place themselves on the left-right scale, and where?
Planned as a section of Chapter 1.1, Party and ideology.
Constraint among issue positions
Are Americans' issue positions more tightly bundled than they were in the 1980s?
Planned as a section of Chapter 1.2, Economic and cultural dimensions.
Political knowledge and constraint
Is ideological constraint concentrated among the politically informed?
Planned as a section of Chapter 1.2, Economic and cultural dimensions.
Class, church and the two axes
How do income, education and church attendance sort the economic and cultural dimensions?
Planned as a section of Chapter 1.2, Economic and cultural dimensions.
Two moralities
Which moral judgments divide left from right, and do abortion, gay rights and gender roles form one attitude dimension?
Planned as a section of Chapter 1.2, Economic and cultural dimensions.
Education and ideology
Is the link between ideology and political action stronger among the educated?
Planned companion to Chapter 1.3, Left and right across countries.
Order, security and threat
Do security values and threat perceptions lean right, and where?
Planned as a section of Companion 1.3b, The obedience-autonomy disposition.
Countries in value space
Where do countries sit on traditional-secular and survival-self-expression values, and how have they moved?
Deferred.
The silent revolution
Are younger birth cohorts more emancipative, and has the shift stalled?
Deferred.
National pride and grievance
Do national pride and national grievance relate to nativism in the same way?
Deferred.
System justification
Do people with lower incomes believe in meritocracy less than those with higher incomes?
Deferred.

Part II, Change and partisan feeling

Party and feelings toward social groups
Does party now organize feelings toward social groups more than race, religion or income?
Planned companion to Chapter 2.2, Feelings toward the other party.
Affective and issue polarization
Did emotional distance between partisans grow faster than their distance on issues?
Planned as a section of Conclusion, Where political alignment holds (planned).

Part III, Participation and coalitions

The South
Which political gaps between the South and the rest of the country closed, and which persisted?
Planned companion to Chapter 3.2, The two coalitions.
The rise of the nones
How fast did the religiously unaffiliated grow, and how do they vote?
Planned as a section of Chapter 3.8, The god gap in America.
Secularization in Europe
Do two independent surveys agree on where European religious attendance fell?
Planned companion to Chapter 3.8, The god gap in America.

Part IV, Issues move on different schedules

Racial attitudes after George Floyd's death
How much did measured racial attitudes move in the weeks after May 25, 2020, and how long did the change last?
Planned companion to Chapter 4.6, Fifty years of racial attitudes.
Policing
When did attitudes toward the police become a partisan divide?
Planned as a section of Chapter 4.6, Fifty years of racial attitudes.
Climate and the environment
How large is the partisan gap on climate, and is it unusual among rich democracies?
Planned companion to Chapter 4.7, Sort dates by attitude.
Trade and economic populism
Where do the parties' voters stand on trade, taxes and redistribution, and did they switch?
Deferred.
Foreign policy
How have views on defense spending and America's role in the world divided by party?
Deferred.

Part V, Institutions and democratic attitudes

Trust in government
Does partisans' trust in the federal government follow the party in the White House?
Planned as a section of Chapter 5.1, Confidence in thirteen institutions.
Trust in science
When did confidence in science become a partisan divide, and what did COVID change?
Planned as a section of Chapter 5.1, Confidence in thirteen institutions.
Generalized and institutional trust
Have trust in other people and confidence in institutions fallen together?
Planned companion to Chapter 5.1, Confidence in thirteen institutions.
Institutional trust outside the United States
Are partisan or ideological gaps in institutional confidence widening in other democracies?
Deferred.

Part VI, Election results at different scales

The Electoral College
How far is the tipping-point state from the popular vote, and how many states are competitive?
Planned companion to Chapter 6.1, Nationalization of the county vote.
Sorting by geographic scale, 2016 to 2024
How does partisan sorting change as the unit shrinks from state to county to neighborhood, and did lopsided neighborhoods become less lopsided between 2016 and 2024?
Planned companion to Chapter 6.3, Precincts within counties.
Reconstruction and the modern map
How does the Southern county map of the 1870s relate to the map of 2024?
Deferred.

Part VII, Giving

Who donates
What share of Americans give to campaigns, and how concentrated are the dollars?
Planned as a section of Chapter 7.1, The ideology of the donor pool.
Occupation and donations
How does donors' ideology vary by occupation?
Planned companion to Chapter 7.1, The ideology of the donor pool.
Polarization in Congress
How far apart are the parties in Congress, and did elite polarization lead or follow the public?
Planned companion to Chapter 7.1, The ideology of the donor pool.
The geography of donations
Where do campaign dollars come from, and do county donor pools show the same education and income gradients as county votes?
Planned as a section of Chapter 7.2, Counties where donors and voters diverge.
Stated and funded ideology
How closely does a county's self-reported ideology match the ideology of its donors?
Planned as a section of Chapter 7.2, Counties where donors and voters diverge.
Candidate extremity and vote share
Do more extreme House candidates still lose vote share, and has that changed?
Deferred.

Part VIII, Places and the people in them

Income and the county vote
Do richer counties vote more Democratic once education is held constant?
Planned as a section of Chapter 8.1, Five axes of the county vote.
Rural counties
How different are white-majority rural counties from Black Belt and Hispanic rural counties?
Planned as a section of Chapter 8.1, Five axes of the county vote.
Suburbs and density
Is the density gradient in the vote as steep within counties as between them?
Planned companion to Chapter 8.1, Five axes of the county vote.
Firearm deaths and the vote
How do firearm suicide and firearm homicide rates relate to the neighborhood vote?
Planned as a section of Companion 8.1c, Measures of hardship compared.
Deprivation and mobility
Does present-day deprivation or childhood mobility track the vote once race is held constant?
Planned as a section of Companion 8.1c, Measures of hardship compared.
Health outcomes and the vote
Which of 40 small-area health outcomes track the vote net of demographics?
Planned as a section of Companion 8.1c, Measures of hardship compared.
Social capital
How do bonding ties and cross-class connections relate to the vote and to the 2016 to 2020 swing?
Planned as a section of Companion 8.1c, Measures of hardship compared.
Deaths of despair
Do county suicide, alcohol and overdose deaths track the presidential swing over time?
Deferred.
COVID and the vote
Did county COVID mortality and vaccination follow the partisan map?
Deferred.
Composition and behavior in county change
How much of county-level change since 2000 is composition and how much is behavior within groups?
Planned companion to Chapter 8.2, Education, ethnicity and the county shift, 2016 to 2024.
Immigration and local context
Do immigration attitudes differ with the local foreign-born share?
Planned companion to Chapter 8.3, Party and place.
Variation in opinion within places
How much of the variation in issue opinion lies between counties rather than within them?
Planned as a section of Chapter 8.3, Party and place.
Partisans in the other party's territory
Where do Democrats and Republicans live in counties their party lost, and do these voters and donors differ from aligned partisans?
Planned as a section of Chapter 8.3, Party and place.
Movers and opinion change
Do people who move to a different kind of county change their political views?
Planned as a section of Chapter 8.3, Party and place.