Working Papers

"Advice and Consent in the American Civil War: Senate Voting on Military Nominations." (With J. Tyson Chatagnier)

Why do some nominations succeed and others fail? Previous research on this topic has focused on either executive and/or judicial nominations, and has generally ignored the role of military appointments. Here, we examine how United States Senators' votes on general and flag officer nominations during the American Civil War were affected by nominees' personal characteristics as well as national- and local-level political contexts. Our findings highlight the importance of political dynamics, nominee experience, and Union battlefield performance in shaping Senate decisions. Specifically, we show that nominees with greater military expertise—such as prior experience in the Mexican War or graduation from the United States Military Academy—were more likely to succeed in the confirmation process, as were those put forth during times of lower interbranch conflict between the Senate and the executive. Additionally, nominations made during periods of Union military setbacks and periods of heavy Senate workload tended to proceed more quickly. Loyalty to the Union also played a critical role in the Senate’s approval process. These findings suggest that military nominations, much like civilian appointments, are influenced by both political and institutional factors, and are not solely driven by merit or military need.

"Affective Personality Polarization: Evidence from Political Elites and the Mass Public." (With Jonathan D. Klingler and Adam J. Ramey)

Affective polarization has been on the rise in recent decades, having dramatic consequences for everyday citizens’ willingness and ability to work together (Iyengar and Westwood, 2015; Iyengar et al., 2019; Boxell, Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2020). While this phenomenon has been studied largely in the mass public, it is undoubtedly raging in full force among political elites. Though most studies of affective polarization focus on in- vs. out-partisan thermometer ratings (Iyengar et al., 2019), other work has found similar results using behavioral games (Carlin and Love, 2013) and implicit association tests (Iyengar and Westwood, 2015). At the same time, recent work on personality traits in both psychology and political science has shown that the so-called Big Five model is a significant predictor of how voters make up their minds (Caprara et al., 2006) and what politicians do once in office (Ramey, Klingler and Hollibaugh, 2017). In this paper we bridge these literatures. Using data from an original survey of former U.S. Congressmembers and four election cycles’ work of Cooperative Election Survey data at the mass level, we demonstrate that there is a significant in- vs. out-party bias in personality assessments of elected officials among both elites and the mass public. Importantly, these findings are at least as large and sometimes significantly larger in magnitude to levels of bias in perception of elites’ ideology extremism.

“Duty Over Convenience: Public Service Motivation and Support for Large-Scale Change in Public Institutions.”​ (With Min Han Kim, Kyungdong Kim, and Je Ung Ryu; under review)

​Do bureaucrats motivated by civic duty support disruptive institutional reforms? Drawing on a paired-profile conjoint experiment administered to national-level Korean public servants, this paper shows that higher Public Service Motivation (PSM) systematically increases support for relocating government functions from Seoul to Sejong. Officials high in PSM are significantly more likely than their low-PSM peers to choose scenarios that move all 19 standing committees and core administrative departments, even when those options entail greater personal inconvenience or heightened risk of unforeseen problems. Moreover, PSM moderates evaluations of speed, as high-PSM civil servants favor complete and simultaneous relocation, whereas low-PSM civil servants prefer more gradual proposals. The findings provide evidence of PSM’s prosocial logic—privileging collective benefit over self-interest—while revealing a surprising willingness among high-PSM officials to tolerate policy risk in pursuit of public value. The study highlights how intrinsic public service motives can be leveraged to mobilize bureaucratic backing for ambitious, systemwide change.

"More than Words: Extracting Latent Psychopolitical Traits and Preferences from Written Text." (With Jonathan D. Klingler and Adam J. Ramey; under revision)

In recent years, institutions scholars have become increasingly interested in incorporating individual differences beyond ideology into theories of elite behavior, but measuring these traits has proven difficult at the elite level. Existing work on measuring the Big Five personality traits among U.S. political elites using publicly available speech data suggests this may be a fruitful method to apply to other traits of interest. We argue legislators' speeches convey meaningful signals about not only their Big Five traits and facets, but their authoritarianism, moral foundations, and Dark Triad traits and show how to use computational text analysis tools to extract these latent psychological and political preferences and traits from linguistic cues present in written text. Using data from the U.S. Congress, we establish predictive validity for estimates of congressional Dark Triad scores by finding, in line with theoretical expectations, that more Narcissistic legislators are more likely to serve in leadership and more Psychopathic ones less likely. Our scores' performance and their application to previously unexamined questions suggest that text based measures of elite individual differences may be broadly applicable beyond the Big Five to test existing explanations and uncover new puzzles.

​"Talk Authoritarian to Me: Measuring Authoritarianism Using Speech" (With Jonathan D. Klingler, Adam J. Ramey, and Julie Wronski)

We develop a new methodological tool for assessing authoritarianism among political elites by measuring authoritarian dispositions through a set of language patterns. First, using a dataset of over 3,000 respondents who completed a 20 minute free-writing task and the child-rearing measure of authoritarianism, we apply machine learning algorithms to train text-based predictive models of authoritarianism. We then apply this authoritarian text classifier to members of Congress (MoCs) floor speeches from 1981 through 2015. These estimates in hand, we perform two validation exercises. First, we explore the relationship between authoritarianism and bipartisan cosponsorship in the U.S. Congress. Then, we examine how authoritarianism affects support for filibustering in the U.S. Senate. Overall, our text-based classifier allows us to measure and study authoritarianism among elites, a psychological predisposition which has previously gone invalidly measured or unobserved among this population.

"The Big Five Personality Traits and Career Outcomes in the United States Federal Civil Service"

Using a large-scale survey of United States federal civil service employees and a large swath of recently released individual-level personnel data, we examine the role of the Big Five personality traits (Openness [to Experience], Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) in explaining career outcomes in the federal civil service. Consistent with expectations, we find that Openness is associated with shorter times in rank before promotion as well as higher yearly salary increases, and Neuroticism is negatively related. Curiously, but in line with some literature on the role of personality traits within the private sector, we find that Conscientiousness is negatively related as well. Additionally, and contrary to expectations, we find no consistent relationships for either Extraversion or Agreeableness. These findings supplement other recent works documenting the importance of the Big Five personality traits in explaining various public sector outcomes and suggest public administration scholars should, in the words of Cooper et al., (2013), “tak[e] personality seriously” (pg. 397). ​

"The Big Five Personality Traits and Perceptions of Administrative Politicization in United States Federal Agencies." (Invited to revise and resubmit to the American Review of Public Administration)
​
​This study explores the role of the Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) in shaping federal employees' perceptions of politicization within their workplaces. While previous public administration research using these traits has primarily focused on performance and job satisfaction (with some notable exceptions), our large-scale survey of federal employees in the United States examines how these personality traits influence the extent to which formal politicization affects perceived politicization. We find that more Neurotic respondents perceive a greater degree of politicization as formal politicization increases, with more modest effects identified for more Conscientiousness. The paper concludes by discussing potential variations in outcomes due to these differences in perceptions and suggests interventions that public agencies can implement to mitigate any negative consequences associated with specific personality profiles. Further investigation of these issues is left to future research.

“What Makes a Bold Bureaucrat? Big Five Personality Traits and Preferences for Comprehensive Institutional Reform.”​ (With Min Han Kim, Kyungdong Kim, and Je Ung Ryu; under review)

​Administrative reforms often face resistance, and understanding individual level factors that shape civil servants’ evaluations can inform implementation strategies. This study uses a conjoint experiment with more than 300 Korean civil servants to show that the Big Five personality traits systematically influence evaluations of proposals to relocate core government functions from Seoul to Sejong. Civil servants high in Openness and Extraversion prefer faster, less incremental relocation plans and see them as more beneficial for governance and national welfare. By contrast, those high in Conscientiousness or Emotional Stability favor gradual approaches and appear more attuned to implementation risks. These findings advance scholarship in both public administration and personality psychology by demonstrating how large-scale administrative reforms are filtered through psychological differences. Variation in reform evaluations is not solely institutional, but also dispositional. We conclude by considering how policymakers might tailor communication, pacing, and team composition to the trait profile of their workforce.

​​​​Works In Progress

"Beyond Interests: What Drives Individual Preferences in Influential Public Decisions?” ​(With Min Han Kim, Kyungdong Kim, and Je Ung Ryu)​

"Cold as Ice: Dark Triad Personality Traits and Congressional Behavior." (With Jonathan D. Klingler and Adam J. Ramey)

"Consistency and Change in the Judicial Nominations Process." (With Lawrence S. Rothenberg)

“Elite-Public Perceptual Dynamics on AI Governance: A Conjoint Analysis Among Legislative Experts and Citizens in South Korea.” (With Min Han Kim, Kyungdong Kim, and Je Ung Ryu)

​​​"If You Don’t Know Me By Now: The Inability of Individuals to Accurately Discern Personality Traits from Text." (With Jonathan D. Klingler and Adam J. Ramey)

Staffing the Government: The Conundrum of Political Appointments. (With Lawrence S. Rothenberg)

"The Politics of Personnel: Examining the Relationship Between Bureaucratic Ideology and Bureaucratic Careers."