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Working Papers by Justin Murphy

Research on the Tea Party finds that both libertarian and authoritarian attitudes drive support f... more Research on the Tea Party finds that both libertarian and authoritarian attitudes drive support for this movement, but political scientists lack a satisfactory explanation of this contradiction. To help resolve this puzzle, we argue a key factor driving support for the Tea Party is what Nietzsche called “misarchism:” an ideology which is antigovernment but statist and moralistic. Factor analysis of nine attitudes from the 2012 American National Election Study reveals that statism and moral traditionalism are intercorrelated on a dimension distinct from attitudes toward government. Regression analysis shows that the interaction of anti-government and morally statist ideological
factors is one of the strongest and most robust predictors of Tea Party support. Bayesian Model Averaging, multiple imputation, and genetic matching suggest that the correlation between misarchism and support for the Tea Party is not an artifact of model selection, missing values, or bias due to covariate imbalance.

In the United States, “stand your ground” (SYG) laws have been adopted by most states with the su... more In the United States, “stand your ground” (SYG) laws have been adopted by most states with the supposed intention of empowering self-defense, yet critics argue these laws reinforce white supremacy in the public sphere and male supremacy in the home. This research note presents the first statistical tests for racial and gender bias in the enforcement of SYG laws to control for a wide variety of other factors frequently cited to justify observed outcomes. Considering a sample of SYG cases in Florida from 2006-2013, I find the probability of conviction for a white defendant against a white victim in a typical case is fairly high at around 90% but with a large margin of error, whereas the probability of conviction for a black defendant against a white victim approaches 100%, even after controlling for more than 10 different objective factors related to the circumstances of the incident. The probability of conviction for a male defendant in a typical domestic case is found to be about 40%, but for a female defendant in an otherwise objectively equivalent case the probability of conviction increases dramatically to 80%. I estimate that the probability George Zimmerman was going to be found guilty of murdering unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 was marginally greater than 50% but would have been about 98% if Trayvon Martin had been white. On the other hand, black female Marissa Alexander who fired a physically innocuous warning shot to deter her husband in 2010 faced a probability of conviction marginally greater than 50%, but the probability of conviction for a male defendant in an otherwise objectively equivalent situation would have been around only 12%. Finally, I show that these results are not due to outliers or non-random assignment. This research has important implications for scholars, lawmakers, judges, and activists because it provides new and improved evidence that SYG laws contribute to the legal institutionalization of racism and sexism.

Qualitative evidence suggests that mass media can play a causal role in the outbreak of civil war... more Qualitative evidence suggests that mass media can play a causal role in the outbreak of civil wars, and at the international level the rapid increase of mass media in recent decades has generally coincided with a similarly dramatic spread of civil wars. Yet, recent quantitative research suggests that mass media decrease the probability of civil war onset by enhancing the power of states and therefore deterring insurgencies. To resolve this puzzling contradiction, I argue that mass media technologies have a non-linear effect on the probability of civil war onset. Mass media technologies should decrease the likelihood of civil war onset only above the threshold at which they constitute a mass communications system. Below that threshold, increases in mass media should increase the likelihood of civil war. The theory is tested with parametric and semi-parametric regressions on cross-sectional time-series data from a recent study (Warren 2014) and historical time-series at the international level. Consistent with the theory, I find evidence of substantial non-linearity in the effect of mass media on civil war onset. Findings are also broadly consistent with additional observable implications pertaining to the relative effects of different media technologies and empirical patterns at the international level since 1816. This research note contributes an important new insight into the causes of civil war and contributes to the burgeoning research agenda on the nexus of information-communication technology (ICT) and political conflict.

Abstract Much is known about the domestic politics of globalization but political scientists have... more Abstract Much is known about the domestic politics of globalization but political scientists have largely ignored one critical link between the international economy and many individuals around the world: mass media. Considering the likely effects of mass media on public perceptions of responsibility, this article develops an argument about the effects of mass media on individuals' blame attributions for the adjustment costs of economic globalization. The article then develops a simple formal model of how these effects on blame attributions affect the incentives of policymakers, illustrating that mass media undermine the political pressures which have traditionally required policymakers to compensate domestic groups harmed by globalization. Individual-level implications of the theory are tested on survey data from France in 1992-1993 and state-level implications are tested on data from most countries around the world from 1960 to 2010. The evidence shows that mass media diffuse the political backlash from groups harmed by globalization, leading to weakened welfare-state responsiveness. A key implication is that this article provides novel empirical evidence of the socially-constructed nature of international politics and contributes to bridging the divide between rationalism and constructivism in international relations research.

Why are more trade-open countries more likely to repress the media, even though media freedom is ... more Why are more trade-open countries more likely to repress the media, even though media freedom is positively correlated with most other components of globalization? To explore and understand this empirical puzzle, I argue that economic globalization exerts contradictory pressures on state-media relations. On the one hand, economic openness encourages national policymakers to promote media freedom because foreign investors are more likely to invest where information is reliable. On the other hand, because increasing globalization brings distributive conflict which can threaten governments, it also generates incentives for national policymakers to suppress information and communication. This paper develops a theoretical model that reconciles these contradictory expectations by disaggregating globalization into its component parts and distinguishing short-run and long-run effects. I argue that increasing overall globalization in the short-run should increase the probability states will repress the media, as states seek to manage the domestic conflict it generates. However, while international \emph{investors} have a stake in the transparency of foreign countries, international \emph{traders} do not. Thus, after controlling for the negative short-run effects of overall globalization, foreign investment should have a positive effect whereas trade openness should have a negative effect on media freedom, as investment corrects but trade enables the repressive tendency. To test these expectations, I use a mixed-methods research design combining statistical analysis of a large panel of countries from 1970 to 2003 and qualitative process-tracing on the cases of Argentina and Mexico.\footnote{Prepared for the 2014 conference of the Political Studies Association in Manchester, UK.

In the very beginning of Plato’s Republic, Polemarchus and a few associates emerge to interdict ... more In the very beginning of Plato’s Republic, Polemarchus and a few associates emerge
to interdict the passage of Socrates and Glaucon as the two are returning home to Athens. When Socrates asks if he might persuade his interlocutors to let the two Athenians pass, Polemarchus says that his group simply will not listen, and that Socrates and Glaucon “better make up their mind to that" (οὕτω διανοεῖσθε). The present paper seizes upon this highly enigmatic phrase as a point of departure for interrogating the relationship between free thought and political power at the founding of Western political theory. The paper draws on the history of ancient Greek religious practices and a particular psychoanalytic topology put forward by Jacques Lacan, in order to demonstrate that this enigmatic and overtly politicized opening of the Republic memorializes a dialectical relationship, always present but repressed, between political forces and the “pure thought” of philosophical theory. Along these lines it is shown how Plato situates even the very philosophical high point of the Republic, the theory of forms, in a political topology.