Are political candidates perceived differently based on the presence or absence of a southern accent? To address this question, we employ an experimental design that explores reactions to political candidates with a southern accent and a regionally neutral accent. We focus on perceptions of three general categories of candidate characteristics: candidate traits, candidate affect, and candidate issue positions. Overall, we discover that candidates with a southern accent are viewed more negatively, and they are thought to hold more conservative policy positions, than candidates with no discernible accent. Our findings suggest that the southern accent provides a heuristic that affects how voters perceive candidates.

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Despite playing an important role, preprofessional advising has received little research attention. For this study, 313 U.S. preprofessional advisors were surveyed in 2015. Drawing on work adjustment and social cognitive career theories, we analyzed the job satisfaction and perceived effectiveness of pre-law advisors. The major findings reveal that advisors having a law degree, the ability to secure more resources, and a commitment to spending significant hours weekly in advising tend to be more satisfied and perceive themselves to be more effective in helping students gain admission to law school and preparing them for academic success than other pre-law advisors. Other factors related to participant self-perceptions on advising future law students are also discussed.

Individuals’ choices about whether to resolve disputes via litigation can be affected by their relationship with the potential defendant. I explore whether gender also plays a role, with women being less aggressive in legal tactics than men as their connection to the potential defendant becomes closer. The study uses a survey design with vignettes to explore decisions across the legal process, including the willingness to sue, responses to settlement offers, and whether or not to appeal. The survey varies the extent of the relationship between the potential plaintiff and defendant and includes two types of injuries—a “slip and fall” and pay discrimination. The findings reveal that once litigation has begun, women have a greater preference than men for mediation in both types of cases, but they are more resistant than men to settlement in discrimination disputes. Neither men nor women's legal strategies seem to be affected by relational distance.

Political scientists interested in the structure of legal doctrine are especially attuned to the impact of the judicial hierarchy. They generally frame the issue as whether a higher court will issue a rigid “rule” to prevent shirking or a vague “standard” to give more discretion to lower courts. This “rules versus standards” debate rests on two presumptions: jurists write doctrine, and doctrine varies in flexibility. Using the US Supreme Court, I offer an initial empirical evaluation of these presumptions. The findings reveal that the justices almost always adopt doctrine suggested to them and that these doctrines differ little in flexibility.

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Political science is one of the most popular majors for law school applicants, and studies show that political science majors have high rates of law school admission. In addition, many political science departments have a pre-law advisor. However, little is known about the status of pre-law advising on college campuses or the views of pre-law advisors on political science. This article presents the results of a February 2015 survey of 313 college pre-law advisors from across the United States. The authors discovered that the majority of pre-law advisors hold faculty appointments and serve as pre-law advisors without additional compensation or course releases. Pre-law advisors also rate political science as the second-best major, among 14 popular majors, for preparing students for both admission to and academic success in law school. These fi ndings should be of interest to political scientists as well as other faculty and administrators who are concerned with pre-law advising.