Jay K. Dow
Office: 310 Professional Bldg.
Phone: 573-882-0047
Email: DowJ@missouri.edu
Web: web.missouri.edu/~dowj
Jay Dow (Associate Professor) has been with the Department since 1993. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Texas at Austin and specializes in the study of voting and elections.
Research Statement
My research centers on the study of voting and elections. In the first part of my career I focused on applying the spatial theory of voting to the study of electoral systems with particular interest in understanding the extent to which different systems encourage parties and candidates establish moderate or more extreme ideological stands. I also studied state-level campaign finance to better understand the consequences of campaign finance regulation for the distribution re-sources and the competitiveness of legislative elections.
My current research interests increasingly gravitate toward understanding how one might assess the performance of electoral democracy with particular emphasis on the quality of representation and how well aggregated individual preferences are reflected in collective choices. I am also working on projects that study gender and political sophistication, religiosity and the vote, and turnout effects in Congressional elections.
Courses Taught
Introduction to American Government
Political Parties and Election Campaigns
Voting and Elections
Advanced Political Methodology
Classic Readings in Public Choice
American Political Thought
Scope and Methods
Recent Representative Publications
"Does Democracy Suffer from Political Diversity" (with Ben Bishin and James Adams). Public Choice 129 (2006):201-215
"The Political Consequences of Abstention due to Alienation and Abstention Due to Indifference" (with James Adams and Samuel Merrill III). Political Behavior 28 (2006):65-86.Representation in Congressional Elections: Evidence for Discounting/Directional Voting in U.S. Senate Elections (with James Adams and Benjamin G. Bishin) Journal of Politics 66(2004):348-373.
Multinomial Probit and Multinomial Logit: A Comparison of Choice Models for Voting Research" (with James W. Endersby). Electoral Studies 23(2004):107-122.
On the Bias Against New Innovations in Heath Care. (With Walton et al.) Value in Heath. 5(2002) 67-70
"A Comparative Spatial Analysis of Majoritarian and Proportional Elections" Electoral Studies 20(2001):109-125.