Name: Michael Armato
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: marmato@albright.edu
Professional Status: Assistant Professor
Institution: Albright College
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
Panel Title: TEST
Panel Description: TEST
Co-author info: Daria Newfeld, Ph.D., Albright College, dnewfeld@albright.edu
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Paper Title:  Progressives in the Hudson Valley: A First Look
Abstract:
This paper will begin to highlight the impact of progressive activists on local politics and policy in the Hudson Valley of New York. In particular, it will focus on their local policy agendas. The paper will highlight the local issues that are important to progressive activists in the region and chronicle how effective they have been in advancing their local policy agendas. This paper will also account for the intricacies of New York local government structure, as it is an important part of the behaviors of these progressive activists. The data for this work comes from roughly 30 interviews conducted with progressive activists in the Hudson Valley since June 2018. This is a part of a larger project that will contribute a constitutive analysis of progressives in the Hudson Valley of New York to the literature.

Name: Wais Hassan
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: hassanaw@miamioh.edu
Professional Status: Adjunct Professor
Institution: Miami University (Ohio)
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: Frayed Alliance: The Democratic Party and Public Sector Unions
Abstract:
Abstract: Public sector unions have long acted as a bulwark for the Democratic Party, providing representatives with money and votes. Yet Democrats have not been reliable allies in recent decades. Public sector unions have pressed for progressive labor legislation since the 1960s, but have won few victories since the 1980s. I examined the National Conference of State Legislatures, legislative databases, and the NewsBank search engine to track Democratic alliances with labor during the 1990 to 2014 period. I find that Democrats only passed six public sector bargaining bills during this period, despite having partisan control of many legislatures during the 1990s and early 2000s. After a historical overview of state-level struggles for collective bargaining across all fifty states, this paper delves into comparative case studies of Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico. New Mexico passed a major public sector bargaining law in 1992. In contrast, union efforts in Colorado and Iowa failed. Past literature on public sector bargaining campaigns often points to contingent factors to explain policy outcomes, but here I offer a systematic analysis. I find that public sector bargaining legislation will be adopted only in circumstances where: (1) labor builds alliances with local governments; (2) labor secures large Democratic majorities in state governments; and (3) labor has the backing of a Democratic friendly governor. Methods: This paper is primarily based on qualitative research, conducted in three states. I used three primary methods to learn more about the circumstances of each case: a collection of newspaper/blog sources and legislative documents, campaign contribution sources and interviews of stakeholders. I drew background about each case from newspaper articles of leading state newspapers.

Name: Magdalena Kania
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: magdalena.kania@uj.edu.pl
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Jagiellonian University
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  The European Commission and the EU Sub-state Governments: Partners in Development Assistance?
Abstract:
The concept of decentralized cooperation in development assistance has been introduced on the EU agenda in 1998. Despite being an elusive concept, decentralized cooperation refers to the recognition of non-state, private and local actors as full-fledged stakeholders in development assistance. Over the last two decades, the EU declaratively supported the growing engagement of regional, local authorities and non-state actors in development assistance, aiming at embracing the former in the framework of multi-level governance. However, declarations are a far cry from reality. Between 2010-2011, sub-state governments participated in a structured dialogue with the representatives of the EU institutions in order to address the particular challenges they face as rising donors. The final document released in May 2011 made several recommendations for the EU of how to improve the current situation. Regarding the 7-year period, after dialogue conclusion, the question raises of what has happened since then and how the process of creating an enabling environment has been conducted. The paramount concept here is the approach of multi-level governance. Due to the fact, that the European Commission remains an essential institution in the process of decision-making at the EU level, as well as, it is responsible for the EU policies, the article explores the activity of the Commission in the context of decentralized cooperation in development. First, the aim is to analyze the trends in the activity of the EC in terms of (1) strategic recognition of sub-state governments as rising global donors; (2) financial support; (3) political support; (4) strategic partnership (documents, discourse analysis). Then, the article explores to what extent the activities are effective and compatible with recommendations of 2011 (interviews). Data has been gathered from the in-depth interviews conducted between February and August 2018 with the representatives of the EU institutions, representatives of the networks of associations grouping local/regional governments, and representatives of regional governments. It has been completed by the qualitative content analysis of documents provided at the EU level, as well as at the regional level.

Name: Angela Narasimhan
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: anarasimhan@keuka.edu
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Institution: Keuka College
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  Globalization and Conservative Politics in Upstate New York
Abstract:
Much attention has been paid to rural politics in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, particularly the mobilization of white working class voters in Appalachia and the swing states of the Midwest Rust Belt. Globalization and the perceived impact of an outsourcing economy on job loss have been central to the disconnect between these and more urban areas, and was a key focus of the Trump campaign in these areas. However, when looking at geographic pockets of conservatism in the United States, upstate New York has often been overlooked despite its historic trend of high Republican margins and an upswing in more extreme right activity in recent years. At the same time, this region has a long history of global economic integration tied to its proximity to the Northeastern trade corridor. This paper will provide a brief overview on the history and present state of conservative politics in the rural areas of the state, with a focus on Western New York and the Southern Tier. It will then turn to framing the region’s contemporary conservative politics within the context of its global economic ties. While economic adaptation and integration is seen by many to be the key to this and other rural areas’ survival, it is important to understand how resistance to globalism amongst more geographically isolated areas such as upstate New York will continue to shape politics from the local to national levels.

Name: Lisa Parshall
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: lparshal@daemen.edu
Professional Status: Full Professor
Institution: Daemen College
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Roundtable
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Paper Title:  The Use of Narrative Policy Framing in the Village Dissolution Debate: Social Media Messaging in the Brockport and Lyons Dissolution Efforts
Abstract:
Parshall (2018), explored the applicability of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to the village dissolution debate. In that paper, I explored whether common narratives detected in the public debate over village dissolution could be understood through the lens of its narrative components (i.e., plot, characters, setting, and moral of the study), and whether a meso-level focus on village dissolution–how pro- and anti-dissolution coalitions seek to influence the outcome of a public vote on dissolution–aligns with the NFP assumptions as spelled out by Shanahan, Jones and McBeth (2017). The initial exploration of 3 cases studies drew primarily upon newspaper accounts and media coverage in identifying common policy narratives in the village dissolution debate. This paper moves a step-closer toward empirical verification by shifting focus to the webpages and Facebook accounts of the pro-dissolution and anti-dissolution coalitions in 2 cases to test theories that were developed (although not explicitly stated) in Parshall (2018).

Name: Robert Williams
Section: State and Local Politics
Professional Email: rwilliams1@misericordia.edu
Professional Status: Assistant Professor
Institution: Misericordia Univeristy
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: Parties Matter, Even When They're Weak: Partisanship in the Progressive Era
Abstract:
Party organizations, both internal and external to legislatures, have proven resistant to reform efforts aimed at dismantling them. This research takes advantage of the opportunity presented by Minnesota Legislature's surprise 1913 ban on parties from its chamber caucuses, election ballots, and nomination processes. I first provide historical evidence that the ban on parties surprised legislators creating the conditions necessary for a natural experiment. I collect roll call votes from the sessions immediately prior to and immediately following the session in which this removal of parties occurred. Using W-NOMINATE software, I analyze the dimensionality and the extent to which party predicts voting behavior and compare the results across the two sessions. I find that, in an already weak party system, parties became even weaker.