Janine Parry, Ph.D.
parry@uark.edu
University Professor Emeritus and Founding Arkansas Poll Director
University of Arkansas - Fayetteville
Year of PhD: 1998
Phone: 4794090968
City: Spokane, Washington - 99204
Country: United States
About Me:
I recently (early) retired after 26 rewarding years at the University of Arkansas. I remain research active, with a nearly-complete manuscript detailing the resurgence of party monopolies in the American states. I also work part-time beautifying the urban core of my hometown of Spokane, Washington.
Research Interests
Gender and Politics
Public Opinion
State and Local Politics
Political Participation
Elections, Election Administration, and Voting Behavior
U.S. Party Monopolies
Countries of Interest
United States
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Scholars are divided on whether increased group size helps or hurts political minorities. We test the concept of “critical mass” using a different kind of long-time minority: pre-realignment Republicans in the American South. In Arkansas, after a century of token status, the minority party doubled its numbers in the late 1990s, held steady through the 2000s, then surged to a super majority. This stair-stepped transformation opened a unique window to address a question thus far examined only cross-sectionally: is an outgroup’s influence enhanced by an increase in numbers or does success become less likely as the majority reacts to a growing threat? We find support for the latter. As the minority expands, the likelihood their bills will be adopted, relative to majority bills, decreases markedly. The widened deficit is not, however, the consequence of diminished Republican success, but rather of a Democratic surge.
Do ballot initiatives increase voter turnout? Some studies find a strong impact while others find the relationship to be modest and/or conditional. Either way, the underlying mechanism is not well understood. Here, we build on past work by hypothesizing that signing a ballot petition acts as a personalized form of campaign contact, increasing the likelihood of turnout. Previous investigations have been aggregate in nature, or have had to rely on either samples of petition signers or county-level inferences. We procured the complete lists of initiative petitions signers for two recent, high-profile state ballot measures in Arkansas, among the most frequent direct democracy users among the American states. By supplementing these individual-level data with the state voter file, we assess the impact of having signed a petition, controlling for age and vote history. Our results confirm earlier findings that signing a petition increases the probability of voter turnout, especially among irregular voters. This has consequences for both candidate and initiative elections in jurisdictions that, like Arkansas, conduct both elections at the same time.
Thousands of studies have examined party competition in the American states, finding significant consequences for voter turnout, policy adoptions, and more. Long-term patterns of party control have received less attention. Here, we reexamine the operationalization of party competition. We then update Klarner’s state partisan balance data to include state house and senate composition and gubernatorial vote share since the 1930s, adding—in light of the nationalization of American politics—presidential vote share and the proportion of Democrats in each state’s congressional delegation. After establishing a threshold for one-party dominance, we examine the frequency and duration of subnational party monopolies, highlighting regional variations in the relationship between the state and national measures and applying the index to voter turnout. Our analysis reveals that extended periods of one-party dominance – currently on the uptick – are the rule, not the exception, in the American states and are a phenomenon ripe for further exploration.
A century ago, Progressive reformers in the U.S. introduced the institutional innovations of direct democracy, claiming these reforms would cultivate better citizens. Two decades of high-profile research have supported and challenged the relationship between direct democracy, increased attention to politics, and a higher turnout rate. We propose, however, that a necessary condition of the “educative effects” model is voter familiarity with initiatives and referendums. While some research has examined ballot measure awareness, we suspect that that the standard measurements—e.g., “Have you heard of Proposition X?”—overestimate actual knowledge. Specifically, we measure ballot measure knowledge in a manner requiring voters to demonstrate familiarity with specific measures rather than merely asserting broad familiarity. Our approach reveals that the public’s awareness of statewide ballot measures, both in the abstract and with respect to particular measures, is far lower than past research suggests. Importantly, it also reveals that people with high levels of education, political interest, and knowledge of national politics are the most likely to misrepresent their ballot measure awareness.
Objectives. Does the presence of a particular high-profile female politician influence how citizens think about women in politics generally? Methods. We randomly assigned respondents in four statewide polls either to receive a cue about Hillary Clinton followed by a battery of questions about women in politics generally, or to hear only the women in politics battery. Results. Drawing on scholarship from social psychology about the role of exemplars in auto evaluation, our results indicate that most individuals still hold gendered perceptions toward women in public office, but also that pushing the Clinton button first neither diminishes nor aggravates gendered expectations broadly. This is true even among males and Republicans, whom past scholarship suggests would be most susceptible to exemplar effects, and regardless of whether respondents were primed to think about Clinton as a diplomat or a candidate. Conclusions. Our findings challenge the view that specific high-profile female politicians will influence public perception of women’s leadership qualifications generally.
The most overlooked aspect of Arkansas's remarkable 1968 election cycle was the fact that a woman - Virginia Johnson - elbowed out a robust collection of other candidates to join the state's Speaker of the House in the run-off for the Democratic nomination. Alternately derided and dismissed as her husband’s puppet, her candidacy—like that of Alabama’s Lurleen Wallace, who that year had succumbed to cancer after being elected as a stand-in for her term-limited husband—was disregarded as much for her link to her segregationist husband as for her sex. Still, Virginia Johnson became a pioneer in Arkansas history by making a bid to be the state’s first “lady chief executive.” It was a distinction she came to embrace as the race developed, adopting positions and employing tactics not in keeping with her reputation solely as “Justice Jim’s” wife and a George Wallace enthusiast. Johnson’s bid for Arkansas’s most coveted office also affords a view into the seismic shifts occurring in Arkansas and national politics in the 1960s.
A century ago, Progressive reformers in the U.S. introduced the institutional innovations of direct democracy, claiming these reforms would cultivate better citizens. Two decades of high-profile research have supported and challenged the relationship between direct democracy, increased attention to politics, and a higher turnout rate. We propose, however, that a necessary condition of the “educative effects” model is voter familiarity with initiatives and referendums. While some research has examined ballot measure awareness, we suspect that that the standard measurements—e.g., “Have you heard of Proposition X?”—overestimate actual knowledge. Specifically, we measure ballot measure knowledge in a manner requiring voters to demonstrate familiarity with specific measures rather than merely asserting broad familiarity. Our approach reveals that the public’s awareness of statewide ballot measures, both in the abstract and with respect to particular measures, is far lower than past research suggests. Importantly, it also reveals that people with high levels of education, political interest, and knowledge of national politics are the most likely to misrepresent their ballot measure awareness.
Books Written:
Co-authored with Dorothy McBride and its 5th edition, Women's Rights in the USA is a comprehensive resource for understanding women's rights politics and policies in the United States. It is a record of the changes in the major areas affecting gender roles and the status of women: constitutional law, political participation, reproduction, family law, education, work and pay, work and family, sexuality and economic status.
Media Appearances:
TV Appearances:
No, Osama bin Laden did not endorse Joe Biden....
Radio Appearances:
The Democrats are days away from participating in their first presidential debate of the 2020 cycle. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post offers a look at what to — and what not to — expect. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is giving hints that he is unhappy with life in the Senate and may want to come home next year to run for governor, a job he previously held. This would be bad news for Democrats who are desperate to keep him in Washington in their (longshot) bid to win a majority in the Senate in 2020. Hoppy Kercheval of Metro News in the Mountain State talks about Manchin’s independence from his party’s dogma, which pleases Democrats because he keeps winning re-election but drives them crazy at the same time when he sides with President Trump on issues like the border wall and Supreme Court nominees such as Brett Kavanaugh. As Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving her job as White House press secretary, Trump suggests that the next logical career for her would be to follow in her father’s footsteps and run for governor of Arkansas. Janine Parry of the University of Arkansas speculates as to how Sanders might fare in such a campaign. And Ron Klain, the former chief of staff to Al Gore, takes us back 20 years to the moment when Gore announced his presidential candidacy in Carthage, Tenn. Gore won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College — sound familiar? — and Klain wonders how the world might have been different if the Supreme Court chose Gore, not George W. Bush, in that famous 2000 decision.
Newspaper Quotes:
As Tom Cotton courts controversy, he runs unopposed in Arkansas...