mattgrossmann

[mattgrossmann]

My new book, out now!

[mattgrossmann]

Lots of Data on Congress & States

CongressData (our compilation of data on Members of Congress, their districts, and their activities) is now updated, fixing bills data & adding data on travel, exports, member local ties, & district demographics: cspp.ippsr.msu.edu/congress/ github.com/IPPSR/congress

We have also updated the Correlates of State Policy, with hundreds of variables measured for every state in each year on public policy and determinants and potential outcomes of policy change.

You can come work at MSU with me on the Correlates of State Policy and CongressData project. We have a post-doc available for next year:

https://t.co/3RJT8J1nO8

[mattgrossmann]

Hooked is open & going well

Check out hookedlansing.com, our new bookstore, coffee shop, & wine bar in Lansing, MI.

[mattgrossmann]

Internationalist U.S. Foreign Policy

I had a new article accepted for publication:

Matt Grossmann and Zuhaib Mahmood. Forthcoming. “Internationalist U.S. Foreign Policy and Elite Consensus.” Representation.

A thread on the paper is here.

A previous version is here.

[mattgrossmann]

Hooked Press

We have been getting nice news coverage of our plans for Hooked, a bookstore, coffee shop, and wine bar in Lansing, MI.

We were featured in a nice story in the Lansing State Journal by Rachel Greco, focusing on our plans, the stories behind them, and the newly thriving local scene:

MSU professors to open a bookstore, coffee, wine bar adding to area's independent booksellers

Our plans for Hooked were recently told as a love story on the local news, Fox 47: https://youtu.be/Q04wphLB1p8

[mattgrossmann]

New Articles

I published two recent co-authored research articles:

Matt Grossmann, Kayla Hamann, Jennifer Lee, Gabrielle Levy, Brendan Nyhan, and Victor Wu. 2021. "Republicans are more optimistic about economic mobility, but no less accurate." Research & Politics.

Matt Grossmann, Sarah Reckhow, Katharine O. Strunk, and Meg Turner. 2021. “All States Close but Red Districts Reopen: The Politics of In-Person Schooling During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Educational Researcher 50(9).

[mattgrossmann]

We have revealed our location for Hooked, our forthcoming bookstore, coffee shop, and wine bar. Learn more at:

https://www.hookedlansing.com/hooked-location-revealed-new-bookstore-and-cafe-red-cedar

[mattgrossmann]

Hooked: a bookstore, coffee shop, and wine bar

Sarah Reckhow and I are launching a bookstore, coffee shop, and wine bar in Lansing, Michigan. We will feature community-building events such as book clubs, guided tastings, and meet-the-author talks. Hooked will be a hub in the Lansing area for enjoying the good life, learning, discovering new interests, and keeping up with current issues in a community conversation. 

We have launched the online bookstore and website to update you on our plans at:

hookedlansing.com

We include our favorite book recommendations, including my top lists from the last four years.

Please follow us on social media, order a book, subscribe to our newsletter, or donate to our efforts.

[mattgrossmann]

Blurbs for How Social Science Got Better

Nice endorsements for my next book:

“Only a few decades ago, social scientists merely studied the problems of human society. Today we contribute to their solution—finding their causes; developing new methods, theories, and datasets; proposing and evaluating public policies; and building a science of human behavior. A change this monumental deserves this important book with Matt Grossmann as our expert tour director. Don’t miss it.” –Gary King, Harvard University

“Grossmann’s brilliant book provides a nuanced, thoughtful analysis of the improving trajectory of social science resulting from bigger better data, a more diverse and interdisciplinary academy, methodological advances, and greater engagement with the real world. A book of major importance for practicing social scientists, as well as for the rest of the world who try to understand what social scientists do.” –Scott Page, University of Michigan

“In this optimistic and self-reflective book, Grossmann reminds us that the social sciences are absolutely fundamental to understanding ourselves, our societies, our politics. He shows how the social sciences have turned their ample analytical powers to improving our techniques, data, and capabilities to improving our understandings. The book makes a strong case that social science has improved and that improvement can continue.” –Roger Pielke Jr., University of Colorado Boulder

“As social science has become more popular and public, it has also come under assault on many fronts. Yet in this compelling and provocative book, Matt Grossmann offers an important counter, arguing that the social sciences are stronger and more vibrant than they have ever been due to the increasing diversity of practitioners, growing humility and caution in offering grand claims, and vast expansions of available data and evidence. Most importantly, Grossmann argues that social science has both the incentive for, and multiple means of, correction and regulation that persistently push scholars in the direction of the truth. The book is sure to generate considerable debate and discussion, but its primary thesis is unquestionably hopeful: The social scientists are alright.” –Christina Wolbrecht, University of Notre Dame

“How Social Science Got Better is wide-ranging, accessible, fair-minded, and deeply informed—an indispensable guide to trends in the social sciences and how they make the claims they do. Covering topics from the reproducibility crisis to political polarization, it will be invaluable to a wide swath of social scientists who care about making their fields better—and to a broader public asking hard questions about the value of social science today.” –Elizabeth Popp Berman, University of Michigan

[mattgrossmann]

New Articles

I have updated the articles page with newly accepted articles:

Matt Grossmann, Marty P. Jordan, and Joshua McCrain. Accepted. “The Correlates of State Policy and the Structure of State Panel Data.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly.

The American states offer a wealth of variation across time and space to understand the sources, dynamics, and consequences of public policy. As laboratories of socio- economic and political differences, they enable both wide-scale assessments of change and studies of specific policy choices. To leverage this potential, we constructed and integrated a database of thousands of state-year variables for designing and executing social research: the Correlates of State Policy Project (CSPP). The database offers one-stop shopping for accurate and reliable data, allows researchers to assess the generalizability of the relationships they uncover, enables assessment of causal inferences, and connects state politics researchers to larger research communities. We demonstrate CSPP’s use and breadth, as well as its limitations. Through an applied empirical approach familiar to the state politics literature, we show that researchers should remain attentive to regional variation in key variables and potential lack of within-state variation in independent and dependent variables of interest. By comparing commonly used model specifications, we demonstrate that results are highly sensitive to particular re- search design choices. Inferences drawn from state politics research largely depend on the nature of over time variation within and across states and the empirical leverage it may or may not provide.

Matt Grossmann, William Isaac, and Zuhaib Mahmood. 2020. “Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Unequal Class Influence in American Policy.” Journal of Politics.

Do policymakers in both parties represent the opinions of the richest Americans, ignoring those of median income? We find that the two political parties primarily represent different interest group sectors, rather than public economic classes. The Republican Party and business interests are aligned across all issue areas and are more often aligned with the opinions of the richest Americans (especially on economic policy). Democrats more often represent middle class opinions and are uniformly aligned with advocacy groups. Support from both parties is associated with policy adoption, but party influence cannot explain the association between affluent opinions and policy outcomes. Rather than an oligarchic political system, these patterns show competition among organized elites that still provides multiple potential paths for unequal public class influence.

Matt Grossmann. 2020. “Limits of the Conservative Revolution in the States.” Political Science Quarterly 135(3): 377-407.

Matt Grossmann. 2020. “The Science of Politics Podcast.” PS: Political Science & Politics 53(2): 324-5.

[mattgrossmann]

New book coming in 2021: How Social Science Got Better: Overcoming Bias with More Evidence, Diversity, and Self-Reflection

Pre-Order at Oxford or Amazon

Social science is facing mounting criticism, as canonical studies fail to replicate, questionable research practices abound, and researcher social and political biases come under fire. How Social Science Got Better provides a robust defense of the current state of the social sciences. Applying insights from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science and providing new data on research trends and scholarly views, I argues that, far from crisis, social science is undergoing an unparalleled renaissance of ever-broader understanding and application. Social science research has never been more relevant, rigorous, or self-reflective because scholars have a much better idea of their blind spots and biases. Scholars now closely analyze the impact of racial, gender, geographic, methodological, political, and ideological differences on research questions; how the incentives of academia influence our research practices; and how universal human desires to avoid uncomfortable truths and easily solve problems affect our conclusions. Though misaligned incentive structures of course remain, a messy, collective deliberation across the research community has shifted us into an unprecedented age of theoretical diversity, open and connected data, and public scholarship.

[mattgrossmann]

Promotion

I have been promoted to (Full) Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. I still serve as Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.

My latest article in Political Science Quarterly is “Limits of the Conservative Revolution in the States”

My latest op-ed:

USA Today Network: How the Pandemic will Disrupt State Partisan Agendas

Latest Red State Blues reviews & interviews:

Politics & Polls Podcast with Julian Zelizer

Interview in Governing Magazine

Review in The Guardian

Review in Education Next

[mattgrossmann]

Talk & Writing on Red State Blues

I return to Claremont for a talk at the Ath on Red State Blues.

I also published recent commentary:

Washington Post: Don’t expect much change in VA & KY

538: GOP Control Hasn’t Stopped Growth of Government

Cambridge: Did Conservatives Transform State Education Policy?

[mattgrossmann]

My new book, “Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States” has arrived!

Order now: https://www.amazon.com/Red-State-Blues-Conservative-Revolution/dp/1108701752

With $5 discount code "RSB2019" here: http://cambridge.org/RedBlues

[mattgrossmann]

NYT Op-Ed: GOP Goals Stymied in the States

I published an op-ed in the NYT that previews my new book, Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/opinion/states-republicans.html

[mattgrossmann]

New cards for my #ScienceOfPolitics postcard. Full episode list at:

niskanencenter.org/podcast

[mattgrossmann]

Cover for my next book, Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/red-state-blues/79FF52A9FCDDE94A9D6948044EE86662