Centering public policy as both a cause and consequence of inequality, Mallory's scholarship asks two related questions: Why are specific policy design, implementation, and administrative strategies adopted? Once adopted, how do those features reshape the political preferences and behaviors of policymakers, organized interests, and ordinary Americans—particularly those at the socioeconomic margins?
While political scientists have traditionally asked these questions about redistributive "welfare" polices, Mallory applies them to regulatory and procedural policies that play a key role in helping American families survive and thrive. She also examines how the venues in which political contestation over those policies takes place shape and are shaped by inequality.
While political scientists have traditionally asked these questions about redistributive "welfare" polices, Mallory applies them to regulatory and procedural policies that play a key role in helping American families survive and thrive. She also examines how the venues in which political contestation over those policies takes place shape and are shaped by inequality.
Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection
The University of Chicago Press, Studies in American Politics series, 2020
Winner of the 2017 E.E. Schattschneider award for best dissertation in American government, APSA
Winner of the 2017 Janice N. & Milton J. Esman Prize for outstanding dissertation, Department of Government, Cornell University
Featured in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog
Borrowing has become the American way of life. We increasingly rely on consumer credit to purchase daily necessities and to weather unexpected emergencies. But borrowing to live is a double-edged sword: While access to credit can help ordinary folks afford the American dream, borrowing also exposes people to high interest rates, fees, and mounting debt that can quickly turn into a financial nightmare. Despite this threat, policymakers haven’t put an end to predatory lending, borrowers haven’t leveraged political action to demand better financial protection, and consumer groups haven’t been able to change either trend through lobbying or grassroots mobilization—even in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Why?
Democracy Declined argues that the failure to curb predatory lending through political action is the product of a U.S. political economy of credit—a cycle of policy development and feedback that constrains policymakers and demobilizes borrowers. Drawing on archival and legislative records, interviews, and original survey and experimental data, the book charts how 20th century U.S. policymakers embraced broad access to consumer credit to grow the national economy, motivating them to adopt financial regulations that maintain that access. The resulting policy regime relies on information disclosures that teach borrowers to blame themselves and their banks for financial problems while obscuring government’s role in financial protection, minimizing people’s incentives to turn to electoral or administrative politics to demand change. Compelled by the need to preserve credit access and without the countervailing force of voter mobilization, Democracy Declined shows how the political economy of credit creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop that limits the prospects for meaningful consumer financial reform, threatening the economic security of American borrowers and the U.S. economy while exacerbating existing economic inequality. The book also considers strategies to reverse this trend.
The University of Chicago Press, Studies in American Politics series, 2020
Winner of the 2017 E.E. Schattschneider award for best dissertation in American government, APSA
Winner of the 2017 Janice N. & Milton J. Esman Prize for outstanding dissertation, Department of Government, Cornell University
Featured in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog
Borrowing has become the American way of life. We increasingly rely on consumer credit to purchase daily necessities and to weather unexpected emergencies. But borrowing to live is a double-edged sword: While access to credit can help ordinary folks afford the American dream, borrowing also exposes people to high interest rates, fees, and mounting debt that can quickly turn into a financial nightmare. Despite this threat, policymakers haven’t put an end to predatory lending, borrowers haven’t leveraged political action to demand better financial protection, and consumer groups haven’t been able to change either trend through lobbying or grassroots mobilization—even in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Why?
Democracy Declined argues that the failure to curb predatory lending through political action is the product of a U.S. political economy of credit—a cycle of policy development and feedback that constrains policymakers and demobilizes borrowers. Drawing on archival and legislative records, interviews, and original survey and experimental data, the book charts how 20th century U.S. policymakers embraced broad access to consumer credit to grow the national economy, motivating them to adopt financial regulations that maintain that access. The resulting policy regime relies on information disclosures that teach borrowers to blame themselves and their banks for financial problems while obscuring government’s role in financial protection, minimizing people’s incentives to turn to electoral or administrative politics to demand change. Compelled by the need to preserve credit access and without the countervailing force of voter mobilization, Democracy Declined shows how the political economy of credit creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop that limits the prospects for meaningful consumer financial reform, threatening the economic security of American borrowers and the U.S. economy while exacerbating existing economic inequality. The book also considers strategies to reverse this trend.
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"Partisan Preemption: the Strategic Use of Federal Preemption Legislation" (w/Alexis Walker), 2016, Publius: the Journal of Federalism, 46(4) Featured in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog Scholars Strategy Network Key Findings Brief |
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"Social Welfare Policy" Forthcoming, in Ed. Nancy Burns, Oxford Handbook of the New Deal |
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"Policy Feedback" (w/Suzanne Mettler), 2017, in Eds. Paul A. Sabatier, and Christopher M. Weible, Theories of the Policy Process, Fourth edition (3rd Edition published in 2014) |
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"Politics of the Policyscape" 2016, in Ed. Ali Farazmand, Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance |
The Uncivil Polity: Race, Poverty and Unequal Legal Protection
(w/Jamila Michener)
In a polity increasingly characterized by adversarial legalism, access to civil legal representation is a fundamental aspect of a free and fair society. Civil statutes protect vital economic, social, and political rights, many of which govern the explicit relationship between citizens and the state (e.g., access to public benefits, immigration disputes). This makes access to civil legal representation a necessary tool for people seeking to capitalize on the benefits and protections that are nominally guaranteed by a broad array of both federal and state policies. Civil protections are especially critical to folks struggling to keep themselves and their families healthy, safe, and financially afloat. Low-income Americans are both disproportionately in need of civil legal safeguards and significantly less likely to have access to them, with low-income women of color bearing the brunt of that unequal access.
We have mounting evidence that access to civil legal representation can affect individual socioeconomic fortunes and income inequality more broadly. Social scientists, however, have little systematic evidence of how political processes and institutions structure civil legal access or how they are subsequently affected by it. This book project explores the political causes and political consequences of unequal access to civil legal representation in the United States. We aim to answer two core questions: 1) How have political institutions (e.g., federalism, political parties) shaped state and federal policies that determine access to civil legal representation over time? 2) How does access (or lack thereof) to civil legal assistance affect the political attitudes and efficacy of low-income Americans? Together, these inquiries fruitfully merge macro-institutional and micro-behavioral approaches to studying the politics of an essential facet of American inequality.
(w/Jamila Michener)
In a polity increasingly characterized by adversarial legalism, access to civil legal representation is a fundamental aspect of a free and fair society. Civil statutes protect vital economic, social, and political rights, many of which govern the explicit relationship between citizens and the state (e.g., access to public benefits, immigration disputes). This makes access to civil legal representation a necessary tool for people seeking to capitalize on the benefits and protections that are nominally guaranteed by a broad array of both federal and state policies. Civil protections are especially critical to folks struggling to keep themselves and their families healthy, safe, and financially afloat. Low-income Americans are both disproportionately in need of civil legal safeguards and significantly less likely to have access to them, with low-income women of color bearing the brunt of that unequal access.
We have mounting evidence that access to civil legal representation can affect individual socioeconomic fortunes and income inequality more broadly. Social scientists, however, have little systematic evidence of how political processes and institutions structure civil legal access or how they are subsequently affected by it. This book project explores the political causes and political consequences of unequal access to civil legal representation in the United States. We aim to answer two core questions: 1) How have political institutions (e.g., federalism, political parties) shaped state and federal policies that determine access to civil legal representation over time? 2) How does access (or lack thereof) to civil legal assistance affect the political attitudes and efficacy of low-income Americans? Together, these inquiries fruitfully merge macro-institutional and micro-behavioral approaches to studying the politics of an essential facet of American inequality.
"The Justice Gap: Mapping State Policy on Civil Legal Representation"
(w/Jamila Michener)
The “justice gap”—the difference between the level of legal assistance necessary to meet the needs of low-income Americans and the level of legal assistance actually available to them—is striking. Between 50 to 80% of people living in poverty in the U.S. have difficulty obtaining civil legal representation (CLR), leaving them without the means to protect their rights in situations ranging from eviction to predatory lending to domestic violence. Despite the significance of CLR to the lives of low-income Americans, particularly women of color, political scientists have paid little attention to the issue. Our paper offers the first systematic examination of civil legal policies in the American states. We draw on an original dataset of all bills proposed across the states to regulate access to CLR from 1990 to 2016 and analyze the sociopolitical determinants for adoption of different measures to expand or limit CLS access. Our results are crucial for understanding this crucial but understudied contributor to the growing economic, social, and political inequality in the United States.
(w/Jamila Michener)
The “justice gap”—the difference between the level of legal assistance necessary to meet the needs of low-income Americans and the level of legal assistance actually available to them—is striking. Between 50 to 80% of people living in poverty in the U.S. have difficulty obtaining civil legal representation (CLR), leaving them without the means to protect their rights in situations ranging from eviction to predatory lending to domestic violence. Despite the significance of CLR to the lives of low-income Americans, particularly women of color, political scientists have paid little attention to the issue. Our paper offers the first systematic examination of civil legal policies in the American states. We draw on an original dataset of all bills proposed across the states to regulate access to CLR from 1990 to 2016 and analyze the sociopolitical determinants for adoption of different measures to expand or limit CLS access. Our results are crucial for understanding this crucial but understudied contributor to the growing economic, social, and political inequality in the United States.
"Full Disclosure: The Development and Policy Constraints of U.S. Consumer Financial Protection"
revise and resubmit
As consumer borrowing proliferated under increasingly risky lending terms policymakers failed to enact effective consumer financial protections. Why? I argue that the U.S. has a political economy of credit in which New Deal policymakers deliberately embraced credit to help fuel a consumption economy, consequently prioritizing the performance of the national economy over the protection of individual borrowers. Constrained by a scheme of their own invention, I contend that legislators were subsequently bound by a path dependent process wherein they had to prioritize widespread credit access over meaningful consumer protection, leading to the adoption of information disclosure as the primary form of credit regulation. I leverage archival research, legislative analyses, and public opinion data to explore these dynamics. I conclude that the creation of a political economy of credit contributes to the ongoing failure to enact meaningful consumer credit protections, with consequences for the financial security of borrowers and the nation as a whole. This article also contributes to our understanding of the effect of New Deal policymaking on the development of both the U.S. political economy and welfare state.
revise and resubmit
As consumer borrowing proliferated under increasingly risky lending terms policymakers failed to enact effective consumer financial protections. Why? I argue that the U.S. has a political economy of credit in which New Deal policymakers deliberately embraced credit to help fuel a consumption economy, consequently prioritizing the performance of the national economy over the protection of individual borrowers. Constrained by a scheme of their own invention, I contend that legislators were subsequently bound by a path dependent process wherein they had to prioritize widespread credit access over meaningful consumer protection, leading to the adoption of information disclosure as the primary form of credit regulation. I leverage archival research, legislative analyses, and public opinion data to explore these dynamics. I conclude that the creation of a political economy of credit contributes to the ongoing failure to enact meaningful consumer credit protections, with consequences for the financial security of borrowers and the nation as a whole. This article also contributes to our understanding of the effect of New Deal policymaking on the development of both the U.S. political economy and welfare state.
"Philanthropy, Public Interest Groups, and Second-order Feedback Effects"
(w/Delphia Shanks-Booth)
revise and resubmit
The Tax Reform Act of 1969 introduced formal legal barriers designed to limit the political activities of foundations. How do these constraints affect the funding decisions of foundations and the capacity of public interest advocacy organizations that rely on philanthropic support for their work? We argue that the policy regime governing private foundations’ work has produced two layers of feedback effects that not only shape philanthropic behavior, but also create real obstacles for grantee organizations and their political advocacy efforts. We contend that, particularly for recipient organizations who 1) have a primary mission of political advocacy and mobilization and 2) rely heavily on philanthropic support, the policies governing foundation behavior can create incompatible goals between grantors and grantees pursuing political advocacy and policy change. Drawing on records of grant activity, archival work, and elite interviews we explore this argument using a salient case study: anti-predatory lending reform.
(w/Delphia Shanks-Booth)
revise and resubmit
The Tax Reform Act of 1969 introduced formal legal barriers designed to limit the political activities of foundations. How do these constraints affect the funding decisions of foundations and the capacity of public interest advocacy organizations that rely on philanthropic support for their work? We argue that the policy regime governing private foundations’ work has produced two layers of feedback effects that not only shape philanthropic behavior, but also create real obstacles for grantee organizations and their political advocacy efforts. We contend that, particularly for recipient organizations who 1) have a primary mission of political advocacy and mobilization and 2) rely heavily on philanthropic support, the policies governing foundation behavior can create incompatible goals between grantors and grantees pursuing political advocacy and policy change. Drawing on records of grant activity, archival work, and elite interviews we explore this argument using a salient case study: anti-predatory lending reform.
"From Personal Responsibility to Political Mobilization: Using Attribution Frames to Overcome Policy Feedback Effects"
revise and resubmit
U.S. public policies increasingly urge citizens to think of themselves as responsible actors capable of solving their own problems, a trend Jacob Hacker dubbed America’s “Personal Responsibility Crusade.” Policies that promote personal responsibility while minimizing government responsibility can decrease Americans’ political participation on a given issue, with especially detrimental consequences for the well being of economically insecure families. Can this pattern be overcome? I argue that attribution frames highlighting government’s role in and responsibility for policies may increase people’s propensity for political action on an issue, but only if the frame can increase the salience of their preexisting beliefs about government intervention. Drawing on the case of consumer financial protection, I administer an experiment to determine the effect of attribution framing on people’s willingness to act in support of a popular banking reform. I find that helping people draw parallels between an issue they feel personal responsibility for and one they accept government responsibility for can boost political engagement on behalf of the original policy.
revise and resubmit
U.S. public policies increasingly urge citizens to think of themselves as responsible actors capable of solving their own problems, a trend Jacob Hacker dubbed America’s “Personal Responsibility Crusade.” Policies that promote personal responsibility while minimizing government responsibility can decrease Americans’ political participation on a given issue, with especially detrimental consequences for the well being of economically insecure families. Can this pattern be overcome? I argue that attribution frames highlighting government’s role in and responsibility for policies may increase people’s propensity for political action on an issue, but only if the frame can increase the salience of their preexisting beliefs about government intervention. Drawing on the case of consumer financial protection, I administer an experiment to determine the effect of attribution framing on people’s willingness to act in support of a popular banking reform. I find that helping people draw parallels between an issue they feel personal responsibility for and one they accept government responsibility for can boost political engagement on behalf of the original policy.
"Privatizing Financial Protection: Regulatory Feedback and the Politics of Financial Reform"
under review
Consumer credit is a crucial source of financial support for many Americans—part of what scholars dub the “credit-welfare state.” Yet, borrowers have been reluctant to engage in political action to demand better consumer financial protection. This paper articulates a theory of regulatory feedback effects, describing the specific mechanisms through which regulatory policymaking shapes the politics of American consumers. Focusing specifically on the case of consumer financial protection, I argue that protective regulations for consumer credit produce regulatory feedback effects that diminish political engagement by teaching borrowers to blame and subsequently target market actors—including financial institutions and consumers themselves—for both individual and systemic problems with predatory lending. I employ original survey data to demonstrate these dynamics, ultimately finding that credit regulation works like a submerged policy, diminishing political engagement on consumer financial protection issues and minimizing political action on behalf of an integral piece of American’s financial security.
under review
Consumer credit is a crucial source of financial support for many Americans—part of what scholars dub the “credit-welfare state.” Yet, borrowers have been reluctant to engage in political action to demand better consumer financial protection. This paper articulates a theory of regulatory feedback effects, describing the specific mechanisms through which regulatory policymaking shapes the politics of American consumers. Focusing specifically on the case of consumer financial protection, I argue that protective regulations for consumer credit produce regulatory feedback effects that diminish political engagement by teaching borrowers to blame and subsequently target market actors—including financial institutions and consumers themselves—for both individual and systemic problems with predatory lending. I employ original survey data to demonstrate these dynamics, ultimately finding that credit regulation works like a submerged policy, diminishing political engagement on consumer financial protection issues and minimizing political action on behalf of an integral piece of American’s financial security.
"Expanding the Margins: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship"
(w/Jamila Michener and Chloe Thurston)
under review
In this manuscript we reassess conceptions of the welfare state with an eye towards the limits of leading scholarly approaches. In particular, we propose centering the study of the welfare state around denizens who occupy the margins of American society. We argue that concentrating on those at the proverbial “bottom” of standard economic and political hierarchies productively reorients research on social policy and politics by bringing crucial but often overlooked facets of the welfare state into sharper view. In addition to presenting a more accurate depiction of the capacity, expansivity, and limits of the U.S. welfare state, examining the welfare state from the bottom up also suggests a host of new directions for scholars seeking to understand its politics.
(w/Jamila Michener and Chloe Thurston)
under review
In this manuscript we reassess conceptions of the welfare state with an eye towards the limits of leading scholarly approaches. In particular, we propose centering the study of the welfare state around denizens who occupy the margins of American society. We argue that concentrating on those at the proverbial “bottom” of standard economic and political hierarchies productively reorients research on social policy and politics by bringing crucial but often overlooked facets of the welfare state into sharper view. In addition to presenting a more accurate depiction of the capacity, expansivity, and limits of the U.S. welfare state, examining the welfare state from the bottom up also suggests a host of new directions for scholars seeking to understand its politics.
"Captured by Design: Explaining Public Interest Participation in Protective Regulation"
What drives public interest participation in the rulemaking process? By some estimates, bureaucratic rulemaking now produces 90% of all federal laws enacted each year, including an increasing volume of protective regulation. Yet, public interest groups and citizens participate in regulatory politics at far lower rates than their industry counterparts. Current scholarship on regulatory engagement, which focuses primarily on policy and participant attributes, falls short in its ability to explain patterns of public interest participation. In this paper, I develop an institutional theory of regulatory politics. I contend that the administrative arrangement of rulemaking and enforcement authority for an issue produces feedback effects that shape the political behavior of bureaucrats, interest groups, and citizens during the rulemaking process. Specifically, I argue that the distribution of regulatory authority—either centralized in a single agency or fragmented across multiple agencies—interacts with the mission of the agencies to which authority is assigned to produce different modes of regulatory politics: capture, arbitrage, and public interest rulemaking. I provide an initial test of this theory using the case of consumer financial protection, which offers the ability to explore regulatory politics for a single issue under two (possibly all three) distinctive institutional arrangements. Employing historical legislative analyses, elite interviews, and public comment data, I demonstrate how changing the administrative arrangement for a particular issue reshapes the political efficacy of public interest groups and citizens, with potentially significant consequences.
What drives public interest participation in the rulemaking process? By some estimates, bureaucratic rulemaking now produces 90% of all federal laws enacted each year, including an increasing volume of protective regulation. Yet, public interest groups and citizens participate in regulatory politics at far lower rates than their industry counterparts. Current scholarship on regulatory engagement, which focuses primarily on policy and participant attributes, falls short in its ability to explain patterns of public interest participation. In this paper, I develop an institutional theory of regulatory politics. I contend that the administrative arrangement of rulemaking and enforcement authority for an issue produces feedback effects that shape the political behavior of bureaucrats, interest groups, and citizens during the rulemaking process. Specifically, I argue that the distribution of regulatory authority—either centralized in a single agency or fragmented across multiple agencies—interacts with the mission of the agencies to which authority is assigned to produce different modes of regulatory politics: capture, arbitrage, and public interest rulemaking. I provide an initial test of this theory using the case of consumer financial protection, which offers the ability to explore regulatory politics for a single issue under two (possibly all three) distinctive institutional arrangements. Employing historical legislative analyses, elite interviews, and public comment data, I demonstrate how changing the administrative arrangement for a particular issue reshapes the political efficacy of public interest groups and citizens, with potentially significant consequences.
"The Acknowledgement Gap: Partisanship, Policy Feedback, and Social Programs"
(w/Delphia Shanks-Booth)
Winner of the 2016 APSA Best Poster in Public Policy Award
Nearly all Americans have received government social benefits, yet many don’t acknowledge “using government social programs.” This discrepancy is particularly striking for Republicans. Why? Recent work on the so-called submerged state proposes that people who receive social assistance through market mechanisms don’t realize that the benefits they get are the result of government policy, and, therefore, they do not acknowledge receiving government assistance. Motivated reasoning and social desirability bias might also explain the gap between acknowledging and using social programs, particularly for Republicans and those who hold negative opinions of welfare. We classify the existing literature into three potential explanations—delivery, definition, and social desirability—and argue that, while information seems to help address acknowledgement discrepancies, partisanship imposes limits on the usefulness of neutral data. We test this intuition with a survey experiment. The results of this study provide support for multiple mechanisms at work, but they confirm that a partisan acknowledgement gap exists when it comes to how people think about their own experiences with government, and it persists despite treatments designed to minimize that gap. The study has significant implications for the conditions under which partisanship and policy usage coalesce to undermine support for government policymaking.
(w/Delphia Shanks-Booth)
Winner of the 2016 APSA Best Poster in Public Policy Award
Nearly all Americans have received government social benefits, yet many don’t acknowledge “using government social programs.” This discrepancy is particularly striking for Republicans. Why? Recent work on the so-called submerged state proposes that people who receive social assistance through market mechanisms don’t realize that the benefits they get are the result of government policy, and, therefore, they do not acknowledge receiving government assistance. Motivated reasoning and social desirability bias might also explain the gap between acknowledging and using social programs, particularly for Republicans and those who hold negative opinions of welfare. We classify the existing literature into three potential explanations—delivery, definition, and social desirability—and argue that, while information seems to help address acknowledgement discrepancies, partisanship imposes limits on the usefulness of neutral data. We test this intuition with a survey experiment. The results of this study provide support for multiple mechanisms at work, but they confirm that a partisan acknowledgement gap exists when it comes to how people think about their own experiences with government, and it persists despite treatments designed to minimize that gap. The study has significant implications for the conditions under which partisanship and policy usage coalesce to undermine support for government policymaking.
