The Personnel Costs of Nationalization: Culture War Conflicts Increase School Policymaker Turnover

The nationalization of politics creates new challenges for local public officials in the United States. We argue the intrusion of nationalized policy conflicts into local government places greater burdens on those occupying these positions and will increase local policymaker turnover. Focusing on local education, we develop novel measures of nationalized policy conflicts in thousands of school board meetings and pair this with newly assembled rosters of superintendents and school board members. We find nationalized policy conflicts increase local education policymaker turnover. These conflicts are most impactful for school superintendents, who become more likely to retire or resign in their wake. We observe similar, but more muted and slow-developing, consequences for school board members. Our findings show nationalized policy conflicts can alter the character of local government by generating personnel change in key policymaking positions.