Recent Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Publications 
2020:
Laura C. Bucci & Kevin Reuning. The State of Labor in the Democratic Party Coalition Party Politics

Since the New Deal, labor has been a key member of the Democratic coalition. As unions decline, their centrality to the Democratic Party has also diminished. At the same time, state variation in party preferences, party strength, and the types of unions that remain has led some unions to become involved in Republican politics. In this manuscript we investigate how central unions are in party networks using state legislative donation data from 2000-2016. We find that union contributions are associated with increasing centrality to the Democratic Party, while business interest contributions are associated with unions being less central. Only union membership rates are related to labor's position in the Republican network. This work has implications for how we consider which groups are associated under a party's umbrella. While labor may spend more money, it cannot keep pace with business groups in the party coalition.

Laura C. Bucci & Joshua M. Jansa Who passes restrictive labour policy? A view from the States Journal of Public Policy
* The MrP component of this paper won the Working Class Studies' Association Scholar Activist Award 2017

What leads states to adopt more restrictive labour policies? The conventional wisdom is that unified Republican states, with help from conservative political networks, are more likely to adopt restrictions on labour unions. We argue that party control of government matters but is constrained by voter preferences and the power of organised labour. We create new estimates of state-level public support for unions by income thirds using dynamic multilevel regression and poststratification. Using this measure, we predict the adoption of restrictive labour policies, such as right-to-work and minimum wage preemption laws. We find that Republican governments are less likely to adopt restrictive policies when unions are strong and when union support among middle- and low-income earners is high. Interestingly, these results run contrary to much of the literature on the unequal representation of the wealthy in public policy.​


2018:
Laura C. Bucci. Organized Labor's Check on Rising Economic Inequality in the U.S. States. State Politics and Policy Quarterly
Replication Code: SPPQ Dataverse

Recent demonstrations of growing economic inequality in the United States raise normative concerns about the political representation of all but the very wealthiest citizens. Building on existing cross-national work on the roles of unions in welfare states, I provide evidence that organized labor, as a political institution, limits unequal income distributions in the U.S. states. The states are useful to our understanding of labor's influence on inequality as states differ in their acceptance of labor unions, base levels of inequality, political preferences, industries, and levels of development, but are all nested within a single overarching national framework. Over the 39 year period examined, states where unions maintain more members remain more equal within the labor market and after redistribution via government transfer. These effects persist after accounting for state level policy, demography, and economic conditions. However, states where union membership has the largest influence on inequality have also seen growing attempts to reduce unionization rates. Overall, I find that unions are still able to limit the growth of economic inequality in spite of declining levels of union membership.

2017:
The Influence of Incumbency and Partisanship on Fenno's Paradox: Evidence from Taiwan's Legislative Yuan. With Timothy S. Rich.  Journal of Asian and African Studies 

Editorially Reviewed: 
2019:
Civic Engagement in Decline: Deunionization and a Fifty State Solution? Labor Studies Journal 44 (4), 382-387

2017:
White Working Class Politics and the Consequences of Declining Unionization in the Age of Trump. Review Essay. Politics, Groups, and Identities 5(2) 

In Preparation (a selection):  

'Pale, male, and stale'? An Analysis of Introductory Readers in Political Science (Revise and Resubmit; Journal of Political Science Education)

Scholarship indicates that women and gender are underrepresented in Political Science textbooks, particularly those in American Politics. We complement those analyses by focusing on the “companion readers” often paired with textbooks. Readers give students a glimpse at “real political science,” showing how the field is studied and what political scientists value. Do the readers convey that “women also know stuff,” women are political actors, and gender is a relevant construct? The answer to each of these three questions is a resounding no. Analyzing women and gender representation in readers for three introductory sub-fields (American, Comparative, and Global Politics), we find a strong preference toward scholarship by men. Our results indicate only a small proportion of women authors, and an even lower percentage of articles that focus on women. Moreover, the readers have not changed over time resulting in readers that are still “pale, male, and stale.” Because readers offer a snapshot of the field, and may be adopted passively in an introductory course, we argue that the absence of women harms students and political science itself. 

Hiding Behind Their Union: Partisan Acceptance of Occupational Unionization
Email for a working copy

Union membership in the U.S. has declined over the last fifty years shifting the occupational composition of labor. Today, a member is more likely to be nonwhite, female, and in the public sector than previously. Do stereotypes about labor reflect changes in the occupation of a typical member? How are evaluations colored by partisan affinity towards an occupation? This research suggests that when union members are associated with the alternate party, opinions toward organized labor grow more negative. Using an original survey experiment on the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, I find that while Republicans may be more likely to disagree with the existence of unions than Democrats, they are more supportive when a typical union member works for the police. Democrats, on the other hand, are very supportive of organized labor when its most typical member is a teacher, but less so when that person is in the police. It is not unionization, per se, but the types of people unionized that influence support. This work expands our understanding of how occupational stereotypes influence preferences.

When Labor Goes Away, Who is Left?:
Race, Class, and U.S. Voter Turnout 1972-2012

Working Draft (Please do not cite without permission):
bucci-whenlabor.pdf

Organized labor has been a major mobilizer for the Democratic Party, increasing turnout for low-income union members as well as other potential voters. As unions decrease in membership, are low-income people less likely to vote than they were previously? I argue that the decline of organized labor impacts demographic groups differently. Using a large-scale collection of individual level data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) on voter participation, I find that low-income whites drop out of the electorate when they were left without alternate mobilizing forces. In contrast, for low-income African Americans, consistent messaging from churches, race-based groups, and communities all point potential voters to the Democratic Party. The difference in propensity to vote takes place primarily among low-income people. The overarching consequence of changing political participation is to shift the racial composition of the low-income segment of the Democratic electorate, impacting how the party sees and relates to low-income people.