Conventional wisdom suggests, and scholarship confirms, that the distribution of heavy metal music across the world is uneven. Previous studies show there are more metal bands per capita in Europe and North America than in other regions, but it is not clear what country-level factors explain that distribution. Drawing on data from the Encyclopaedia Metallum, I replicate a 2014 study and find weak support to connect heavy metal and religion, legal history and other social factors. In this article, I present an alternative model to explain the distribution of metal bands and show that wealth and political freedom are highly predictive of metal music, not only across the world, but also within regions.
Do reserved seats yield substantive representation for traditionally marginalized groups? To answer that question, we examine reserved seats for Native American tribes in the Maine legislature. Tribal representatives, who can participate in debate but lack a vote, have represented tribes in Maine's predominantly white legislature since statehood in 1820. We take advantage of a 1995 rule change that allowed tribal representatives to initiate legislation, and an original dataset of pro-tribal bills, to estimate the effect of reserved seats on the production of pro-tribal bills. We find that once tribal representatives were allowed to write bills, they produced over half of all tribal-related legislation during a 35-year period. Legislators with tribal constituents sponsored fewer relevant bills after the reform but continued to cosponsor pro-tribal legislation. Although our results are promising, we caution that reserved seats are not a panacea for improving indigenous representation.
Voters in almost every state elect county sheriffs but political science has only recently turned its attention to this important office. In this paper, I trace the historical processes that led Americans to begin electing sheriffs in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as modern reforms to reverse that trend. Pairing newly-collected data on the timing of reforms that democratized local offices with narrative history, I show that the institution of elected sheriff spread gradually across the country and, in many states, Americans were deeply conflicted about subjecting this important office to popular choice. One finding is that sheriffs, in most states, became elective sooner than prosecutors and judges. I also provide evidence of the institution's slow retrenchment: today, there are four states and thirteen counties, home to over 20 million Americans, that do not elect sheriffs. The paper concludes with a discussion about the national importance of this local institution in American politics.
Non-voting delegates have represented territories in Congress since 1797, but have only been able to vote in committees in the last half century. The 1970s reforms to expand delegates’ rights and create new seats coincided with other party-driven changes to the committee system, and little is known about the impact delegates had on party ratios in committees. In this paper, I present evidence that the addition of delegates to standing committees in the 1970s, as well as the Committee of the Whole in the 1990s, increased Democrats’ seat share relative to the margin on the floor. In light of this evidence, the disagreements about the scope of delegates’ participation in the House are best understood in the context of increasing polarization and partisanship that increased the stakes of packing committees on the margin.
Non-voting delegates have represented territories in Congress since 1797, but have only been able to vote in committees in the last half century. The institutional changes that expanded delegates’ rights coincided with rising polarization and partisanship in Congress, but we know little about the relationship between these reforms and these trends. I argue that these changes can be best understood through the lens of partisan conflict. The paper’s main finding is that the addition of delegates to standing committees in the 1970s, as well as the Committee of the Whole in the 1990s, increased Democrats’ seat share relative to the margin on the floor. This paper places delegates’ rights into the context of increasing polarization and partisanship, and explains why conflict over these marginal legislators has become a regular feature of American politics over the last half century.
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.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.