A Government Two-fer in APSR
The American Political Science Review, the flagship journal of the American Political Science Association, may not be a popular reading choice for those looking to relax on a long flight or to take it easy at home on a Friday evening. Still, those who love political science and love William & Mary should dive into the most recent issue of the journal, which features articles by not one, but two of Government’s finest.
An article by Eric Arias, a current assistant professor in the Department, and his co-authors is entitled “When Do Citizens Respond Politically to the Local Economy? Evidence from Registry Data in Local Housing Markets.” In their analysis, Arias and his colleagues combined evidence from a field experiment and network analysis in Mexico. They reached the important conclusion that voters “coordinate around information to help remove poorly performing politicians.”
Also appearing is Taylor Carlson (’14), who graduated with Honors in Government while also double-majoring in Public Policy and Psychology. In her solo-authored article, entitled “Through the Grapevine: Informational Consequences of Interpersonal Communication,” Carlson designed an experiment to examine how people learn about politics differently when they acquire information from the media versus hearing about it from other people. This exciting study explored how information changes as it flows from and through different sources.
Although we here in Government have not done a comprehensive search of the APSR’s archives, we believe this may be the first time ever that a Government faculty member and a former student of ours have had separate articles appear in a single issue of the journal. That’s no small accomplishment given how difficult it is to place research in this outlet. One William & Mary byline would be something. But a two-fer? Quite amazing!
