Working Papers
Sances, Michael W. “Unequal Competence: Why Criminal Justice Reformers Are Disadvantaged in Local Elections.” February 2025. Under review.
Sances, Michael W. “Protests and Polarization: How Black Lives Matter Changed Attitudes Toward Police.” February 2025. Revised and resubmitted.
Clarke, Jesse T., Michael W. Sances, and Charles Stewart III. “The Confidence Earthquake: Seismic Shifts in Trust.” March 2024. Under revision.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
2025
Sances, Michael W. “The Politics of Police Reform in the States.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly forthcoming. February 2025.
2024
Sances, Michael W. “Attitudes Toward Police and Police Spending.” Public Opinion Quarterly 88(2): 431-441. June 2024.
Berinsky, Adam J., Alejandro Frydman, Michele F. Margolis, Michael W. Sances, and Camilla Valerio. “Measuring Attentiveness in Self-Administered Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 88(1): 214-241. March 2024.
2023
Sances, Michael W. “Legitimate Questions: Public Perceptions of the Legitimacy of US Presidential Election Outcomes.” Research and Politics 10(4): 18. October 2023.
Sances, Michael W. “Defund My Police? The Effect of George Floyd’s Murder on Support for Local Police Budgets.” Journal of Politics 85(3): 795-1165. July 2023.
2022
Sances, Michael W. and Hye Young You. “Voters and Donors: Unequal Political Consequences of Fracking.” Journal of Politics 84(3): 1667-1682. July 2022.
2021
Sances, Michael W. “Presidential Approval and the Inherited Economy.” American Journal of Political Science 65(4): 938-953. October 2021.
Sances, Michael W. and Andrea Louise Campbell. “State Policies and Mental Health Outcomes During Covid-19.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 46(5): 811-830. October 2021.
Sances, Michael W. “Do District Attorneys Represent Their Voters?” Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy 2(2): 169-197. June 2021.
Sances, Michael W. and Joshua D. Clinton. "Policy Effects, Partisanship, and Elections: How Medicaid Expansion Affected Opinion Toward the Affordable Care Act." Journal of Politics 83(2): 498-514. April 2021.
Berinsky, Adam J., Michele F. Margolis, Michael W. Sances, and Christopher Warshaw. “Using Screeners to Measure Respondent Attention on Self-Administered Surveys: Which Items and How Many?” Political Science Research and Methods 9(2): 430-437. April 2021.
Sances, Michael W. “When Voters Matter: The Limits of Local Government Responsiveness.” Urban Affairs Review 57(2): 402-427. March 2021.
Sances, Michael W. “Missing the Target? Using Surveys to Validate Social Media Ad Targeting.” Political Science Research and Methods 9(1): 215-222. January 2021.
2020
Groenendyk, Eric, Michael W. Sances, and Kirill Zhirkov. “Intraparty Polarization in American Politics.” Journal of Politics 82(4): 1616-1620. October 2020.
Rebecca Goldstein, Michael W. Sances, and Hye Young You. “Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service.” Urban Affairs Review 56(1): 5-31. January 2020.
2019
Sances, Michael W. “How Unusual Was 2016? Flipping Counties, Flipping Voters, and the Education-Party Correlation Since 1952.” Perspectives on Politics 17(3): 666-678. September 2019.
Sances, Michael W. and Joshua D. Clinton. “Who Participated in the ACA? Gains in Insurance Coverage by Political Partisanship.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law 44(3): 349-379. June 2019.
2018
Sances, Michael W. “Ideology and Vote Choice in U.S. Mayoral Elections: Evidence from Facebook Surveys.” Political Behavior 40(3): 737-762. September 2018.
Sances, Michael W. “Something for Something: How and Why Direct Democracy Impacts Service Quality.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 13(1): 29-57. April 2018.
Clinton, Joshua D. and Michael W. Sances. “The Politics of Policy: The Initial Mass Political Effects of Medicaid Expansion in the States.” American Political Science Review 112(1): 167-185. February 2018.
2017
Margolis, Michele F. and Michael W. Sances. “Partisan Differences in Nonpartisan Activity: The Case of Charitable Giving.” Political Behavior 79(4): 1286-1301. December 2017.
Sances, Michael W. “Attribution Errors in Federalist Systems: When Voters Punish the President for Local Tax Increases.” Journal of Politics 79(4): 1286-1301. October 2017.
Sances, Michael W. and Hye Young You. “Who Pays for Government? Descriptive Representation and Exploitative Revenue Sources.” Journal of Politics 79(3): 1090-1094. July 2017.
2016
Berinsky, Adam J., Michele F. Margolis, and Michael W. Sances. “Can We Convert Shirkers Into Workers?” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 66: 20-28. September 2016.
Sances, Michael W. “The Distributional Impact of Greater Responsiveness: Evidence from New York Towns.” Journal of Politics 78(1): 105-119. January 2016.
2015
Sances, Michael W. and Charles Stewart III. “Partisanship and Confidence in the Vote Count: Evidence from U.S. National Elections since 2000.” Electoral Studies 40: 176-188. December 2015.
Quek, Kai and Michael W. Sances. “Closeness Counts: Increasing Precision and Reducing Errors in Mass Election Predictions.” Political Analysis 23(4): 518-533. September 2015.
2014
Berinsky, Adam J., Michele F. Margolis, and Michael W. Sances. “Separating the Shirkers from the Workers? Making Sure that Subjects Pay Attention on Self-Administered Surveys.” American Journal of Political Science 58(3): 739-753. July 2014.
2013
Campbell, Andrea Louise and Michael W. Sances. “State Fiscal Policy during the Great Recession: Budgetary Impacts and Policy Responses.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 650(1): 252-273. November 2013.
Sances, Michael W. “Is Money in Politics Harming Trust in Government? Evidence from Two Survey Experiments.” Election Law Journal 12(1): 53-73. March 2013.
Sances, Michael W. “Disenfranchisement through Divorce? Estimating the Effect of Parental Absence on Voter Turnout.” Political Behavior 35(1): 199-213. March 2013.