I. Complete text of state-of-the-state speeches. I'm interested
in learning about how researchers use them. Please let me know if you make
use of them. E-mail dxd22@psu.edu.
1981 : AK, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE(budget), IA, IL, IN, MD, MN, MT, NE, NH(budget), NH(inaugural), NJ, NM, NY(long version), SC, TN(budget) (1980), VA, VT(inaugural)
1983 : AK, CA, CT, GA, IL, MN, MT, NH(inaugural), NJ, NM, NY, OK, SC, TN (1982), VA, VT (inaugural), WA
1985a SC, VT, MO, MS, IN
1991a : AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT(budget), DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA(not spoken), ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NH (budget), NC, ND(not spoken), 1991b: NJ, NM, NY, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA (excerpts supplied by governors' office),VT, WA, WV, WY
1992a OR OH LA NM MI
1993a Al, AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO 1993B CT, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, 1993c KS, LA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NE, NJ, NM, 1993d NY, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT (budget), 1993e VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
1994 AZ94 , GA94 , SC94 , MS94 , HI94
1995 AR95, IN95 , MD95 , NJ95 , WA95
1998a Al, AK, PA, FL, WY
1999a
IA, IL, MA, MN, NE
II. Agendas of the Governors. James C. Lech and I coded the 1991 through 1996 speeches. I coded the speeches from 1997 on by myself. The spreadsheets indicate the presence or absence of eighty-nine agenda items (present = 1; absent = 0) in the agenda setting speeches of the forty-one states that had a formal agenda setting speech in each of the years since 1991. In most cases, we used state-of-the-state speeches. When those were not available, I used budget speeches. In a few cases, when the governor did not make a state-of-the-state or budget speech, I used inaugural speeches. In the few cases when incoming and outgoing governors both gave speeches (New Jersey, 1994, for example), I used the speech of the incoming governor.
b) 1991
c) 1992
d) 1993
e) 1994
f) 1995
g) 1996
h) 1997
i) 1998
j) 1999
Analysis of the Speeches
The following are papers that I have written that analyze the speeches in order to draw inferences about state politics. Comments are welcome. Please send them to dxd22@psu.edu
Political Culture and Variation in the Content of Governors' Speeches. This paper reports on two analyses of the relationship between the prevailing political cultures of the American states as described by Elazar and the content of the 1996 state-of-the-state speeches. The first analysis extracts factors from co-occurrences of nouns with positive or negative connotations and regresses those factors on dummies for types of political culture and some political and economic variables that might affect governors' agendas. This analysis found that political culture performed comparatively well in accounting for variation in the factor scores. The second analysis regressed the frequencies of categories of words selected because they communicate central themes of the respective political cultures on the same set of variables that the first analysis used. This analysis found that the dummies for individualistic and moralistic political culture performed well, while the dummy for the traditionalistic culture did not. I presented this paper at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in April, 1997.
The Political Construction of Economic Development. In their state-of-the-state speeches, governors may or may not define economic development as targeted to assist particular firms or industries, and the may or may not define economic development as a strategy for assisting needy populations. This paper finds that the party of the governor is only weakly associated with these two dimensions of economic development. I presented this paper at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in September, 1997 in Washington, D.C.
Influences on Realism in Governors' State-of-the-State Speeches. This article uses Roderick P. Hart's Diction program to estimate levels of concern with concrete, everyday, immediate concerns, which Hart calls realism. The speeches delivered in 1991 and 1998 indicate higher realism scores for states with electorates that are liberal, according to the Erikson, Wright, McIver index. The analysis controlled for political culture, party of the governor, the interaction of governor's political inexperience and control of the legislature by the opposing party, state wealth, and state economic growth. It will be appearing in Commonwealth in February, 2000.
Governors' Issues: A Typology Revisited. In this article, I apply Herzik's typology of perennial, cyclical, and temporal agenda items to the agendas of the American governors in the 1990's. I find that many items that Herzik found to be cyclical in the 1970's and 1980's are now perennial. Education items, for example now appear in almost all of the governors' agendas year after year. I also found that, contrary to what Herzik observed, cyclical items, which were supported by many governors in some years, and relatively few in other years, were not necessarily more hotly contested than items that had the support of similar numbers of governors year after year. This article appeared in Comparative State Politics, vol 19, number 6, pages 9-20.
Likely Effects of Devolution on the Redistributive Character of Policy Agendas. This paper compares the Governors' agendas in health care, welfare and education as presented in the state-of-the-state speeches from 1991 through 1995 to those of the Presidents as presented in state-of-the-union speeches from 1990 through 1995. I find that the governors' agendas place less emphasis on policies that redistribute resources from the rich to the poor. I also find that welfare policy is more concerned with subsidizing labor costs than with transferring resources from the more affluent to the less affluent. This article was published in the Winter 1996 edition of SPECTRUM: THE JOURNAL OF STATE GOVERNMENT, volume 69, number 3, pages 6-15.
Dynamic Representation in the American States. This paper assesses the impact of the ebb and flow of public opinion liberalism on governors' agendas as presented in the state-of-the-state speeches. Controlling for several other factors, I find that the governors' agendas are indeed responsive to the public mood as calculated by James Stimson. It was published in "STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVIEW," vol 29, number 2, pages 98-109. This paper sets the stage for my next project, an attempt to model all the factors that influence governors' agendas.
To
Develop or Redistribute? An Analysis of the Content of Governors' Agendas
A major role of the governors is to place items on the agendas of state
legislatures. Using Peterson’s typology, the author classified eighty-two
policies advocated in 320 governors’ speeches as shifting resources to
the needy (redistributive), or promoting economic development (developmental).
The frequency with which redistributive items appeared in the governors’
speeches varied over time far more than the frequency with which the developmental
items did. The party of the governor and the condition of a state’s finances
had an impact on the number of redistributive items in the governors’ agendas,
but had no impact on the number of developmental items. This paper appeared
as a research note in State and Local Government Review, vol. 33,
no. 1: 52-59.
I have recently taken an interest in political philosophy. Here is my first attempt in that field: