Jan Leighley

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Jan Leighley
Nationality American
Alma mater
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Jan E. Leighley is an American political scientist. She is a professor of government at American University. She studies the causes of voter turnout in American politics, including election laws, and how those causes can vary among the population.

Contents

Early work and education

Leighley attended the University of Akron, graduating with a BA in political science in 1982 and an MA in political science in 1984. [1] She then continued her graduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, where she received a PhD in political science in 1988. [1]

In 1988, Leighley joined the political science faculty at Texas A&M University, remaining there until 2004. [1] She then became a professor at the University of Arizona, and in 2010 moved to American University. [1] She has also been a visiting professor at Rice University. [1]

Career

Publications

In addition to numerous peer-reviewed journal articles in journals like the American Political Science Review , the American Journal of Political Science , and the Journal of Politics , [2] Leighley has been the sole author of two books, as well as a co-author of one and the editor of another. Her first book, Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities, was published in 2001. The book sought to explain variations in electoral participation among ethnic groups in the United States by building on a rational choice framework of voter engagement, which Frederick C. Harris called "an important step toward unraveling how participation and mobilization differ among African-Americans, Latinos, and Anglos". [3] Using several datasets to test her rational choice models, she checks for the impact of elite mobilization, relational goods, and racial and ethnic context on the participation of members of different groups. [4] Dianne Pinderhughes wrote that of particular interest was Leighley's finding that mobilization is more effective within racial and ethnic groups when the individuals being mobilized live in more homogeneous environments. [4]

In 2004, Leighley published the textbook Mass Media and Politics: A Social Science Perspective, and in 2010 she edited The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior. Leighley also co-authored the 2014 book Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality and Turnout in the United States with Jonathan Nagler. In Who Votes Now?, Leighley and Nagler study voter turnout in US presidential elections between 1972 and 2008, illustrating how election laws shape the realities of voter turnout, and finding that voters who turn out are systematically more conservative and of different social classes than voters who do not. [2] [5]

In addition to her peer-reviewed academic work, Leighley has written pieces or been cited on topics like US voter turnout in media outlets such as The New York Times , [6] [7] The Washington Post , [8] The Atlantic , [9] and NPR. [10]

Service and recognition

Leighley has been the editor of two of the most selective political science journals: she served as editor for the American Journal of Political Science from 2002 until 2005, and for the Journal of Politics from 2009 until 2014, and also as interim lead editor of the Journal of Politics from 2018 to 2019. [2] The American Political Science Association, which publishes both of those journals, has noted that it is rare and noteworthy to be selected multiple times to edit a major journal, and implies "a job done exceptionally well". [2] Leighley has also been the program director for the Division of Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, overseeing the programs for Accountable Institutions and Behavior and Political Science. [11] She was elected president of the Midwest Political Science Association in 2016, serving a one-year term. [12] [13]

In 2019, Leighley received the Frank J. Goodnow Award from the American Political Science Association, which is awarded to recognize "outstanding service to the political science community and to the Association". [2]

Selected works

Selected awards

Related Research Articles

Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and discrimination in which people of certain ethnic groups or people who are perceived as belonging to a darker-skinned race are treated differently based on their darker skin color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voter turnout</span> Percentage of a countrys eligible voters who actually vote within elections

In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote."

Racism has been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices, and actions at various times in the history of the United States against racial or ethnic groups. Throughout American history, white Americans have generally enjoyed legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights, which have been denied to members of various ethnic or minority groups at various times. European Americans have enjoyed advantages in matters of education, immigration, voting rights, citizenship, land acquisition, and criminal procedure.

An independent voter, often also called an unaffiliated voter or non-affiliated voter in the United States, is a voter who does not align themselves with a political party. An independent is variously defined as a voter who votes for candidates on issues rather than on the basis of a political ideology or partisanship; a voter who does not have long-standing loyalty to, or identification with, a political party; a voter who does not usually vote for the same political party from election to election; or a voter who self-describes as an independent.

An ethnic party is a political party that overtly presents itself as the champion of one ethnic group or sets of ethnic groups. Ethnic parties make such representation central to their voter mobilization strategy. An alternate designation is 'Political parties of minorities', but they should not be mistaken with regionalist or separatist parties, whose purpose is territorial autonomy.

Latino Americans have received a growing share of the national vote in the United States due to their increasing population. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, 62.1 million Latinos live in the United States, representing 18.9% of the total U.S. population. This is a 23% increase since 2010. This racial/ethnic group is the second largest after non-Hispanic whites in the U.S. In 2020, the states with the highest Hispanic or Latino populations were; Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas. According to the Brookings Institution, Latinos will become the nations largest minority by 2045 and the deciding population in future elections. With the help of laws and court case wins, Latinos have been able to receive the help needed to participate in American Politics. According to data provided by The Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), 72% of Latinos believe that it is very/somewhat important to get their voice heard by voting. They have traditionally been a key Democratic Party constituency, but more recently have begun to split between the Democratic and Republican Party. Since the Latino population is large and diverse, a lot of political differences exist between gender, national origin, and generational groups.

In social sciences, participation inequality consists of difference between levels of participation of various groups in certain activities. Common examples include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">France Winddance Twine</span> Native American ethnographer

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Dianne Marie Pinderhughes is Full Professor in the Departments of Africana Studies and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, and former President of the American Political Science Association. Since 2021 she is the president of the International Political Science Association. She holds a B.A. from Albertus Magnus College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Pinderhughes sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. She was American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019.

The Latino vote or refers to the voting trends during elections in the United States by eligible voters of Latino background. This phrase is usually mentioned by the media as a way to label voters of this ethnicity, and to opine that this demographic group could potentially tilt the outcome of an election, and how candidates have developed messaging strategies to this ethnic group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voter identification laws in the United States</span>

Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States.

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Ethnocultural politics in the United States refers to the pattern of certain cultural or religious groups to vote heavily for one party. Groups can be based on ethnicity, race or religion or on overlapping categories. In the South, race was the determining factor. Each of the two major parties was a coalition of ethnoreligious groups in the Second Party System as well as the Third Party System.

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Sharon Wright Austin is an American political scientist, currently a professor of political science at the University of Florida, where she was also a longtime Director of the African-American Studies Program. Austin is a prominent scholar of American politics with specialties in African-American studies, political participation, and both urban and rural local politics.

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Melissa R. Michelson is an American political scientist. She is a professor of political science at Menlo College, and in July 2020 she became the Dean of Arts and Sciences there. She studies voter mobilization and engagement in the United States, particularly among minority communities, as well as public opinion and political communication.

Jane Junn is an American political scientist. She is the University of Southern California Associates Chair in Social Sciences, and a professor of political science and gender studies. She studies public opinion, political behavior, and survey methodology, including work on the relationship between education and public participation, Asian American political participation, and gender and politics.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Jan Leighley CV" (PDF). American University. 2019. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Jan Leighley — 2019 Frank J. Goodnow Award Recipient". Political Science Now. American Political Science Association. 26 August 2019. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  3. ↑ Harris, Frederick C. (November 2002). "Review of Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities". Journal of Politics. 64 (4): 1267⁠–1269. doi:10.1086/jop.64.4.1520104.
  4. 1 2 Pinderhughes, Dianne (1 March 2003). "Review of Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities". Perspectives on Politics. 1 (1): 157⁠–246. doi:10.1017/S1537592703530158. S2CID   146792915.
  5. ↑ Levendusky, Matthew (March 2015). "Review Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality and Turnout in the United States". Political Science Quarterly. 130 (1): 138⁠–139. doi:10.1002/polq.12317.
  6. ↑ Leighley, Jan E.; Nagler, Jonathan (18 October 2016). "Same-Day Registration and Increased Absentee Voting Would Help". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  7. ↑ Gelman, Andrew (7 November 2011). "Understanding Nonvoters". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  8. ↑ Leighley, Jan E.; Nagler, Jonathan. "Could anything – even Taylor Swift – boost the youth vote in 2018?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  9. ↑ Mcelwee, Sean (15 September 2015). "Why Non-Voters Matter". The Atlantic. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  10. ↑ Khalid, Asma (15 September 2018). "What Would Change If More People Voted". NPR. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  11. ↑ "Jan E. Leighley". National Science Foundation. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  12. ↑ "Professor Jan Leighley to Serve as President of MPSA". American University. 29 April 2015. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
  13. ↑ "Past Presidents". Midwest Political Science Association. 2019. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
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