Publications

(Book) The Diffusion of Morality Policies. State-Level Comparative Analyses in the United States of America.

Published in Nomos, 2021

Through event history analysis and seemingly unrelated estimations, this book investigates the way in which diffusion of state-level legislation in the USA changes according to the varying degrees of morality policy characteristics it displays. The author finds that the magnitude of diffusion increases when policies reflect fewer characteristics of morality policy. Moreover, policies with high moral content diffuse when preceded by a bounded-learning process, information about which is heavily drawn from polities with similar moral attributes; learning about legislation with moderate and minimal characteristics of morality policy not only occurs selectively, but information is also retrieved from ideologically dissimilar polities, too.

Recommended citation: Cruz-Aceves, Victor. (2021). "The Diffusion of Morality Policies. State-Level Comparative Analyses in the United States of America." Nomos. https://www.nomos-shop.de/nomos/titel/the-diffusion-of-morality-policies-id-100739/

Clarifying the Measurement of Relative Ideology in Policy Diffusion Research

Published in State and Local Government Review, 2020

Research on policy diffusion has recently paid more attention to ideological patterns of policy adoption. Grossback, Nicholson-Crotty, and Peterson operationalized a measure of ideological diffusion; however, it has not been consistently calculated in subsequent studies. This is mainly due to difficulties in interpreting how to measure ideological distance based solely on the original article. Specifically, there are three factors that prevent common measurement of the concept: starting values, adoption ties, and weighting of recent adoptions. Recommendations are made for each of these. The purpose is to establish a consistent ideological distance measure. To illustrate, a replication of the original lottery diffusion model in the authors’ paper shows how the results change with different measurement choices. Consistently measuring this concept is important as scholars increasingly recognize that states do not always follow their geographic neighbors but increasingly their ideological “neighbors.”

Recommended citation: Cruz-Aceves, Victor and Mallinson, Daniel. (2021). "Clarifying the Measurement of Relative Ideology in Policy Diffusion Research." State and Local Government Review. Volume 51, Issue 3. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0160323X20902818?journalCode=slgb&journalCode=slgb

Extending Rights to Marginalized Minorities: Same-Sex Relationship Recognition in Mexico and the United States.

Published in State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 2018

What explains the extension of greater rights to traditionally marginalized minorities? This article compares the extension of legal equality to lebian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Mexico and the United States with a focus on the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. A national-level comparison of gay rights in Mexico and the United States presents a theoretical puzzle: most theories predict that the United States would have more egalitarian policies than Mexico, but in fact, Mexico has provided greater legal equality for LGBT people for a longer time than the United States. A subnational analysis of equal relationship rights in the United States and Mexico provides evidence to support social movement and partisan theories of minority rights. We find that religion plays a different role in Mexico than in the United States. The different findings at the national and subnational levels suggest the importance of subnational comparative analysis in heterogeneous federal systems.

Recommended citation: Cruz Aceves, Victor and Beer, Caroline. (2021). "Extending Rights to Marginalized Minorities: Same-Sex Relationship Recognition in Mexico and the United States.." State Politics & Policy Quarterly. Volume 18, Issue 1 . https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532440017751421?journalCode=spaa