Laurel Harbridge

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    People can prefer a policy win for the party they oppose over Congressional gridlock.

People can prefer a policy win for the party they oppose over Congressional gridlock.

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Party conflict, gridlock, and dysfunction are common words for describing the US Congress in recent years. In new research, D.J. Flynn and Laurel Harbridge investigate how party conflict— resulting in compromise, victories for one party, or gridlock—shapes public opinion towards Congress. They find that on issues where the parties agree over end goals, gridlock hurts evaluations of Congress even […]

Democrats make more large spending cuts than Republicans because they must counteract their prior partisan increases in spending

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The Democratic Party is characterized by its willingness to increase government spending to pursue their policy goals. However, when they do make cuts, Democrats tend to make more large cuts than Republicans. Sarah E. Anderson and Laurel Harbridge use data from U.S. budgetary spending reports from 1955-2002 to explain this paradox, arguing that Democrats make cuts as corrections to balance prior partisan […]

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