Research

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Melissa has always been interested in what drives people to make the political decisions they do. She is currently working on a book about the seismic impact that Generation Z women are about to have on American politics.

Working with Jared McDonald, she has used survey experiments to study how exposure to younger, female and more diverse candidates for office impacts Gen Z’s rankings of candidate traits and Gen Z women’s desire to engage in politics. Other recent work considers how Gen Z women have responded to the Covid crisis compared with their male counterparts and the religious make-up of Generation Z.

Melissa also considers how gender and masculinity shape civility attitudes and voting behavior, including most recently among Latinx voters (with Flavio Hickel). Her research also examines how parenthood status influences attitudes about gun control.

She is the author, co-author or co-editor of five books, including a best-selling textbook on Women and Politics with Julie Dolan and Michele Swers. She has also written more than twenty peer-reviewed journal articles, which have appeared in Public Administration Review, Social Science Quarterly, Politics & Gender, Politics & Religion, Perspectives on Politics, and PS: Political Science & Politics, among other outlets.

Melissa’s Books

Books

Tea Party Women

In Tea Party Women, Melissa Deckman explores the role of women in creating and leading the movement and the greater significance of women’s involvement in the Tea Party for our understanding of female political leadership and the future of women in the American Right

School Board Battles

School Board Battles studies the motivation, strategies, and electoral success of Christian Right school board candidates. Based on interviews, and using an extensive national survey of candidates as well as case studies of two school districts in which conservative Christians ran and served on local boards, Melissa M. Deckman gives us a surprisingly complex picture of these candidates. She reveals weaker ties to national Christian Right organizations—and more similarities between these conservative candidates and their more secular counterparts than might be expected.

Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence

Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence examines the role of women in politics from the early women's movements to the female politicians in power today. The revised fourth edition includes analysis of the historic 2020 presidential election, including the election of the nation’s first female vice president.

Curriculum and the Culture Wars

Curriculum and the Culture Wars offers a fresh perspective on perennial debates about the role of religion in public schools, focusing on the intersection of religion and curriculum. This debate has been renewed in part due to the growth of elective Bible courses in public schools in many parts of the country.

Women with a Mission

This book examines the effects of gender, professional experience, and religious belief on the political attitudes and activism of clergywomen. Based on qualitative analysis of interviews with 54 women ministers and rabbis in four different American cities (Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Omaha, and Indianapolis) and quantitative analysis of a national survey of other clergy, this study breaks new ground in specifically addressing the political priorities, agendas, strategies, and actions of clergywomen.

Selected Journal Articles

“Uninspired by Old White Guys: The Mobilizing Factor of Younger, More Diverse Candidates for Gen Z Women.” Politics & Gender. 2022.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000477 (With Jared McDonald.)

Does seeing more diverse candidates in terms of age, gender, and race propel more interest in political engagement among Generation Z, particularly women? Using a survey experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey of Generation Z citizens, we present respondents with Democratic politicians who vary based on these three criteria. Women who identify strongly with their gender express greater political engagement when presented with any candidate who does not fit the stereotypical image of a politician (older, white, male). They are spurred not only by role models who represent them descriptively, but by all politicians belonging to historically marginalized groups. These effects, which are not specific to just Democratic women, provide insights that can inform engagement efforts targeting younger Americans.

“New Voters, New Attitudes: Re-Evaluating Theories of Race and Gender in Light of Gen Z Attitudes.” Politics, Groups, and Identities. 2021.

DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2021.1962372 (With Jared McDonald).

We examine whether the youngest generation of Americans, Generation Z, penalizes women and minority candidates. Gen Z has come of age when matters of race and gender have come to the forefront of American politics. Simultaneously, the slate of candidates being offered has grown younger, more diverse, and increasingly female. We investigate the ways in which young Americans approach these candidates using two survey experiments of Generation Z respondents. We find mixed evidence that Gen Z prefers women candidates to men, but consistently find they view Black candidates more favorably than their white counterparts. Notably, Gen Z shows little to no preference for younger candidates.

journal of elections, public opinions and parties.PNG

“Do Moms Demand Action on Guns? Parenthood and Gun Policy Attitudes.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. 2020.

DOI: 10.1080/17457289.2020.1862130. (With Laurel Elder, Steve Greene, and Mary-Kate Lizotte).

Motherhood shapes views on a variety of issues, but the question remains whether mothers hold distinctive views on gun control policies relative to their non-parent peers. We draw on 2017 Pew Research Center data to explore the ways gender, parenthood, and race intersect to shape attitudes on gun policy in the post-Sandy Hook era when gun violence has become prominently linked with schools and children, and during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has drawn national attention to the relationship of gun violence and racial inequality. Most notably, we find that contemporary depictions of mothers as a distinctively pro-gun control constituency are largely inaccurate. The very real gender gap in gun policy attitudes appears to be falsely attributed to motherhood, rather than gender.

Civility, Gender, and Gendered Nationalism in the Age of Trump.” 2021.

Politics, Groups, and Identities.

Using an original national survey, I examine the impact of gender on attitudes about political civility two years into Donald Trump’s presidency. I find that women have less tolerance for uncivil behavior than men, although Republican women express the lowest tolerance for incivility. Republican women are no less likely than Republican men to rate Trump’s behavior as uncivil – and are much less likely to do so than Democratic women or men. While partisanship exerts a strong countervailing force on Republican women when it comes to considering Donald Trump’s civility, also important is the role of gendered nationalist attitudes, which are linked to both tolerance of uncivil behavior and positive perceptions of Trump’s civility. Men who embrace gendered nationalist views are more tolerant of incivility and are more likely to rate Trump’s behavior as civil.

“Gender, Gen Z, and Covid-19.” Politics & Gender. 2020.

DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X20000434. (With Jared McDonald, Stella Rouse and Mileah Kromer.)

Using a national survey of Generation Z conducted in late May 2020, we measure attitudes about the impact of the coronavirus on personal health, financial and job concerns, views about shelter-in-place laws, and 2020 voting intentions. Gen Z women express greater health and economic concerns and support for shelter-in-place measures than their male counterparts, but this gender gap is largely mitigated by party and other covariates. Party also mediates the differences between young male and female voters concerning the influence of the coronavirus on their vote choice in 2020. Notably, women have significantly greater concern about the impact of COVID-19 on their personal financial situation, while Gen Z men express more concern about their personal health amid COVID-19 in more fully specified statistical models.

“Gendered Nationalism and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: How Party, Class, and Beliefs about Masculinity Shape Voting Behavior.” Politics & Gender. 2019.

Politics & Gender. 2019. 1-24. DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X19000485 (With Erin Cassese)

We examine which Americans were likely to believe that American society has grown “too soft and feminine,” a concept we have characterized as gendered nationalism, and how such gendered nationalist attitudes influenced voting behavior in the 2016 presidential race. Our analysis shows that party, gender, education, and class shaped attitudes about gendered nationalism: Republicans, men, and members of the working class were more likely to support gendered nationalist views. We identify a strong, significant relationship between gendered nationalist attitudes and the probability of voting for Donald Trump, even after controlling for partisanship, ideology, race, religion, and other factors. Moreover, gender differences in candidate support were largely driven by gender differences in beliefs that the United States has grown too soft and feminine.

“Faith and the Free Market: Evangelicals and Economic Policy Attitudes.” Politics and Religion. 2017

Politics & Religion. 10(1), pp.82-110. (With Dan Cox, Robert Jones, and Betsy Cooper).

We argue that concerted efforts by Tea Party leaders, Republican politicians, and leading Christian Right figures to establish and promote a connection between Christian faith and the free-market system has helped shift the economic attitudes of white evangelical Protestants in a more conservative direction. Our analysis of Public Religion Research Institute survey data finds that white evangelical Protestants express greater skepticism about an active role of government in society and believe economic growth is more likely to be spurred by a reduction in taxes rather than in public investments. Moreover, we find that identifying with the Tea Party has a conservatizing influence on their economic issue positions. While we find that partisanship, class, and in some cases, age, serve to modify the views of some evangelicals, by and large, evangelicals have come to embrace the conservative fiscal message promoted by both the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement.