Laurel Harbridge

Assistant Professor of Political Science
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
PhD, Political Science, Stanford University, 2009
l-harbridge@northwestern.edu
Curriculum vitae
Additional biographical information

Laurel Harbridge’s work focuses on how elections, institutions, and policy are connected in the United States Congress.  Her recent research explores declining bipartisan cooperation in Congress, changes in party strategy and the ramifications of these changes for the responsiveness of members to their constituents and for policy formation. 

Current Research

Bipartisanship in a Polarized Congress. Harbridge explores the decline in bipartisan cooperation in the U.S. House since the 1970s, exploring what changes in bipartisanship tell us about party strategy. She argues that the level of bipartisan cooperation is a direct reflection of party strategy. Depending on the degree of electoral homogeneity and the presence of institutional constraints, majority party leaders will pursue a legislative strategy that either emphasizes bipartisan or partisan legislation. Using bill cosponsorship coalitions and roll call votes, she examines how the construction of the roll call agenda has changed over time, moving from an emphasis on legislation with bipartisan support to legislation with partisan support. In addition to overall levels, this project also explores issue specific changes. Harbridge examines whether the change in agenda content reflects a change between which issues make it on the agenda or whether the change in agenda content reflects a within issue prioritization of partisan legislation. This project has implications for our understanding of polarization, party influence, policy outcomes, and congressional representation.

Electoral Incentives and Partisan Conflict in Congress: Evidence from Survey Experiments. In joint work with Neil Malhotra of Stanford University, Harbridge examines public support for bipartisanship in Congress, and its implications for party polarization, via a set of survey experiments. Recent aggregate research suggests that polarized roll call voting has been associated with decreased approval of Congress. But this presents a puzzle: If Congress as a whole is punished for being polarized, why do members not become more bipartisan? Harbridge and Malhotra collect individual-level data in a controlled experimental setting to address this puzzle. They argue that individual members from safe districts are not electorally incentivized to be bipartisan for the sake of the collective reputation of the institution. They find that people with strong attachments to a political party disavow conflict in the aggregate but approve of individual members behaving in a partisan manner. They are now working on a follow up study that examines support for legislation, attempts to tease out partisan cues from bipartisan support, and explores the limitations of public support for compromise.

To Cut or Not to Cut: Spending Dynamics in Congress. In joint work with Sarah Anderson of UCSB Bren School, Harbridge examines how changes in party control, or turnover in Congress, affect budgetary strategies – whether to end programs, create new programs, dramatically alter funding levels, or keep funding levels constant. They find that although Republicans make more cuts to spending and Democrats make more increases to spending, paradoxically, when Republicans increase spending they tend to make large increases and when Democrats cut spending they make large cuts.

Selected Publications

Harbridge, L., with N. Malhotra. 2011. Electoral incentives and partisan conflict: Evidence from survey experiments. American Journal of Political Science 55(3): 494-510.

Harbridge, L., with S. Anderson. 2010. Incrementalism in appropriations: Small aggregation, big changes. Public Administration Review 70(3): 464-474.

Harbridge, L., with D. Brady and J. Ferejohn. 2008. Polarization and public policy: A general assessment. In Red and Blue Nation? Consequences and Correction of America’s Polarized Politics, vol. II, ed. P. S. Nivola and D. W. Brady. Washington D.C: Brookings Institution Press.

Harbridge, L., with D. Brady and D. Rivers. 2008. The 2008 Democratic shift. Policy Review. Hoover Institution, 152: December 2008 & January 2009.