Jordan Duffin Wong

Jordan Duffin Wong

a poet posing as a political scientist

Posts by Collection

portfolio

publications

research

Municipal Disincorporation and the Voluntary Termination of Local Government

Published:

When do citizens decide they no longer want local government? The United States phenomenon of municipal disincorporation, wherein citizens voluntarily vote their local governments out of existence, offers a unique chance to think about what citizens expect from their governments and what happens when expectations are not met. Using an original, comprehensive dataset of disincorporation activity in the United States, I show that smaller, economically-worse-off places are significantly more likely to initiate a disincorporation vote, and that population density informs outcomes more than population outright. Furthermore, my findings suggest that policy environments where voters have lower costs and greater access to information greatly inform these outcomes. These results are meaningful because they evaluate political behavior concerning local government in extreme circumstances, rather than merely political attitudes.

Recommended citation: Duffin Wong, Jordan. (2023). "Municipal Disincorporation and the Voluntary Termination of Local Government".

Elections and Representation in American Municipal Administration: Elite Survey Evidence from Five New England States

Published:

Does electing or appointing public officials affect how they represent their constituents? Municipal clerks in the New England states provide an ideal setting to explore these questions, as they are essential government actors, serve in full-service local governments with few overlapping jurisdictions, and vary selection methods. We conduct an original online and mail survey of municipal clerks in five New England states. Our findings suggest elected clerks are more public service-oriented and attentive to constituent concerns, but there is little difference in substantive ideological, partisan, or policy representation between selection methods. Our analysis provides clear evidence of the relationship between the extensive margin of elections and representation, providing a model for future exploration of additional offices and dimensions of representation.

Recommended citation: Marsh, Wayde Z.C., Olson, Michael P., Reeves, Andrew, and Duffin Wong, Jordan. (2024). "Elections and Representation in American Municipal Administration: Evidence from Five New England States".

Electoral Accountability and Bureaucreatic Discretion: Evidence from County Coroners and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Published:

More than one million Americans are reported to have died from COVID-19. However, many measures of COVID-19 deaths rely on data created and reported by public health professionals, such as county coroners or medical examiners. Because many of these positions are elected, and COVID-19 quickly became a politically salient and polarized issue in the 2020 general election and beyond, some public health officials may have under-reported COVID-19 deaths. We compare data on reported COVID-19 deaths with estimates of surplus deaths to create county-level estimates of under- or over-reported COVID-19 deaths and then explore the relationship between under-reporting, local-level partisanship, and the selection method of the local coroner or medical examiner, finding that elected coroners in Republican-leaning constituencies under-reported deaths, but appointed medical examiners did not. Our results have important implications for understanding the relationship between public health and partisan politics.

Recommended citation: Duffin Wong, Jordan, Olson, Michael P., and Reeves, Andrew. (2024). "Electoral Accountability and Bureaucreatic Discretion: Evidence from County Coroners and the COVID-19 Pandemics".

talks

teaching

Math 106: Calculus I (2018)

Undergraduate Course, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Department of Mathematics, 2018

Undergraduate Learning Assistant for Math 106: Calculus I at the Unviersity of Nebraska - Lincoln. Syllabus

Political Science 581: Quantitative Political Methodology I (2023)

Graduate Course, Washington University in St. Louis Department of Political Science, 2023

I was the Assistant in Instruction for a graduate linear models course, which involved making (and updating) lab materials. Most of these are adapted from materials made by Dahjin Kim, Ben Noble, and Cecilia Sui. You can read the syllabus here.