Southern Political Science Association
The Neglected World of State Politics
Author(s): Malcolm E. Jewell
Source: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Aug., 1982), pp. 638-657
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science
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The
Neglected World
of
State Politics
MALCOLM E. JEWELL
The basic assumption of this paper is that research in state government and politics
has received too low a priority and too few resources. In addition to its inherent importance, this field deserves attention because it is undergoing change and because it
provides an arena for testing hypotheses developed in national studies. There is a need
for more systematic and comprehensive collection and analysis of data, and also for
more current information on developments. We lack adequate single-state studies,
and more importantly, we lack genuinely comparative studies. We have given little
thought to the theoretical foundations of comparative state studies. These needs suggest the importance not only of greater resource allocation but of imaginative efforts to
develop organizational structures for long-term cooperative research.
T
WENTY-FIVE
YEARS AGO
LawrenceHersonpublishedan article on
"The Lost World of Municipal Government," in which he argued
that political scientists had failed to give serious study to this significant aspect of American government.' The theme of this paper is
similar: we have given too little thought and devoted too little of our
research resources to the field of state government and politics. I
hope to do more than point with alarm; my goal is to define the
needs and also to suggest some of the directions in which we should
move. Although this message is obviously directed at those who
study or might be encouraged to study state government and
I LawrenceJ.R. Herson,"The Lost Worldof MunicipalGovernment,"American
PoliticalScienceReview, 51 (1957), 330-345.
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
639
politics, it has some broader implications for our profession, and its
goals and priorities.
State government is growing in importance, and political institutions and practices are changing in the states, but there is too little
evidence that political scientists are aware of either development.
The Reagan administration is committed to returning to the states a
larger responsibility for deciding which services will be provided to
the American people, and while it may not succeed in implementing
all of its reforms, it seems likely that the states will be making more
of the important decisions in the years ahead.
It is probably unnecessary to provide statistical documentation for
the assertion that the tax revenue and the expenditures of state
government have been growing steadily, and have generally been
growing faster than revenues and expenditures of the federal
government. Perhaps more important from our perspective as
political scientists have been the major changes in state government
and politics over the last two decades or so. Governors in most
states have gained the right to serve successive terms and have expanded their staffs to create an institutionalized governorship.
Legislatures have changed even more dramatically, with less turnover in membership, more staff, more rational committee systems,
and most importantly, a fundamental change in the criteria for
legislative apportionment. State judicial systems have been rationalized in many states, with such changes as the establishment of
intermediary appellate courts, and the development of state offices
of judicial administration. The levels of party competition have increased in most of the states, and now there is evidence that the outcome of state elections is affected less by traditional party loyalties
and more by the abilities of candidates and the skills and resources
that they bring to campaigns. Obviously the extent of changes has
been uneven among the states, but the net result probably has been
to close some of the gaps among the states, for example in levels of
legislative professionalism or partisan competition. It is not clear
from reading the political science literature that we have either
studied the process of change or fully recognized the scope and importance of these changes.
One other aspect of state government that should be mentioned is
the importance of innovations in policy, as well as in governmental
structure and processes. Many of the new programs that have been
promulgated in Washington have been developed first by individual
states. Examples of significant state innovations would include no
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
fault divorce and automobile insurance laws, and sunset legislation.
Modern computer technology was utilized in a variety of ways by
several state legislatures before it was discovered by Congress. The
states have experimented with a wide variety of methods for financing political parties or campaigns, well beyond the limited scope of
the federal financing of presidential elections. Whereas the federal
government has played a major role in the spread of innovations
among the states, often by mandating or financing them, other innovations have spread without any encouragement frona
Washington, resulting in large part from the communications networks established among state officials and facilitated by a number
of organizations such as the Council of State Governments and the
National Conference of State Legislatures. The political science
literature is not exactly overflowing with studies of these innovations
at the state level.
For an earlier generation of political scientists, the study of state
government and politics assumed more importance than it seems to
have today. Without suggesting we turn back the clock to the 1930s
or 1950s, let me describe what I see as both the strengths and
weaknesses of this earlier approach to studying the states. The
stereotype of this earlier political scientist was a specialist in the
government and politics of his state, in part because he had spent
most of his professional life there. His understanding of the
political institutions, conflicts, and personalities came from years of
firs't-hand observation. He knew the political leaders, as well as
state and local officials, and had taught many of them in his classes.
He had a strong interest in reform, an interest that was reflected in
his writing and perhaps in his personal participation in politics. He
was fascinated by the institutions and processes of government, and
his proposals for reform often were directed toward them. This
generation of political scientists wrote extensively about state
government and particularly about its institutions: the legislature,
its committees, and its apportionment system; the governor and his
tools for administrative control and budgetary reform; the
mechanics of election law; the outcome of primary and general elections.2
This older generation of political scientists brought a
number of strengths to the study of state government and politics:
the personal, in-depth familiarity with one state; the interest in and
2 During the first decades of publication, the volumes of the
American Political
Science Review reflected a heavy emphasis on state government.
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
641
careful attention to institutions; the contact with practicing politicians and bureaucrats; the interest in political change.
Unfortunately, there were weaknesses that seriously handicapped
those who studied the states. Like those who studied other aspects
of government and politics, they lacked the methodological skills
that we value today. Their work was much more descriptive than
theoretical. The limited scope of their intellectual background and
curiosity caused them to ignore topics that we consider important
today: the motivations, recruitment, and socialization of politicians;
the behavior of individual voters in state elections; the impact of
legislation or judicial decisions-to name a few examples.
There also were some weaknesses that are particularly pertinent
for the study of state government and politics-some of which remain a source of difficulty for students of states today. One source
of weakness was the preoccupation of many political scientists with
reforming institutions. I suggest that this was a problem not
because I want to make an argument about value-free science, but
because I believe that it limited the scope of their research efforts.
One example may suffice. In the late 1940s, while writing a senior
thesis in college, I tried to read all of the available literature on state
legislative apportionment. The literature was extensive. For many
of the states there were one or more articles on the problem.
Generally they provided statistical details on the inequalities of
representation in the state legislature, described the unsuccessful efforts to bring about change, documented the effects on urban and
often partisan representation, asserted that there were serious policy
consequences, and urged that the system be reformed. They did not
seek to prove what the policy consequences of more equitable apportionment would be, either through statistical analysis or extensive
case studies. Moreover, they ignored some of the most intriguing
questions about state legislative representation, including the consequences of different forms of districting or the impact of changing
apportionment patterns on legislator/constituency relations. One
consequence was that the political science profession was ill
prepared to analyze reapportionment when it finally occurred in the
wake of Baker v. Carr. Another consequence was that those judges
who turned to the political science literature for advice in untangling the complexities of reapportionment found little that was
useful or pertinent.
Another source of weakness was that most political scientists who
specialized in state government were lacking in knowledge about
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
other states than their own and also lacked a comparative perspective. Relatively little cross-state research was done, and those who
taught state government or tried to gain some perspective for studying their own state had limited sources of information beyond the
textbook level. A classic example of this information gap can be
found in the field of state legislative districting. In 1955, Maurice
Klain reported that most textbooks on state government asserted
that single-member districts were the norm in both branches of the
state legislature, whereas his research showed that there was some
use of multimember districts in the Senates of 39 states and the lower
house in 35 states.3 While collecting information on legislative
committees in the early 1960s, I learned from several political scientists that committees sometimes were chaired by members of the
minority party, and in each case they suggested that this practice
must be unique to their state. Until relatively recently we have
lacked not only comparative theories about state government and
politics but simple descriptive facts from the fifty states.
A new generation of political scientists brings to the study of state
government better training, particularly in methodology and quantitative techniques; an understanding of the comparative method;
and an interest in a much wider range of topics that can be studied
at the state level. These are obvious advantages that ought to
enhance the study of state government and politics in comparative
perspective, but this potential has never been realized. The mobility of the profession has reduced the number of political scientists
who have developed an in-depth, first-hand knowledge of a single
state that earlier political scientists possessed. In some areas of
study, voting behavior for example, most of the emphasis has been
on national rather than state politics. A substantial amount of
research has been done at the state level, but the focus of study
usually has been on a particular topic-such as recruitment of
political leadership or legislative role analysis. As these studies have
proliferated, we have developed cumulative knowledge about the
specific topics, but we have not developed a comparative literature
on state government and politics. We know more about how
political leadership is recruited or how legislators define their roles
(to stick to these examples) than how either is affected by the state
Dolitical systems in which they are found. Moreover, most of these
3 Maurice Klain, "A New Look at the Constituencies: The Need for a Recount and
a Reappraisal," American Political Science Reviewv, 49 (1955), 1105-1119.
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
643
studies are comparative in the sense that they test hypotheses
developed in studies carried out in other states, rather than in the
sense that they incorporate data from a number of states.
Our approach to studying comparative state politics has been
piecemeal. By studying relatively narrow topics in one or a few
states at a time, we have found some tentative answers to some of the
questions that are interesting about political behavior and the processes of government and politics at the state level. But we have no
sense of priorities and no broad agenda for understanding the ways
in which state political sysems differ from each other or from the national system, or how they are changing over time. My major purpose is to define the needs and priorities for studying state politics, to
emphasize some notable accomplishments and experiments in this
area, and to suggest approaches that we ought to pursue in the near
future.
THE NE
FORBETTERDATA
The first need is for a much more comprehensive and systematic
collection and analysis of comparative state political data. Compared to most of the sciences, political science has been slow to collect the data it needs and to utilize modern computer techniques to
store and analyze the data. Within our profession, those of us interested in state politics and government have been particularly
slow, despite the fact that collecting data in state capitals across the
country is undoubtedly easier than collecting it in Tokyo, Moscow,
or Nairobi. In an age when we spend millions of dollars to send
Voyager space craft to collect data from Jupiter and Saturn,
political scientists must scrounge through newspaper files and handwritten records in political party filing cabinets to collect some
legislative and state primary election returns. It is almost as if state
data often have been ignored because they are so easy to collect. A
better explanation may be that we have ignored such data because
we have not given much priority to studying American state politics.
Some types of data that are pertinent to state political analysis
have been collected systematically and are even available in
machine-readable form. One obvious example would be the data
collected by the Census Bureau. Another would be state budgetary
data that have been collected and used by a number of analysts. A
third would be the wide variety of data on state political institutions
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
and processes collected by the Council of State Governments and
published in The Book of the States.
In some cases data are lacking because they have not been collected systematically or disseminated by government agencies; in
some cases the data are available, but political scientists have failed
to invest the time and resources necessary to collect and organize
them in useful form. Without trying to provide a comprehensive
list, let me mention some examples of the data that we lack.
Electoral data are now available for most statewide offices; much
of this is now published by state officials, though sometimes not in
easily accessible form. In some states, however, we lack such information on primary elections; in some states legislative results are not
compiled at the state level. Many states do not publish figures on
party registration at the county level, or have done so only recently.
Most states do not provide electoral data at the precinct level or provide comparisons between various races at the state legislative
district level. Except for statewide contests for major offices such as
governor and senator, which are collected by the ICPSR, most of the
electoral data are not collected in one place or available in machinereadable form. Ironically, the most comprehensive state legislative
data in some states have not been collected by political scientists, but
by the political parties and their consultants that have been organizing the data in behalf of their current gerrymandering efforts.
The shortage of voting surveys for state elections is obviously not
the fault of state governments, but results from the fact that
students of voting behavior have been interested primarily in national elections, and the costs of surveys and the realities of sampling
make it almost prohibitive to carry out identical voting surveys at
one time in a number of states. Most state election surveys are carried out by nonacademic polling organizations on behalf of the news
media or candidates. Generally the results are not available to
political scientists, and, even if they were, the techniques used and
the questions selected might make most of them inappropriate for
academic purposes.
In recent years a number of state polls have been established by
academic institutions, and recently representatives of about twenty
of these organizations met to establish the Network of State Polls.
The goal of this enterprise is to cooperate in preparing questions of
common interest that would be used in as many of these polls as
possible, and to cooperate in the collection and analysis of the data
from these common questions. Although it is too early to tell how
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
645
successful this effort will be, it is encouraging to see that the importance of comparative state surveys is recognized. It also is possible
that this collaboration might provide a model for joint action by
political scientists studying other aspects of state government and
politics.
Students of state legislatures need a wide variety of types of data;
some of these are readily available, others exist at the state level but
have never been collected in centralized fashion, whereas some of
the more perishable data perishes very quickly. The Council of
State Governments provides tables on the structure and processes of
state legislatures, and the National Conference of State Legislatures
has been turning out useful studies on a variety of topics. These collections make it possible to categorize legislative bodies in a variety
of ways, but they alone cannot make possible in-depth analysis of
topics. Students of state legislatures find it difficult or impossible to
obtain data that are readily available at the congressional level.
For example, only a few states maintain and publish a verbatim
record of debate on the floor, or of committee hearings. Whereas
final budgetary data are available, in many states no records are
preserved beyond the session on spending figures included at various
stages of the budgetary process in the legislature. Biographical information on members tends to be sketchy; in some states the most
detailed biographical
booklets are published by private
organizations. There is, of course, no uniformity among the states
in the types of material that are preserved or published.
Where legislative data exist, the collection and analysis of them
often remain primitive. A good example is roll-call voting data,
which exist in every state legislature. Through the years there have
been a number of research studies of roll-call voting in state
legislatures, but most have been limited to a single state, and no one
has ever done a comprehensive comparison of roll calls in all state
legislatures in the same time period.4 One reason for this is the
massive amount of resources necessary to collect and code such data
for computer analysis. With electronic voting machines being used
to record roll calls in the lower chamber of most legislatures and the
upper chamber of some, it ought to be possible to develop and maintain permanent machine-readable records of roll-call voting for use
by political scientists and others who might be interested.
4The closest approximation is Hugh L. LeBlance, "Voting in State Senates: Party
and Constituency Influences," Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13 (1969), 33-57,
which covers twenty-six state senates for the years 1959 or 1960.
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
At the state judicial level, we lack comparative data on contested
judicial elections and the frequency of incumbent defeat. Very few
efforts have been made to collect biographical information on state
appellate court judges, and consequently we lack comprehensive
data on the attributes of judges, such as partisan and public office
holding or even previous judicial positions. State appellate court
decisions have not been collected or codified adequately for the fifty
states.
Campaign finance reporting is a good example of data that only
have become available in most states within recent years, as a result
of legislative requirements for more accurate and comprehensive
reporting. There are few examples, however, of political science
research that takes advantage of this relatively new source of information.5 In some states this information is published and readily
available; in others it must be copied in person from the single
available source in a state office. (In one state, Tennessee, a record
is kept of the name of any person requesting such information for
each candidate so that the candidate can learn who is collecting such
data.) As far as I know, there is no state in which campaign finance
data are available on computer tapes, as they are at the national
level.
The problem of data collection, to summarize, is partly the fault
of state officials who do not collect and maintain certain kinds of information. It is partly the fault of political scientists who have not
collected and analyzed the data that are available. It is partly a
result of the shortage of resources, and the difficulty of securing
funds for data collection at the state level. It seems obvious that
steps toward the solution of these problems must include both a
greater use of computer resources and a greater collaborative effort
on the part of political scientists in the various states.
THE NEED FOR CURRENT
INFORMATION
Those who teach and do research on state government and politics
are handicapped by a lack of current information on significant
trends and developments in the individual states. The best way to
make this point is to compare those who specialize in state govern5 Note, however, the ongoing research of Ruth S. Jones, including "State Public
Financing and the State Parties," in Michael J. Malbin, ed., Parties, Interest Groups,
and Campaign Finance Laws (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research, 1980), 283-303.
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
647
ment with those who specialize in Congress. The latter group can
stay well informed about Congress by reading the New York Times
or Washington Post, the newsmagazines, and more specialized
publications such as the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report
and the National Journal. There is no comparable publication or
group of publications that reports on what is going on in the states.
The national media pay little attention to the states except for ones
like New York and California. Probably the major exception to this
generalization is the coverage that the major news media give to
state elections for major offices, particularly in the larger states or
those where particularly colorful candidates or issues appear. From
time to time there are trends in state government, such as the
passage of referenda proposals similar to California's Proposition 13,
that attract widespread attention, but even in this case it is difficult
to follow developments in individual states.
A number of examples could be cited of developments in the states
that have not received the attention they deserve because most of us
lack enough information about what has been happening in particular states. The states have been experimenting with a wide
variety of methods for providing state funds to political parties or
candidates for selected state offices, and the states are continuing to
tinker with these laws. There is evidenQe that the tenure of state
legislative leaders is undergoing change, with fewer cases of shortterm rotation as well as fewer examples of leaders serving very long
terms. There have been some interesting examples of bipartisan
coalitions in a few state legislatures in the last few years. There are
several interesting examples of recent governors trying to exercise
either more or less influence over the legislature than in the
past-through changes in use of the veto or in the effort to influence
the choice of legislative leaders, for example. One current development that has received less attention than it deserves is the state
political parties' use of elaborate computer programs and facilities
in an effort to get the most advantageous legislative districting possible.
At the University of Kentucky we have made a modest effort to
close this information gap by publishing the Comparative State
Politics Newsletter six times a year. Using a network of almost two
hundred specialists, mostly political scientists, in the fifty states, we
report on developments in state government and politics that are
likely to be of interest to persons in other states. We also report
briefly on recent research that has been done on the states. The
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
goal is to give political scientistsa better perspectivefor understanding developmentsin their own state and to establish a better comparative base for their teaching and researchon the states.
THE NEED FOR INTERACTION WITH STATE
OFFICIALS
AND POLITICIANS
I suggestedearlierthat one of the assetsof an earliergenerationof
political scientistswas that they often maintainedclose contact with
many of those actively engaged in the practice of politics and
government in their state. Although I do not have any hard
evidence to support this generalization, my impressionis that the
gap between the political scientist and the practitionerhas grown
much largertoday. The reasonsfor this gap are easy to understand
and are not overcomeeasily. The trendsin political science toward
quantitative and more systematic research in the last couple of
decadeshave made our journalsappearless understandableand pertinent and, therefore, less useful to practitioners. Whereas there
are some persons in state government and politics who have done
graduate work in political science, the fact that they have chosen
governmentratherthan political science as a professionoften means
that they were "turned off" by contemporarytrends in political
science. The questions that interest political scientists often seem
too remote, inconsequential,or theoretical to the practitioner.
If our work appears impractical to the practitioner, his or her
work is obviouslyimportantto us. Political scientistsneed accessto
the politicians, administrators,and judges of the states. In-depth
interviewsoffer greaterpayoff than mailed questionnaires,and acquaintance and mutual confidence provide the best basis for successful interviewing. It can be argued that we have not made
enough use of the participant-observationtechnique in our state
research, or what Richard Fenno has called "soaking and poking-or just hanging around."6 This is a technique that requires
moretime and patience than we often have been willing to devote to
research; it is also one that requires-and that may eventually
enhance-interaction with the practitioners.
Some of the best examplesof interaction in the states have been
related to internshipprogramsin the legislative and administrative
branchesof government,operated for undergraduateand graduate
0
RichardF. Fenno, Jr., Home Style (Boston:Little, Brown, 1978), xiv.
649
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
students, particularlyin political science. In addition to the value
of internships as learning experiences, they provide both the
studentsand the faculty who overseethem with accessto state practitioners. At the national level, much of the best researchon Congress has been done by persons who served in the APSACongressional Fellowship Program. I have not seen evidence that the state
legislative internship programs have provided any comparable
research opportunities, and I wonder if an opportunity is being
missed in this area.
There also is a need for political scientiststo work with the national organizationsof state officials, such as the Council of State
Governments,National GovernorsConference, and National Conference of State Legislatures. Although these groups are designed
primarily to serve the immediate, practical needs of state governments and officials, they have some researchintereststhat overlap
those of political scientists. An examplewould be the work done by
Thad Beyle and the National GovernorsConferenceon the rolesand
perceptionsof governorsand their staffs. Anotherwould be studies
on such topics as legislative oversight, staffing, and budgetarymatters done by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The
most comprehensivestudy of legislative structure and processesin
the fifty states was done a few years ago by the CitizensConference
on State Legislatures,working with political scientists.
THE NEED FOR STATE-LEVEL
RESEARCH
Although the emphasisin this paper is on comparativeresearch,
we need to build a foundation of solid researchat the state level as
well. As anyone who has ever tried to write a textbook on any
aspect of state government and politics knows, there are very few
states in which it is possible to find an up-to-date, well-researched,
comprehensive, sophisticated description and analysis of the
political party and electoral system, or the legislature, or the executive, or the judiciary.
There are a few states (including ones like Texas and California
where a course in the governmentof that state is required)where
one can find a textbookon governmentand politics, but bookswritten for undergraduatesusually lack both the substantivedetail and
the methodological sophistication that political scientists want.
There are studies of the legislature that are written primarily for
freshmen legislators, and the practical advice contained therein
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
(how to get a bill drafted or a parking sticker for your car) is not consistently pertinent to the political scientist. The ideal book on one
or more of the political institutions of a state would provide
historical, quantitative, and descriptive data and analysis that
would answer questions of broad interest to students of comparative
state politics (such as electoral patterns, the influence of party in
roll-call voting, and the tools of gubernatorial leadership) and
would emphasize those characteristics that are unique or unusual in
the state. In most of the states, most of this work remains to be
done.
THE NEED FOR COMPARATIVE
STUDY OF STATES
Most importantly, we need comparative studies of the American
states and their political institutions and processes. Comparative
study has several meanings. We can understand better how state
legislatures operate if, instead of looking at one, we can compare
them across a number of states or, if possible, all of the states.
Because American legislatures are similar in so many respects, it is
easier to explain the causes and consequences of the differences that
exist, and easier to understand how change occurs in the legislative
institution.7 In similar fashion, we can compare the governorship
and executive branch, the courts, the political party system, and the
voting behavior of citizens.
When Justice Brandeis spoke of the states as the "laboratories" in
the federal system, he was talking specifically about "novel social
and economic experiments" that could be tried "without risk to the
rest of the country." For political scientists, states also are
laboratories in the sense that it is possible to vary a single variable in
the political system while keeping the others constant, by examining
states that have a great deal in common but differ in one respect.
Moreover, because the states experiment with their political system,
and political innovations spread slowly from state to state, it is possible to study the effects of change over time.
The states offer another opportunity for comparison. Much of
what we have learned about the American political process comes
from research at the national level. It is important to learn whether
the conclusions we have drawn from national research would have
7 A bibliography of comparative state legislative research is found in Malcolm E.
Jewell, "The State of U.S. State Legislative Research," Legislative Studies Quarterly, 6
(1981), 1-26.
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
651
to be modified at the state level. One good example is the recent
emphasis on the electoral advantage enjoyed by congressional incumbents, for which several explanations have been given. One
way of determining which explanations are most persuasive would
be to find out whether and under what conditions state legislators
are becoming difficult to defeat when they seek reelection. Most of
what we know about voting behavior comes from presidential and
congressional elections. Are those findings limited to that type of
election, or would they be equally applicable to races for governor,
state treasurer, or state legislator? Does party identification have
greater impact on voting decisions when elections occur for relatively obscure state or local offices? Sometimes research at the state
level can provide a better perspective on research findings at the national level. The work done on the causes of variations in the level
of partisan roll-call voting in the states, for example, has helped us
to understand what are the plausible limits to party unity in congressional roll calls.
When we talk about the importance of comparative state analysis
we mean, in addition, that we need to develop a theoretical foundation for the study of the states that explains how political systems differ from state to state. The field of state politics is a barren one in
terms of theoretical development. While students of crossnational
comparative politics develop elaborate and competing theories
about political development, institutionalization, functionalism,
and political culture, those whose comparative study is limited to
the fifty American states seem to be working in a theoretical
vacuum.
I am not prepared to offer a theoretical foundation for the study
of states, but I will suggest some of the questions that are pertinent
to theory building. We need to know what it is that makes the
states distinctive, that makes their political cultures unique. Most
of the components of state political culture are not unique to the
state; they include population characteristics such as ethnicity,
geographic characteristics, urban/rural differences - all of which affect the attitudes and traditions in the state but none of which is
unique. Presumably the only characteristic of the state that is
clearly unique is its own political history. Are the institutions, the
patterns of behavior, and the traditional attitudes that have been
shaped by historical forces in the state salient to the ordinary
citizens, or at least the attentive ones? Or are they only meaningful
to a political elite? In an era of great population mobility, how do
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
new residents learn about and learn to accept these patterns of
behavior and attitudes-or don't they? For example, in a state
where the governor is traditionally powerful, does this tradition
have an impact only on the political leadership? If public opinion
accepts this as proper behavior for a governor, is this because of the
influence of politicians, the media, and other opinion leaders, or do
citizens simply assume that whatever political norms exist must be
the proper ones?
What impact do political institutions-perhaps enshrined in a
state constitution-have on patterns of behavior? What is the impact of a single term for a governor, single-member legislative
districts, large-scale patronage, or highly competitive primary elections on other aspects of political behavior?
What causes political reform and changes in political institutions?
Is change driven by events, changes in political power, or shifts in
partisan control? Is political change influenced by changes in other
states, with a pattern of innovation similar to what Walker found in
studying substantive policy? Is political change largely a product of
the political elite, and if so exactly what elite are we talking about?
We might expect to find that national trends lead to political
change in individual states. A good historical example would be the
spread of direct primary elections to most states early in this century. The national media pays so little attention to most political
innovations, however, that such trends appear doubtful. One recent example of a national trend might be the spread of Proposition
13 fever; yet, we know very little about why voters adopted such
proposals in a number of states, and rejected them in others.
The growing population mobility and the increasing impact of the
media suggest that the states may be losing their distinctive political
characteristics. There are clearly some national trends, such as
legislatures that are more professional (according to several criteria)
and constitutional amendments to permit successive terms for the
governor. Yet in other respects it is more difficult to see a trend at
work. There is no obvious trend to change the balance of power
between legislatures and governors or to change the pattern of state
primary elections, for example.
Anyone familiar with the debates over political development and
institutionalization in the cross-national comparative field is likely
to ask-at this point in the argument-if the states are following
some inexorable pattern of political development. Will the politics
of Kansas and Vermont eventually resemble the political system now
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THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
existing in California? If such a thesis of political development is
not a useful one for studying the American states, we must return to
the question of what makes states distinctive, and what causes them
to change. Can we develop a theoretical perspective that will help
us to identify the forces that distinguish one state from another and
to explain how states change or resist the pressures for change?
RESEARCH ON SOUTHERN
STATES
In this setting it is appropriate to ask about the comparative study
of southern states. It is obvious that V.0. Key's Southern Politics is
by far the most successful comparative study of the states that has
been written.8 Key and his associates succeeded in describing in
colorful and fascinating detail the recent political history of each
southern state, and at the same time raising and answering a series
of important questions in all of the states. Readers of the volume
learned what was unique about each state and what were the major
characteristics that defined southern politics.
In the three decades since Southern Politics was published there
has been a continuing stream of research on individual states and on
particular aspects of southern politics, but no comparable effort at a
comparative, comprehensive study of southern state politics. There
have been valuable studies done in several of the states. The
volume edited by William Havard, The Changing Politics of the
South, includes chapters on each state, some of which are particularly useful.9 Writers such as Seagull and Bartley and Graham
have described the growth of two-party competition in the South. 10
Bass and DeVries have provided a lively journalistic account that
highlights the political culture and personalities of each state. "IEarl
and Merle Black are working on a large-scale study of Southern parties and politicians.
In recent years (1978 and 1980) conferences have been held at the
Citadel on Southern Politics.'2 These conferences have demonV.0. Key, Jr., SouthernPolitics(New York:AlfredA. Knopf, 1949).
WilliamC. Havard,ed., TheChangingPoliticsof the South(BatonRouge:Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1972).
10Louis M. Seagull, SouthernRepublicanism(New York:John Wiley & Sons,
1975); Numan V. Bartley and H.D. Graham, SouthernPolitics and the Second
Reconstruction(Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress, 1975).
"Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, The Transformationof SouthernPolitics (New
York:BasicBooks, 1976).
12
These two conferencesled to publishedvolumes:RobertP. Steed, LaurenceW.
8
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
strated that political scientists who are interested in a wide variety
of topics are doing research in southern states and localities, but
these conferences have not produced important new insights or a
new theoretical foundation for studying southern states comparatively. Participants at the most recent conference seemed to
agree, somewhat incongruously, on two conclusions: politics in the
South was becoming less distinctive and more like politics in the rest
of the country, and it was important to continue to hold conferences
on southern politics in Charleston.
I would argue that the South remains a fascinating place to study
comparative state politics, not only because we have Key's work as a
basis for comparison, but because southern politics is still in the
process of change, and we can learn much about political institutions during a period of evolution. In the South we find a number
of trends that deserve more careful study.
1. The two-party system is still in the process of developing, with
different patterns in the various states.
2. A new generation of black political leaders and voters is emerging, and will have powerful but unpredictable impacts on southern
states.
3. State legislatures are becoming more professionalized and growing more powerful vis-a-vis the governor, probably at a more rapid
rate than in most states.
The South remains a region that is ripe for comparative study. The
dozen or so states are limited enough in number to make comparisons more feasible than in the whole nation, but are varied
enough in many respects to make comparison fruitful. This is a
challenge that southern political scientists should not ignore.
ORGANIZATION
OF COMPARATIVE
STATE RESEARCH
This survey of the research needs in the field of comparative state
politics would be incomplete without some suggestions, however
tentative, about how these needs might be met. I have suggested
that the proliferation of studies in individual states and on narrow
topics will not meet the need for comparative analysis though such
work may provide useful clues for more ambitious projects. I also
Moreland,and Tod A. Baker,PartyPoliticsin the South (New York:Praeger,1980);
LaurenceW. Moreland,Tod A. Baker,and RobertP. Steed, ContemporarySouthern
PoliticalAttitudesand Behavior(New York:Praeger,1982).
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
655
have suggested that we need to be much more sensitive to the
theoretical dimensions of comparative state studies. It would be
wasteful to embark on elaborate multi-state projects without some
careful thinking about the questions and hypotheses that would be
theoretically most productive.
If we are to engage in ambitious, large-scale, comparative studies
of all fifty states, or a substantial number of them, we must have extensive funding and well-organized research projects. In his 1980
APSA presidential address, Warren Miller said, "The level of funding now available for basic political science research is totally inadequate. It is not adequate to maintain a high level of secondary
research effort, to say nothing of supporting a portfolio of significant
new data-collecting enterprises."''3 Since he spoke, of course, the
already low levels of funding available have been seriously eroded
by the Reagan Administration. The picture is even bleaker when
we look at the types of funding that might be available for largescale comparative state studies. This is not a topic that appears exciting to the foundations.
Perhaps a less obvious problem, but also an important one, is the
need for large-scale, long-term research groups to carry out work in
a number of states. Miller, in his presidential address, also has
spoken about these problems. Such projects require the continuing
commitment of a number of persons over long periods, and there are
many opportunities for conflicting goals, changes in career plans
and interests, and competing professional demands to erode
cooperation among a number of scholars. One example of a successful and funded cooperative enterprise is the extensive study of
state party organizations that has been carried on at the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
by Cotter, Bibby, Gibson, and
Huckshorn.'4 An earlier example is the public opinion survey of
thirteen states, carried out during the 1968 election, and organized
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.'5 An even
earlier, highly successful example is the study of four state
legislatures carried out by Wahlke, Eulau, Buchanan, and
13
WarrenE. Miller, "The Role of Researchin the Unificationof a Discipline,"
American Political Science Review, 75 (1981), 13.
14 Most of the resultsof this researchprojectto date have appearedin conference
papers.
15 MerleBlack,D.M. Kovenock,and W.C. Reynolds,PoliticalAttitudesin the Nation and States (Chapel Hill: Institutefor Researchin Social Science, Universityof
North Carolinaat Chapel Hill, 1974).
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THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL.
44, 1982
Ferguson,a collaborationin which scholarscombinedtheir research
interests,organizeda coherentresearchdesign, and carriedit out in
four state legislatures.'6 The record of previous accomplishments
suggeststhat small groupsof scholars, who share common interests
and are committed to work together, and who can gain some funding, can make significant progressin filling the gaps of the comparative state politics field.
Should we seek more ambitious goals? Would it be possible to
establisha frameworkfor enlistingthe supportof scholarsin each of
the fifty states for carryingout joint researchprojects? The advantages are obvious. Such a project would enlist personswith firsthand knowledgeof a state and accessto personswho might be interviewed. There would be the possibility of monitoring
developmentsor engaging in panel interviewing over a period of
years. Such a project might make possible a major comparative
study of state legislatures,or the governorship,or state voting patterns, for example.
The obstaclesto such effortsare as obviousas the advantages. In
somestates it is difficult to findimorethan one or two political scientists who are knowledgeable about a state topic, such as the
legislature, and there is no certainty that the most knowledgeable
personwould be interestedin such a project. It would obviouslybe
difficult to involve fifty personsin planning a researchproject, not
only becauseof the logisticsinvolved but becauseof competingideas
about research designs and priorities of interest. If a smaller
num'berof personswere to plan such research,it would be difficult
to enlist the supportof others-particularly those with little interest
in the topics chosenfor study. All of us have competingdemandson
our time, limited time availablefor research,and our own priorities
for research. Anyone who has worked in any kind of cooperative
researchmust recognizehow difficult it would be to carry out such
large-scaleprojects.
Yet, they have been done in the past. Paul David and his
associates organized a fifty-state study of the presidential
nominating process in 1952, and published five volumes on the
results.'7 Other projects, varying in their scope and ambition,
could be cited. In most of these scholars were asked to make a
16John C. Wahlke, Heinz Eulau, William Buchanan,and LeRoy C. Ferguson,
The LegislativeSystem(New York:John Wiley & Sons, 1962).
17 Paul T. David, Malcolm Moos, and Ralph M. Goldman, Presidential
NominatingPoliticsin 1952 (Baltimore:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress, 1954).
THE NEGLECTED WORLD OF STATE POLITICS
657
single report at one time, rather than to engage in sustained research
or continuing reports.
It is not realistic to believe that important comparative state
research can be carried out with few or no resources. It is probably
just as unrealistic to expect that we can obtain the funding that is
necessary during the 1980s to carry out the extensive research that
needs to be done in the American states. I suggest that, as we explore ways of using our limited resources both parsimoniously and
imaginatively, we consider the possibility of establishing networks
of scholars in the fifty states, or in regions such as the South, who
might be committed to work together on long-term projects. It
may not be a feasible approach, and I would certainly not
underestimate the difficulties inherent in it, but I suggest it is an
idea that deserves to be explored.
In the last analysis we will make progress in the comparative
study of the states if political scientists become convinced that this is
an interesting and challenging field in which to work. Obviously
the purpose of this paper is to encourage such interest. In the long
run, however, political scientists are likely to enlist in such a cause if
we can prove that significant work can be done. In other words, if
a few comparative state ventures are successful and productive,
more will be undertaken.