Status politics is the origin of morality policy.

After drawing a distinction between "class" and "status," an early but short-lived sociological literature on status politics is reviewed. That approach has lost favor, but moral foundations theory (MFT) offers a new opportunity to link morality policy to status politics. While any of the five moral foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity) can provoke conflict over status, most often sanctity is the cause of status politics because it engages the emotion of disgust.

Direct democracy, policy diffusion, and medicalized marijuana.

Virtually all studies of policy diffusion are based on statutory enactments by state legislatures. But a substantial number of medicalized marijuana laws were initiated through citizen initiatives and ratified by referenda (I&R). This case study suggests that the diffusion of laws adopted by I&R requires two modifications to the conventional model of policy diffusion.

The people have spoken: Post-materialism and ballot measure voting on physician aid in dying (PAD).

For decades, public opinion polls have shown that most Americans favor physician aid in dying (PAD) but little is known about those who support PAD ballot measures. With its emphasis on self-fulfillment, personal choice, and civic and political engagement, post-materialists would argue that adopting states tend to have younger, educated, and more secular populations. County-level votes on all nine ballot measures to legalize death with dignity were subjected to multiple regression analysis.

Postmaterialism and referenda voting to legalize marijuana.

This analysis of county-level voting on 22 state referenda that sought to legalize marijuana for medical purposes or recreational use is driven by hypotheses from post-materialism theory. Separate regression models for each type of policy largely, though not entirely, support our expectations. Voting to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana was greater in counties with larger college-educated populations, a partisan preference for Democratic presidential candidates, and smaller percentages of Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical adherents.