Understanding the nature of political competition is a central issue in political economy. This paper offers an explanation for observed variation in the competitiveness of U.S. Senate elections since direct elections to the Senate became fully effective in 1922. We deliberately abstract away...

We address recent skepticism by Chief Justice Roberts about the usefulness of social science tools of analysis in litigation about redistricting. Limiting our discussion to race-related redistricting litigation, we demonstrate that social science methodology has been able to provide reliable...