Research Agenda
Publications
Refereed
Nicholas F. Jacobs and B. Kal Munis. Forthcoming. "Staying in Place: Federalism and the Political Economy of Place Attachment." Publius: The Journal of Federalism.
Nicholas F. Jacobs, Desmond King, and Sidney M. Milkis. 2019. “Building a Conservative State: Partisan Polarization and the Redeployment of Administrative Power.” Perspectives on Politics 17 (2): 453-469.
Nicholas F. Jacobs and B. Kal Munis. 2019. “Place Based Imagery and Voter Evaluations: Experimental Evidence on the Politics of Place.” Political Research Quarterly 72 (2): 263-277.
-- Featured in The Washington Post, The Atlantic
Nicholas F. Jacobs and Connor M. Ewing. 2018. “The Promises and Pathologies of Presidential Federalism.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 48 (3): 552-569.
Nicholas F. Jacobs and James D. Savage. 2018. “Kennedy’s Keynesian Budgetary Politics and the 1962 Public Works Acceleration Act." Journal of Policy History 30 (3): 522-551.
Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2018. “After the White House: The Politics of the Post-Presidency.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 48 (4): 711-740.
-- Featured in The Washington Post
Nicholas F. Jacobs and Sidney M. Milkis. 2017. “Extraordinary Isolation? Woodrow Wilson and the Civil Rights Movement.” Studies in American Political Development 32 (2): 193-217.
Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2017. “An Experimental Test of How Americans Think About Federalism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 47 (4): 572-598.
-- Awarded the 2018 “John Kincaid Best Article Award” by the APSA section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations
Nicholas Jacobs. 2013. “Understanding School Choice: Location as a Determinant of Charter School Stratification.” Journal of Education and Urban Society 45 (4): 459-482.
-- Deemed “Essential Reading” by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights – 50th Anniversary Towards Justice Campaign
Nicholas Jacobs. 2013. “Racial, Economic, and Linguistic Segregation: Analyzing Market Supports in the District of Columbia's Public Charter Schools.” Journal of Education and Urban Society 45 (1): 120-141.
Editor-Reviewed
Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2020. “Polycentric Party Governance: Competition, Federalism, and the Production of Political Leadership in American Politics.” In Peter Boettke, Bobbi Herzberg, and Brian Kogelmann (eds.), The Political Economy and Social Philosophy of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Nicholas F. Jacobs and Sidney Milkis. 2020. "Our 'Undivided Support': Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and Executive-Centered Partisanship." In Eric Patashnik and Wendy Schiller (eds.), Dynamics of American Democracy: Partisan Polarization, Political Competition and Government Performance. Lawrence, KN: University of Kansas Press.
Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2019. “Obama, Barack.” In Joseph R. Marbach, Ellis Katz, and Troy Smith (eds.) Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia. Center for the Study of Federalism. Available On-Line at: http://encyclopedia.federalism.org.
Sidney M. Milkis and Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2019. “Answering the Call: Leaving the Bench to Serve the President – James F. Byrnes and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” Journal of Supreme Court History 44 (1): 71-89.
Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2019. "Funding State and Local Governments: How Dollars Work." Constituting America. Available On-Line at:
Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2018. “Building Robust Survey Experiments in Political Science: Or, ‘How I Learned to Love the Null’.” SAGE Research Methods Cases.
Sidney M. Milkis and Nicholas F. Jacobs. 2017. “’I Alone Can Fix It’: Donald Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Hazards of Executive-Centered Partisanship.” The Forum 15 (3): 583-613.
-- Featured in The Washington Post, the BBC
Nicholas F. Jacobs and James W. Ceaser. 2016. “The 2016 Presidential Election by the Numbers and in Historical Perspective.” The Forum 14 (4): 361-385.
Nicholas Jacobs. 2013. “Traditional Teacher Education Still Matters.” Phi Delta Kappan 94 (7).
Research Agenda
My research focuses on the origins and history of American political institutions – most notably the presidency. My work engages three major questions:
1) How do presidents use state and local governing authority to augment their institutional powers and pursue policy goals?
2) How do individuals think about and relate to a system of multiple, interdependent governments?
3) How do political elites engage with populist movements to weaken institutional constraints?
Managing Chaos: Presidents, Federalism, and Party Decay
Much of my work is about one source of the American presidency’s vast power: its ability to pursue policy and political objectives within state and local governing institutions. Within the last five years, a number of legal scholars have triumphed the arrival of “executive-centered” federalism in the United States. I argue that there is a deep history of presidential involvement in state and local politics. Tracing the emergence of several institutional reforms, I argue that such interactions have transformed the obligations, relations of authority, and public expectations of executive power at every level of government. Most scholars consider federalism to be a bulwark against enhanced presidential power. I argue the contrary: federalism was, and remains, an essential opportunity structure in the exercise of presidential power.
The research relies on primary, historical material, much of it original discovery. From fellowships underwritten by several presidential libraries, I have unearthed a large amount of archival evidence to demonstrate how presidents have used their administrative, rhetorical, and partisan powers within state and local governing institutions, particularly mayoralties and governorships. By going straight to the primary material, I am able to incorporate never before-used documents, memorandum, and internal reports that shed new light on conventional stories of political change. To the extent that modern intergovernmental relations is defined by use of administrative-waivers, competitive grant-programs, and executive-negotiation over program implementation, I trace how similar mechanisms of presidential power contributed to the development of the American State throughout the 20th Century. Scholars tend to ignore much of this historical narrative and the political thought that undergirds it, most of which hinges on a collection of budgetary and administrative reforms. My data show why presidents viewed these changes as necessary, and I show how these administrative procedures have allowed presidents to respond to demands for new public policy by skirting Congressional authority. More so, states and localities tend to encourage the emergence of these new governing forms, and have eagerly worked to enlarge presidential powers.
I draw on this rich array of data to highlight three distinct junctures in the development of presidential-federalism in the 20th Century. First, I argue that the New Deal’s implications for federalism are more complicated and benign than most scholars suggest. It was only with the development and transformation of new local-state-federal institutions that accompanied the Great Society when the modern features of presidential-federalism emerged. Johnson’s “Creative Federalism” and Nixon’s “New Federalism” cemented the full ritualization of these new modes of presidential power. Subsequent developments have largely extended the discretion presidents enjoy in pursuing their goals in a subnational environment. Federalism therefore helps to explain the bi-partisan embrace of presidential power in the last three decades. Culminating with the presidencies of Obama and Trump, it is clear to see both how and why presidents can choose to pursue policy objectives in constitutionally-independent governments.
Economic Civil War: Public Perspectives on Fiscal Federalism
I also have an active interest in understanding the behavioral foundations of American political institutions and federalism. Scholars of American political development often make assumptions about how the public understands their governing institutions, and how those understandings filter back into elite behavior. Rather than making these assumptions, my work seeks to empirically test how individuals make sense of elite messaging within governing structures. This informs my book manuscript on public opinion and fiscal federalism. Across several peer-reviewed studies, I challenge extant explanations of how well the public "thinks federally." For example, I worked with an undergraduate student at UVa to test how individuals understand and respond to a fundamental aspect of our federal system: differential balance-of-payments between states. We find evidence that differences in government spending are highly influential on perceptions of governmental fairness, and that individuals possess a rather robust state-identity when evaluating government spending priorities. In another study, I use observational and experimental work to document how the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reinforced partisan divisions in President Trump's Electoral College coalition. And other work shows that Congress, as a representative institution, has lost the capacity to effectively manage intergovernmental policies through budgetary mechanisms.
All this work also contributes to a larger collaboration I have with another graduate student (B. Kal Munis) on place-based identities and America’s urban/rural schism. We have published multiple studies on the prevalence of place-based identities, and their relevance for policy and politics. We also developed the first place-based resentment index in public opinion scholarship, which appeared on the 2018 CCES. We plan to combine this work, in addition to several other planned experiments, into a tentative book on the Politics of Place: The Geographic and Attitudinal Roots of American Federalism. We argue that American federalism is still best explained through the cultural and communal distinctions Americans draw between themselves, and that this understanding is largely what motivated the framers of the Constitution. More so, communities remain rooted in geographic space. Both urban and rural communities filter politics through these local prejudices. Even with the growth of nationalized political movements, a more homogenous culture, and mobility across the country, Americans possess powerful identities rooted in geography, and use them when making sense of politics.
Institutions, Populism, and American Political Development
The final project in my research agenda focuses on the relationship between political elites, the institutions in which they serve, and populist movements in American history. In our book manuscript, What Happened to the Vital Center? The Transformation of Partisanship since the 1960s (co-authored with Sidney Milkis), we seek to provide both an empirical account of how parties have weakened since the 1960s as well as normative defense of partisan organizations inside the constitutional tradition. We take our cues from recent calls to “think institutionally” about American politics by exploring how presidents and party elites have hollowed out the very institutions they were elected to serve.
The book takes an historical approach to understanding how populist movements inside the Democratic and Republican parties have taken root since the 1960s. In treating both parties simultaneously, we break with extant developmental accounts that attempt to explain our partisan malaise through the lens of “asymmetric polarization.” We argue that the cause of our polarized discontents is a deeply social phenomenon, one in which the framers of the Constitution were deeply aware. Beginning in the 1960s, attacks on the party “establishment” in the name of democracy have resulted in a more unfiltered partisanship that sharply divides liberals and conservative and rattles the national resolve. Paradoxically, absent institutions that can constrain rancorous and ad hominem politics, American politics is now shaped by weak parties and passionate, angry partisanship. By exploring the institutional developments of the past half century, we hope to rediscover the critical, but fragile role that political parties have played in American constitutional government and to chart a path to a new idea over the practice of responsible, participatory partisanship.
This goal is what lays behind our recently published article in The Forum (featured by Dan Balz in the Washington Post), which evaluates Donald Trump’s relationship with the Republican Party and his use of administrative power in re-making that party. We argue that political scientists should adopt a new framework for understanding partisan disputes in modern America – one that takes seriously the idea that partisanship in the United States is no longer a struggle over the size of the State; it is a struggle to use the services of national administrative power in the name of “the people.”
1) How do presidents use state and local governing authority to augment their institutional powers and pursue policy goals?
2) How do individuals think about and relate to a system of multiple, interdependent governments?
3) How do political elites engage with populist movements to weaken institutional constraints?
Managing Chaos: Presidents, Federalism, and Party Decay
Much of my work is about one source of the American presidency’s vast power: its ability to pursue policy and political objectives within state and local governing institutions. Within the last five years, a number of legal scholars have triumphed the arrival of “executive-centered” federalism in the United States. I argue that there is a deep history of presidential involvement in state and local politics. Tracing the emergence of several institutional reforms, I argue that such interactions have transformed the obligations, relations of authority, and public expectations of executive power at every level of government. Most scholars consider federalism to be a bulwark against enhanced presidential power. I argue the contrary: federalism was, and remains, an essential opportunity structure in the exercise of presidential power.
The research relies on primary, historical material, much of it original discovery. From fellowships underwritten by several presidential libraries, I have unearthed a large amount of archival evidence to demonstrate how presidents have used their administrative, rhetorical, and partisan powers within state and local governing institutions, particularly mayoralties and governorships. By going straight to the primary material, I am able to incorporate never before-used documents, memorandum, and internal reports that shed new light on conventional stories of political change. To the extent that modern intergovernmental relations is defined by use of administrative-waivers, competitive grant-programs, and executive-negotiation over program implementation, I trace how similar mechanisms of presidential power contributed to the development of the American State throughout the 20th Century. Scholars tend to ignore much of this historical narrative and the political thought that undergirds it, most of which hinges on a collection of budgetary and administrative reforms. My data show why presidents viewed these changes as necessary, and I show how these administrative procedures have allowed presidents to respond to demands for new public policy by skirting Congressional authority. More so, states and localities tend to encourage the emergence of these new governing forms, and have eagerly worked to enlarge presidential powers.
I draw on this rich array of data to highlight three distinct junctures in the development of presidential-federalism in the 20th Century. First, I argue that the New Deal’s implications for federalism are more complicated and benign than most scholars suggest. It was only with the development and transformation of new local-state-federal institutions that accompanied the Great Society when the modern features of presidential-federalism emerged. Johnson’s “Creative Federalism” and Nixon’s “New Federalism” cemented the full ritualization of these new modes of presidential power. Subsequent developments have largely extended the discretion presidents enjoy in pursuing their goals in a subnational environment. Federalism therefore helps to explain the bi-partisan embrace of presidential power in the last three decades. Culminating with the presidencies of Obama and Trump, it is clear to see both how and why presidents can choose to pursue policy objectives in constitutionally-independent governments.
Economic Civil War: Public Perspectives on Fiscal Federalism
I also have an active interest in understanding the behavioral foundations of American political institutions and federalism. Scholars of American political development often make assumptions about how the public understands their governing institutions, and how those understandings filter back into elite behavior. Rather than making these assumptions, my work seeks to empirically test how individuals make sense of elite messaging within governing structures. This informs my book manuscript on public opinion and fiscal federalism. Across several peer-reviewed studies, I challenge extant explanations of how well the public "thinks federally." For example, I worked with an undergraduate student at UVa to test how individuals understand and respond to a fundamental aspect of our federal system: differential balance-of-payments between states. We find evidence that differences in government spending are highly influential on perceptions of governmental fairness, and that individuals possess a rather robust state-identity when evaluating government spending priorities. In another study, I use observational and experimental work to document how the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reinforced partisan divisions in President Trump's Electoral College coalition. And other work shows that Congress, as a representative institution, has lost the capacity to effectively manage intergovernmental policies through budgetary mechanisms.
All this work also contributes to a larger collaboration I have with another graduate student (B. Kal Munis) on place-based identities and America’s urban/rural schism. We have published multiple studies on the prevalence of place-based identities, and their relevance for policy and politics. We also developed the first place-based resentment index in public opinion scholarship, which appeared on the 2018 CCES. We plan to combine this work, in addition to several other planned experiments, into a tentative book on the Politics of Place: The Geographic and Attitudinal Roots of American Federalism. We argue that American federalism is still best explained through the cultural and communal distinctions Americans draw between themselves, and that this understanding is largely what motivated the framers of the Constitution. More so, communities remain rooted in geographic space. Both urban and rural communities filter politics through these local prejudices. Even with the growth of nationalized political movements, a more homogenous culture, and mobility across the country, Americans possess powerful identities rooted in geography, and use them when making sense of politics.
Institutions, Populism, and American Political Development
The final project in my research agenda focuses on the relationship between political elites, the institutions in which they serve, and populist movements in American history. In our book manuscript, What Happened to the Vital Center? The Transformation of Partisanship since the 1960s (co-authored with Sidney Milkis), we seek to provide both an empirical account of how parties have weakened since the 1960s as well as normative defense of partisan organizations inside the constitutional tradition. We take our cues from recent calls to “think institutionally” about American politics by exploring how presidents and party elites have hollowed out the very institutions they were elected to serve.
The book takes an historical approach to understanding how populist movements inside the Democratic and Republican parties have taken root since the 1960s. In treating both parties simultaneously, we break with extant developmental accounts that attempt to explain our partisan malaise through the lens of “asymmetric polarization.” We argue that the cause of our polarized discontents is a deeply social phenomenon, one in which the framers of the Constitution were deeply aware. Beginning in the 1960s, attacks on the party “establishment” in the name of democracy have resulted in a more unfiltered partisanship that sharply divides liberals and conservative and rattles the national resolve. Paradoxically, absent institutions that can constrain rancorous and ad hominem politics, American politics is now shaped by weak parties and passionate, angry partisanship. By exploring the institutional developments of the past half century, we hope to rediscover the critical, but fragile role that political parties have played in American constitutional government and to chart a path to a new idea over the practice of responsible, participatory partisanship.
This goal is what lays behind our recently published article in The Forum (featured by Dan Balz in the Washington Post), which evaluates Donald Trump’s relationship with the Republican Party and his use of administrative power in re-making that party. We argue that political scientists should adopt a new framework for understanding partisan disputes in modern America – one that takes seriously the idea that partisanship in the United States is no longer a struggle over the size of the State; it is a struggle to use the services of national administrative power in the name of “the people.”
