Professor Kriner’s Recent Work on the Presidency Featured in Washington Post and Elsewhere
Associate Professor Doug Kriner’s recent research with former BU department member Andrew Reeves has received substantial attention in the national media. Their research, presented last week at the 2013 American Political Science Association’s annual conference, focuses on Presidents’ role in directing federal resources to particular constituencies. Kriner and Reeves find that contrary to some conventional wisdom that focuses on the President as a national figure with a national constituency, Presidents consistently direct federal dollars to strategically important geographic areas and constituencies. This research was most prominently featured by influential policy reporter/analyst Ezra Klein in his Washington Post blog. As Klein writes, ” One of the most interesting papers I’ve seen at this year’s American Political Science Association convention comes from Douglas Kriner and Andrew Reeves, who took a close look at the federal grantmaking process and concluded that presidents tend to reward states and counties that vote for them, states and counties that they’re hoping will vote for them, and crucial congressional allies.” This same research was also featured by Roll Call columnist Taegan Goddard as the “abstract of the week”.