Objective
The role of institutions in state politics has been recognized for decades. However, most of this research has evaluated the role of a single institution at a time, such as the role of the ballot initiative or legislative professionalism. Little is known about how institutions may have counterbalancing or reinforcing effects.
Method
I propose evaluating institutions collectively much in the way that comparative politics scholars have evaluated the collective set of institutions that create levels of democracy.
Results
Through an exploratory factor analysis, I find that state institutions can primarily be understood along two dimensions, accountability pressure and checks and balances. I use a Bayesian factor analysis of mixed data to generate institutional scores for all 50 states along both dimensions from 1975 to 2016.
Conclusion
Theses scores will be a resource to understand how a state`s collective institutional environment affects a wide variety of phenomena, from policy responsiveness to voter turnout or policy innovation.