James W. Endersby
Office: 107 (316) Professional Bldg.
Phone: 573-882-2472 or 573-882-4238
Email: Endersby@missouri.edu
Web: web.missouri.edu/~endersbyj/
James Endersby (Associate Professor) has been with the Department since 1991. He received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Texas and specializes in American political behavior (voting and elections), formal political theory, and research methods.
Research Statement
My research agenda is broad but focuses on strategic decisions made by political actors, typically in a mass behavior setting. I have several ongoing projects in development and under review. Primarily, I am interesting in empirical applications of spatial models of political decision-making as this relates to voter participation in elections and in voter choice among candidates and parties on the ballot. Thus, my research agenda centers on real-world tests of formal theoretical models of why people behave the way they do. A first application to this are studies of the role of information on voter decisions. Most political information processed by citizens in a modern democracy comes filtered through the socialization process and the news presented in the mass media. A second area of research interest is voter reaction to the set of possible choices offered to them. Voters may engage in strategic or sophisticated voting, opting for a second or subsequent preference in order to maximize their own perceived utility. A third element providing context-dependent decisions is the role of the electoral system, the translation of declared voter preferences into political representation and its influence on citizens’ decisions to participate and make choices in an electoral environment. A fourth empirical application is an investigation of voter turnout within the United States and cross-nationally. Although the development of political theory has been dominated by our understanding of American political behavior, my research has an increasing tendency to compare research in the United States with evidence cross-nationally or in other nations with similar characteristics such as Canada, Britain, and Germany. As coordinator of Canadian Studies at the University of Missouri, my research interests have evolved toward understanding attitudes and behavior in the Canada as well as the U.S.
Courses Taught
Advanced Political Methodology (graduate)
Canadian Politics and Government (undergraduate)
Formal Political Analysis (undergraduate and graduate)
Interest Groups (undergraduate and graduate)
Introductory Statistics for Political Science (undergraduate and graduate)
Introduction to Political Research (undergraduate)
Linear Models in Politics (graduate)
Political Science Internships (undergraduate)
Politics and the Media (undergraduate and graduate)
Recent Representative Publications
James W. Endersby, John R. Petrocik, and Daron R. Shaw. 2006. "Electoral Mobilization in the United States." In Richard S. Katz and William J. Crotty, eds., Handbook of Political Parties, London: Sage Publications, pp. 316-336.
Jay K. Dow and James W. Endersby. 2004. "Multinomial Probit and Multinomial Logit: A Comparison of Choice Models for Voting Research." Electoral Studies, 23: 1 (March), 107-122.
James W. Endersby and Michael J. Towle. 2003. "Perceptions of Presidential Greatness and the Flow of Evaluative Political Information: From the Elite to the Informed to the Masses." Politics and Policy, 31: 3 (September), 383-403.
Sungdai Cho and James W. Endersby. 2003. "Issues, Spatial Models of Voting and British General Elections: A Comparison of Proximity and Directional Models." Public Choice, 114: 3-4 (March), 275-293.
James W. Endersby, Steven E. Galatas, and Chapman B. Rackawy. 2002. "Closeness Counts in Canada: Voter Participation in the 1993 and 1997 Federal Elections." Journal of Politics, 64: 2 (May), 610-631.