Reviewers of the state of state politics research often lament the field's lack of theoretical progress and its fragmented character These conditions persist yet a review of this research published in the professions top journals over the past decade reveals a substantively rich and often methodologically sophisticated body of scholarship. Applying an inclusive approach, this essay examines all research published on state politics over the last decade in the profession's six top journals: APSR, AJPS, JOP, PRQ Polity and SSQ. Trends in substantive focus and the findings of this research are described, as are methodological approaches and innovations. The study takes stock of the progress the field has made and identifies promising avenues for future inquiry. The subfield could advance by emphasizing its unique comparative analytical advantages. These advantages provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate the impact of institutional and environmental contexts on political behavior, processes and outcomes. The field needs to emphasize the importance of modeling political behavior across contexts, and interactively across contextual and individual levels of analysis. By so doing, the subfield can show how states matter and also assess the generality of models that focus too often on behavior or process within single contexts.Reviews of the state politics subfield typically deplore the field's lack of progress and complain about the disunity in approaches and subject matter that characterize the field's research. On one level, this review departs from that tradition. Studies appearing in the professioris top journals make clear that there has been notable progress in the study of state politics over the past decade. Those laboring in the field have contributed to knowledge about state politics including the interplay of states within a national setting, the effects NOTE: Aubrey Jewett provided enormous assistance in compiling the bibliography used in this essay. His diligent and extraordinary efforts were instrumental in the completion of this study. The study benefited as well from the thoughtful input of John Geer and the anonymous reviewers he selected.
During the past decade many state legislatures have undergone reform in an attempt to become more efficient, open, representative and fair, but relatively little research has been done to evaluate these changes. When Republicans took control of the Florida House in 1997, they reorganized the legislature, changed many formal rules, and fostered a new informal norm related to passing laws. The major stated goal of the new formal rules is to “flatten the pyramid of power” and allow all “good ideas” to be heard while fostering a conservative norm. To evaluate the rule changes, a survey of Florida House members concerning rule satisfaction is analyzed, regressions of bill passage rates for 1995 and 1997 are compared, and several other rule effects are examined. Overall the rules receive support although rule satisfaction is lower among Democrats and liberals. The major goal is realized to some degree when comparing the determinants of individual legislative passage rates. Analysis also suggests that a conservative norm is established, the end‐of‐session logjam is reduced, and legislative trains are derailed.
110Why do well-intentionedpublic policies sometimes fail? This research examines the failure of two Florida workers' compensation reforms intended to help previously injured employees return to work: the obligation to rehire program and the pwferred worker program. Interviews conducted with Floridians involved in workers 'compensation reform are examined to find out why these two programs failed. The disappointing outcome of the obligation to rehire andpreferred worker programs can be tied to the dominance of business groups in state policymaking, the failure to provide aproper incentive and enforcement system, and the inability to foresee the consequences of reform because of policy and environmental complexity. 137
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.