Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Citizen Input, Policy Outcomes, and Local Representation.

民主社会最困难的选择之一是，代表是由选民选出，还是由其他官员任命。这个项目询问选择如何影响代表性，测试现有的政治科学研究的两个假设。第一，与委任相比，直选是否更能代表大多数人的意愿？第二，直接选是否令某些团体（即特殊利益团体）较其他团体有更佳的代表性？我解决这些问题，利用当地机构的巨大变化，组装原始数据集在三个州的三个地方办事处：财产税评估员，学校董事会成员和消防区受托人。项目完成后，这些关于政治机构和政策成果的独特数据集将传播给更广泛的学术界，构成一项重要的公益事业，该项目的知识价值在于它对机构和地方治理研究的贡献。该项目重点关注这三个案例，主要有两个原因。首先，每个案例都包括大量的政治管辖区（城镇、学区或消防区），这些管辖区随着时间的推移从直接选举转变为任命（反之亦然）。如果分析只是比较在同一时间点进行选举或委任的司法管辖区-这是大多数现有研究这一问题的方法-就很难评估政策上的任何差异是由于直接选举，还是由于与选举决定有关的预先存在的差异。相比之下，对变化的管辖区的关注允许比较选举或任命的管辖区之间的政策结果，同时控制切换之前存在的任何差异。第二，所审查的每一个办公室都负责作出对公民生活有实际影响的决定。因此，通过研究直接选举如何塑造财产税评估，标准化考试成绩和消防部门的响应时间，该研究将有助于更准确地评估公民和政府之间的联系，而不是其他分析间接措施的政策结果的代表性研究。更实际的是，该项目的研究结果将有助于为一个公共政策问题提供信息--如何选择官员--从州和地方政府到私人董事会，无数组织都在积极努力解决这个问题。通过更强有力的研究设计和原始数据收集，该项目旨在提供比现有研究中少数相互矛盾的结果更可信的政策处方。

One of the most difficult choices for democratic societies is whether representatives are to be elected by voters or appointed by other officials. This project asks how the choice affects representation, testing two hypotheses from existing political science research. First, do direct elections lead to more representation of the majority's preferences, relative to appointment? Second, do direct elections cause certain groups - special interests" - to receive better representation than others? I address these questions by leveraging the substantial variation in local institutions, assembling original data sets on three local offices in three states: property tax assessors; school board members; and fire protection district trustees. Upon completion of the project, these unique data sets of political institutions and policy outcomes will be disseminated to the broader scholarly community, constituting a significant public good.The intellectual merit of this project is related to its contribution to the study of institutions and local governance. The project focuses on these three cases for two key reasons. First, each case includes a significant number of political jurisdictions (towns, school districts, or fire districts) that change from direct elections to appointment (or vice versa) over time. If the analysis were to simply compare jurisdictions that elect or appoint at a single point in time - the approach of most existing studies of this question - it would be difficult to assess whether any difference in policy was due to direct elections, or due to pre-existing differences that are associated with the decision to elect. In contrast, the focus on jurisdictions that change permits comparison of policy outcomes between jurisdictions that elect or appoint, while controlling for any differences that existed prior to the switch. Second, each of the offices under examination is responsible for making decisions that have tangible impacts on citizens' lives. Thus, by examining how direct elections shape property tax assessments, standardized test scores, and fire department response times, the research will facilitate an evaluation of the link between citizens and government more precisely than other studies of representation that analyze indirect measures of policy outcomes.The broader impacts of the project are associated with its contributions to the study of political institutions and local government. More practically, the findings from this project will help to inform a public policy question - how officials should be selected - with which countless organizations, from state and local governments to private boards, actively wrestle with. Through stronger research designs and original data gathering, this project seeks to offer more credible policy prescriptions than do the handful of conflicting findings from existing studies.