Peer-Reviewed Publications

David Doherty, Conor Dowling, and Michael G. Miller. 2011. Are Financial or Moral Scandals Worse? It Depends. 

PS: Political Science and Politics. 44(4): 749-757.

Previous analysis finds that people respond differently to “financial” (e.g., tax evasion) and “moral” (e.g., sexual misconduct) political scandals. However, experimental and observational studies tend to reach different conclusions about which type of scandal induces a stronger negative reaction from the public. We use an experiment embedded in a national survey to examine the possibility that these divergent findings can, in part, be explained by a failure to consider the effects of abuses of power. Consistent with previous experimental work, we find that people respond more negatively to financial scandals than moral scandals when they do not involve abuses of power. However, abuses of power substantially affect responses to both types of scandals. We also find that moral and financial scandals affect personal and job evaluations of a politician differently. These findings support our contention that in order to understand public responses to scandal, it is crucial to consider the relationship between the scandalous behavior and the official’s formal responsibilities.

Miller, Michael G. 2011. After the GAO Report: What Do We Know About Public Election Funding?

Election Law Journal. 10(3): 273-290.

In June of 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that evaluates of the effects of full public funding in Arizona and Maine. The report seeks to evaluate the policy effects of public funding in the states with regard to several stated goals of its supporters, including slower campaign spending growth, diminished interest group influence, enhanced political participation, and heightened electoral competitiveness. The GAO’s paper is timely considering that full funding programs are becoming both more common and more visible to the public at large.

The GAO's analysis contains several interesting findings, and its publication marks a good opportunity for political scientists and policy analysts to compare notes. Combining the contributions from each provides a more complete picture of what is known and unknown in the study of publicly funded elections. In this paper, I review the findings of the GAO report as well as those of a growing number of scholars who have examined the topic. I describe what the GAO, political scientists, and policy analysts have found with regard to public election funding, as well as opportunities that remain for further research. Where applicable, I supplement this review with basic analysis of additional data. This essay should therefore be useful both for political scientists and the policy community.

Miller, Michael G. 2008. Gaming Arizona: Shifting Strategies in Publicly-Funded Elections.

PS: Political Science and Politics 41(3).

Working Papers

Citizen Engagement and Voting Behavior in Publicly Funded Elections

REVISED October 18 2011

Recent work in political science has demonstrated a link between the structural factors of elections and mass political participation. Yet, the relationship between campaign finance systems and the political behavior of campaigns and voters has not been fully considered. I employ original survey and interview data from candidates in eighteen states, and demonstrate that the acceptance of full public election subsidies such as those in “Clean Elections” systems provides candidates with time flexibility facilitating higher levels of direct interaction with citizens. No such effect is present for candidates accepting smaller, partial subsidies. I then exploit a natural experiment to demonstrate that ballot roll-off is lower in state legislative contests when candidates accept full funding, indicating that voters are more likely to register a preference in those races. Specifically, the results of four difference-in-differences models show that the presence of a publicly funded candidate diminishes ballot roll-off by about 2 percentage points.

Do Funding Sources Affect Voters' Evaluations of Candidates? Evidence From Three Survey Experiments With Conor Dowling.

REVISED May 2 2012

Previous work has found a correlation between funding sources and electoral outcomes. However, these observational studies are unable to determine the causal direction of this relationship: funding sources may reflect the inherent strength or weakness of a candidate, or voters may use information about funding sources to form opinions. In three survey experiments we find consistent evidence that voters evaluate candidates more negatively if their campaign is funded predominantly by interest groups compared to both other sources of funding and no mention of funding sources. We also find voters judge candidates self-funding with money they earned more favorably than candidates self-funding with money they inherited, but that this judgment appears to be driven by the source of the wealth, not its expenditure during a campaign. These findings facilitate a deeper understanding of how funding sources affect voters’ evaluations of candidates and contribute to literatures in campaign finance and voting behavior.

We investigate whether Maine and Arizona’s Clean Elections laws, which provide public funding for state legislative candidates, are responsible for producing a new cadre of legislators who are hostile to the major political parties and are unusually ideologically extreme. We find evidence that clean-funded legislators are more ideologically extreme relative to their districts than traditionally-funded legislators are, but that this difference in extremism wanes with tenure as new members are socialized into chamber norms. We find these effects are more prevalent in Arizona, where campaign costs are higher than in Maine and thus where public funding is more disruptive to the traditional private financing system. The results suggest that public funding undermines the control of parties by elites and contributes to legislative polarization.

Does Public Election Funding Hurt Republicans? Evidence From “Clean Elections” States

REVISED: April 11 2012

I develop a utility model predicting that potential challengers will participate in “Clean Elections” public funding programs when they determine that accepting subsidies will provide a performance bonus, enhancing their chances of victory. However, the model also predicts that candidates who opt out are likely to do so due to ideological objections to the program. Within the context of an incumbent-contested election, the model suggests that Republican incumbents are more likely to face a publicly funded challenger, and that incumbent margins will be lower when Clean Elections challengers run. I confirm these predictions with data from Arizona, Connecticut, and Maine state house elections. In tandem, these findings suggest that the practical effect of public funding in stimulating electoral competition may be uneven, with benefits accruing disproportionately to Democrats.

Do Audible Alerts Reduce Undervotes? A Natural Experiment in Illinois

REVISED: December 9 2011