J. Wesley Leckrone

Wesley Leckrone is Distinguished University Professor of Political Science at Widener University where he also serves as Department Chair. He earned his PhD in Political Science from Temple University in 2006. He received an MA in History from Temple in 1995 and a BA in Political Science from American University in 1991. His areas of expertise are federalism and intergovernmental lobbying, state politics and policy, and Pennsylvania politics. Leckrone is the former editor of Commonwealth: A Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy, the journal of the Pennsylvania Political Science Association (PPSA). He serves on the Executive Board of the PPSA.

Before joining the faculty at Widener University, Leckrone served as the Project Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project at Temple University. He coordinated a team of students at five universities that collected and coded 170,000 records related to Pennsylvania state government. This database is publicly available for online analysis. He also served as the Program Director at the Center for the Study of Federalism (CSF) at Temple University. At CSF, he helped coordinate two United States Information Agency Summer Institutes, served as the editor of The Federalism Report, and worked with the Philadelphia International Visitors Center.

Leckrone has also assisted in several United States Department of State Summer Institutes run by the Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government at Lafayette College. He is a former member of the Board of Editors of State and Local Government Review, the Board of Fellows at Temple University’s Center on Regional Politics, and was a Faculty Advisor to the Pennsylvania Policy Database Project (PPDP), also located at Temple University.

Kincaid, John, and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2023. Teaching Federalism: Multidimensional Approaches. With John Kincaid, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023. (Open Access).

Kincaid, John, and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2023. “Large Scale But Temporary: How the Federal Government’s Responses to the Great Recession and COVID-19 (Mostly) Maintained Continuity in American Federalism.” Cuadernos Manuel Gimenez Abad Special Issue 9 (June): 204-220. (Open Access).

Leckrone, J. Wesley, and Angela Corbo. 2023. “Campaigning in Philadelphia’s Democratic Suburbs: Races in Pennsylvania’s 4th Congressional District”, in Are All Politics Nationalized?: Evidence from the 2020 Campaigns in Pennsylvania, eds. Stephen Medvic, Matthew Schousen and Berwood Yost. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2023.

Kincaid, John and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2022. “American Federalism and Covid-19: Party Trumps Policy,” in Comparative Federalism and Covid-19 Combating the Pandemic, ed. Nico Steytler. London: Routledge, pp. 181-199.

Kincaid, John, and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2022. “COVID-19 and American Federalism: First-Wave Responses”, in Federalism and the Response to COVID-19: A Comparative Analysis, eds. Rupak Chattopadhyay, Felix Knupling, Diana Chebenova, Liam Whittington, and Phillip Gonzalez. New York: Routledge, 2022. (Open Access).

Kincaid, John and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2020. “Partisan Fractures in U.S. Federalism’s COVID-19 Policy Responses.” State and Local Government Review 52 (4): 298-308.

Atherton, Michelle J. and J. Wesley Leckrone, eds. 2019. Pennsylvania Politics and Policy: A Commonwealth Reader, Volume 2. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Leckrone, J. Wesley. 2019. “Trying Not to Lose Ground: State and Local Government Advocacy During Passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 49 (3): 407-436.

Leckrone, J. Wesley and Michelle J. Atherton, eds. 2018. Pennsylvania Politics and Policy: A Commonwealth Reader, Volume 1. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Leckrone, J. Wesley, Michelle Atherton, Nicole Crossey, Andrea Stickley, and Meghan Rubado. 2015. “Does Anyone Care About the Poor? The Role of Redistribution in Mayoral Policy Agendas.” State and Local Government Review 47 (4): 240-257.

Leckrone, J. Wesley and Justin Gollob. 2013. “Federalism and the Pennsylvania Legislature: Partisanship and Intergovernmental Priorities.”Commonwealth: A Journal of Political Science 16 (1): 21-40. (Open Access).

Gollob, Justin and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2012. “The Effectiveness of Intergovernmental Lobbying Mechanisms in the American Federal System.”Régionalisme & Fédéralisme / Regionalism & Federalism 12. (Open Access).

Leckrone, J. Wesley and Justin Gollob. 2010. “Telegrams to Washington: Using Memorials to Congress as a Measure of State Attention to the Federal Policy Agenda.” State and Local Government Review 42 (3): 235-245.

McLaughlin, Joseph, Paul Wolfgang, J. Wesley Leckrone, Justin Gollob, Jason Bossie, Jay Jennings and Michelle Atherton. 2010. “The Pennsylvania Policy Database Project: A Model for Comparative Analysis.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 10 (3): 320-336.

Marbach, Joseph, and J. Wesley Leckrone. 2002. “Intergovernmental Lobbying for the Passage of TEA-21.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 32 (1): 45-64.