The intensifying housing crisis in America is disproportionately impacting the nation's biggest metropolitan areas. At the same time, the Democratic voting coalition has increasingly dominated these metros, as Democratic politicians have won more support from affluent, educated urban and suburban homeowners. These interacting dynamics have produced a wide gulf of housing wealth and economic precarity between Democratic renters and homeowners. Given the power of shared partisanship in American politics, does this economic divide translate into preference differences in the coalition? We argue that, indeed, Democratic renters are far more likely than homeowners to favor more aggressive state intervention to mitigate American inequality. Specifically, we show that Democratic renters are consistently more likely than homeowners to support the most left-leaning presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and redistributive housing policies. Democratic renters are only mildly more supportive of non-housing redistribution but are more likely to intensely demand more public housing. To support these claims, we analyze an array of survey data, including data on a real-world ballot proposition and original data measuring preference intensity. These findings carry implications for the contemporary politics of metro-area housing, the Democratic Party politics of redistribution, and the interaction of economic interests and political identities. (Note: This session will be joint with Marco M. Aviña and Marcelo Roman).

With rising income and wealth inequality, demand for redistribution might be expected to increase. However, public opinion on these issues has remained relatively stable in recent years. Concomitantly, the ethno-racial composition of the country has rapidly changed. Theories on ethnic diversity and racial threat predict such dynamics may reduce support for redistribution despite rising inequality, which would explain why support for redistribution remains stagnant in the U.S. We test these theories by pairing local demographic data with national public opinion surveys of nearly a million Americans, including 3 panels of individuals who were interviewed multiple times between 2010 and 2022. Changes in neighborhood demographics do not significantly influence fiscal and social policy preferences. We rule out several sources of heterogeneity, conduct various sensitivity analyses, and replicate our findings using survey experiments and perceived measures of demographic change. These null results clash with established findings on diversity, intergroup conflict, and public finance. (Note: This session will be joint with Sam Zacher and Amelia Yalpas.)

Through President Obama’s Computer Science For All and other vocationalized educational policy efforts aimed at “21st Century Skills” and "career readiness," proponents of schooling for work suggest various national crises and social, political, or economic problems related to inequality may be resolved or avoided. Increasingly, career readiness at the K-12 level involves the advancement of STEM and CS curriculum. These policy efforts often target districts serving poor and racially minoritized students to develop technical skills for future work, while aiming to minimize persistent poverty (Greene, 2021). This paper asks how a mainstream emphasis on developing “skills for the 21st century” through computer science (CS) curriculum was developed as a mechanism for achieving “career readiness.” Relatedly, it investigates the political actors and coalitions are that are responsible for advancing the parallel objectives of career readiness and expanded CS education, working to understand how they discursively articulate and advance their aims. I investigate the relationships between NGO, corporate, and philanthropic actors in relation to the state as a persistant alliance devoted to education toward economic ends. I examine public and private advocacy efforts for expanding CS education across all levels of elementary and secondary education, particularly those originating at the federal level during and following President Obama’s administration. I consider these efforts alongside human capital education reforms, analyzing the role of private actors in advancing expanded CS education. I theorize the ways these efforts undermine political equality and democratic institutions and conclude with mechanisms to mitigate these risks.

My book 'Owning the Green Grid' offers a new account of why U.S. state-level climate and renewable energy policy is so variable in its environmental strength, and so similar in its distributive qualities: namely, in all cases, costs are shifted from utilities to ratepayers. While the political science literature generally highlights the importance of partisanship and energy economy in explaining policy variation, my book centers a new, political economy explanation of variation in policy design. I argue that a key, underappreciated factor is the structure of the electric utility sector because it informs the policy preferences of investor-owned utilities, which are the single most influential interest group actor when it comes to shaping policy design. Drawing on seven state-level case studies of states that vary in partisanship, energy economy and electric sector structure -- and that together house one third of the U.S. population -- I analyze legislative and regulatory texts, more than 16,000 pages of archival material, and transcripts from more than 200 policy-focused interviews to argue that, while partisanship and energy economy may be the primary factors leading to a state’s decision to adopt these policies, it is the structure of the electric utility sector that is the most important factor in how they are ultimately designed.