Our State-Level Economic Model incorrectly forecast the outcome of the presidential election. The model's projections were based on the two-party vote in the prior election, the status of the incumbent party in the election/reelection cycle, national and state unemployment rates, and changes in real per capita personal income levels for state residents. Even before the Republican nomination process began, President Obama's success in the 2008 campaign coupled with the electoral advantage typically enjoyed by first-term incumbents bode well for his reelection chances. However, by the arrival of the fall campaign, unemployment remained high and income growth was stagnant, meaning that the president faced significant economic headwinds. Our estimates indicated that Governor Romney would carry most of the battleground states. We were wrong. President Obama carried all but one of them.

In studying the correlates of job satisfaction among political science faculty we confirm some findings from other disciplines, such as the relationship between institutional type and satisfaction. We demonstrate that those working in top-ranked departments or in private institutions tend to have higher levels of satisfaction with their jobs and with their contributions to the profession. Both job satisfaction and professional satisfaction tend to be highest among full professors; and greater productivity in terms of publishing is independently linked to greater levels of professional satisfaction. In contrast, comparatively higher undergraduate teaching loads undermine professional satisfaction. We also determine that men and women do not differ systematically from one another in their satisfaction levels. We do, however, document significantly lower levels of satisfaction among racial minorities in political science departments. In exploring this finding, we uncover reports of discrimination and dramatic differences in levels of collegiality experienced by different subgroups of faculty members. Experiences with discrimination undermine job satisfaction and are more frequently reported by women than men and are more common among minority faculty than nonminorities.

APSA is pleased to recognize the recipients of campus-wide and departmental awards for teaching excellence during the 2012–13 academic year. Pi Sigma Alpha sponsored these recipients at the Reception Honoring Teaching at the APSA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Movies continue to be the most accessible art form to Americans and that reach allows films to have a tremendous effect on moviegoers. With more than a billion movie tickets sold annually in the United States, the ability of movies to influence the perceptions of moviegoers is pronounced. Frequently, the government is part of those depictions. Although film is routinely studied in a host of disciplines, a focus on the portrayal of government generally and government officials more specifically, remains elusive. Instead of using a case-study approach, we examine recent, popular films to investigate how government is portrayed generally and how individual governmental characters are depicted. For our sample, we use the top-10 box office grossing films from 2000 to 2009 to assess how government is depicted in the films most likely seen by the majority of movie-watching Americans. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that films generally have a mixed view of government with more negative depictions than positive. However, in examining bureaucrats, police officers, soldiers, and politicians, we found a much more positive depiction of these individual government characters. Americans may view government negatively, but in film they see positive depictions of individual civil servants.

This article examines the dual problems of “women don't ask” and “women don't say no” in the academic profession. First, we consider whether female faculty bargain more or less frequently than male faculty about such resources as salary, research support, clerical support, moving expenses, and spousal accommodation. Analyzing a 2009 APSA survey, we find that women are more likely to ask for resources than men when considering most categories of bargaining issues. This finding goes against conventional wisdom in the literature on gender and bargaining that suggests that women are less likely to bargain than men. Second, we seek to understand if women are reluctant to say no when asked to provide service at the department, college, university, or disciplinary levels. We find that women are asked to provide more service and that they agree to serve more frequently than men. We also find that the service women provide is more typically “token” service, as women are less likely to be asked by their colleagues to serve as department chair, to chair committees, or to lead academic programs. The implications of these results for the leaky pipeline in the academic profession are discussed.

This article melds a well-studied area of research (political mobilization effects on voter turnout) with a subject rarely discussed in political science (the effects of meteorological variability on mood, productivity, and fatigue) to argue that weather at the time of mobilization influences individual voters' turnout odds relative to other contacted voters. Using panel data totaling 39,769 registered voters contacted by unions across 14 months and five elections, quantitative analysis is used to measure the effects of temperature, seasonableness, and precipitation during contact on vote likelihood, controlling for known turnout influences. Results indicate that variations in all three weather conditions during contact affect vote odds. Mobilization effects are weaker as temperatures rise and weather becomes unseasonably hot; mobilization is also less successful as precipitation increases. Outcomes vary by contact type; door-to-door visits are more negatively influenced by hotter and less seasonable temperatures, whereas phone calls are more negatively affected by higher precipitation.

In “The Dog that Didn't Bark: The Role of Canines in the 2008 Campaign,” Diana Mutz (2010) argues that dog ownership made voters significantly less likely to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. We examine this claim further. Although President Obama has owned a dog since shortly after his 2008 election, we argue that Bo's presence most likely did little to improve his owner's chances of being reelected in 2012. Rather, the apparent significance of dog ownership uncovered by Mutz is due largely to key variables being omitted from the analysis. Using the same data, we show that Obama didn't so much have trouble with dog owners in 2008 as he had trouble with conservative, rural, Southern whites, who, for reasons we examine, are more likely than other Americans to own dogs. Accordingly, we suspect that Bo failed to boost Obama's vote tally in 2012. While we recognize the tongue-in-jowl tone of portions of Mutz's article, this tale is an important one, and is consistent with recent research linking racial attitudes to levels of support for Barack Obama. We also argue that while scholars are often wise to include control variables such as “South” in studies of political attitudes and behavior, it is important to consider the variety of politically relevant characteristics that such variables may be capturing.

The challenges that women in academia face are well documented. However, there is a dearth of research on the experiences of female academics particularly on job interviews as expectant or nursing mothers. This study sought to document the experiences of these women. Considering the grueling nature of the academic job interview, do expectant or nursing mothers ask for accommodations on the interview, and if so, how do departments respond to their request? We find that women refrain from job interviews as expectant mothers while others suggest using the “hidden pregnancy phenomenon.” Nursing mothers had more positive experiences, although experiences were less than desirable. Based on the findings, we offer a list of recommendations to departments to help improve this critical step in starting a career in academe.

Recently, new electronic technologies have supplemented older mechanisms of communication between members of Congress and their constituents. These technologies have enhanced members' options for communication, both with constituents and other interested parties. This research examines member use of one specific electronic communication medium: Twitter. Using original data to examine patterns of use, two models predict the probability of a member adopting Twitter based on political, personal, and district-level variables.

A preview of some of the articles in the January 2014 issue.

Defenders of the Electoral College frequently assert that victory in the Electoral College requires a winning candidate to “produce a coalition of states with wide and diverse interests” thereby producing “a broadly based electoral victory.” These defenders never stop to consider the fact that in a close election the difference between the winning and losing coalition of states may depend on highly contingent factors. In a 2003 article in this journal Neubauer and Zeitlin demonstrated that George W. Bush's Electoral College victory in 2000 depended on the size of the House of Representatives. In this article I demonstrate that the outcome of the 2012 election could have depended on the 2012 Electoral College being based on the newly apportioned incoming House rather than the previously apportioned outgoing House. This is a statutory specification rather than a constitutional requirement. It could be changed by simple legislation. We have Elbridge Gerry's suspicions to thank for this statutory contingency!

Graduate students seldom know how to navigate the publishing process, yet a growing expectation is that new hires are capable of immediately producing publishable research as well as teaching. Considering the current state of the job market, graduate students should plan early to take advantage of the opportunities to publish early in their graduate career. This article provides suggestions for beginning the publishing process.

The workplace provides an exceptional outlet for citizens to encounter different viewpoints and discuss politics with people with whom they may disagree. In Washington, DC, however, many people work in partisan environments where like-minded coworkers rarely encounter alternate points of view. Group polarization theory suggests that these environments push individuals to the partisan and ideological extremes. This study tests this hypothesis by comparing opinion change among interns who worked in a partisan workplace with that of interns who were employed in less-partisan environments. The results suggest that partisan workplace environments foster opinion polarization, especially among Republicans.

Constitutional restraints on government are tricky and evanescent; government failure (a lapse into anarchy or leviathan) has historically been the norm, and constitutional success an infrequent exception. To shed light on constitutional maintenance, this article examines the concept of constitutional review by studying three competing systems: the American/Marshall system of judicial review; the Commonwealth/Westminster model of parliamentary sovereignty; and the Kelsen compromise between the two. Each system's strengths and weaknesses are assessed, as constitutional framers navigate the treacherous waters between the Scylla of parliamentary tyranny and Charybdis of gouvernement des juges. In the end, neither extreme is perfect, but lessons are drawn from each of the three models.

Recent efforts to cut public funding for the arts and culture sectors in the United States are couched in the need for balanced budgets and fiscal discipline. Lawmakers who support cuts question whether artistic pursuits such as “cowboy poetry” or artistic endeavors that offend or shock some viewers are an appropriate use of public monies in a depressed economy. While the current debate is grounded in a need for balanced budgets and reduced deficits, long-standing unresolved legacies fragment arts and culture policy and leave arts and culture funding vulnerable to additional cuts. The normative implications for the role of the arts and culture sectors in a democratic society need to be considered.

Recent actions in Congress that threaten political science funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have caught the attention of political scientists, but this was not the first attack and not likely to be the last. Less than one year ago, the Harper government ended the Understanding Canada program, an important source of funding for academics in the United States and abroad. This article stresses the value of the program and the importance of this funding steam by demonstrating what the grants have done both more generally as well as for the authors individually. In addition, by looking at the political process that led to the end of the Understanding Canada program and the similarities in the attacks on NSF political science funding, this article identifies potential reasons why these funds were and are at risk. We conclude by arguing that normative action in support of political science is a necessity for all political scientists.

Many scholars discount the value of edited volumes and book chapters to the social science enterprise. Nevertheless, these unique formats advance scholarship, help faculty and graduate students achieve their goals, and enhance teaching and learning. This article therefore assesses the criticisms of volumes and chapters, reconsiders the contributions of these publications, and makes recommendations for improving their accessibility and status.