• Dissertation: The Public's Relationship With Political Misinformation

• Committee: Anand Sokhey (Chair), Jennifer Wolak, Jennifer Fitzgerald, John Griffin, Kyle Saunders, Colorado State University

• Major Fields: American Politics, Methods

• Ph.D. 2021

• Assistant Professor of Political Science,

Off

• Dissertation: Education, Socialization, and Trade Policy: How the Economic Beliefs of Congress Members Influence Trade Openness in the United States
• Committee: David Bearce (Chair), Adrian Shin, Andy Baker, Srinivas C. Parinandi, Keith Maskus (Economics)
• Major Fields: International Relations, Comparative Politics
• Ph.D. 2021

Off

• Dissertation: Policy Agendas and Financial Markets: An Aggregate Level Analysis of Stock Market Reactions to Issue Attention Dynamics
• Committee: Sarah Wilson Sokhey (Chair), Joseph Jupille, Andy Baker, Joshua Strayhorn, Asaf Bernstein (Business Administration)
• Major Fields: Comparative Politics, Public Policy, Methods
• Ph.D. 2021

Off

• Dissertation: Buying In: Labor Informality and Political Participation in Latin America
• Committee: Andy Baker (Chair), Carew Boulding, Adrian Shin, Josh Strayhorn, Jeronimo Carballo (Economics)
• Major Fields: Comparative Politics, Methods
• Ph.D. 2021
• Data Analyst - Homeless Services,

Off

• Dissertation: Extractability: Human capital, technical capacity, and the strategic use of natural resources in intrastate conflict
• Committee: Jaroslav Tir (Chair), Megan Shannon, Aysegul Aydin, Srinivas C. Parinandi, Leilani Arthurs (Geology)
• Major Fields: International Politics, Public Policy, Comparative Politics
• Ph.D. 2021
• Assistant Professor in the Division of International Studies at in Mexico City

Off

• Dissertation: New Game Plus. The Effects of Videogaming on Sociopolitical Attitudes and Behavior
• Committee: Jennifer Fitzgerald (Chair), Alexandra Siegel, Anand Sokhey, Sarah Wilson Sokhey, Ethan Scheiner (University of California, Davis)
• Major Fields: Comparative Politics, American Politics, International Relations
• Ph.D. 2021
• Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics,

Off

By: Johannes Karreth, Jarroslav Tir, Douglas M. Gibler

Abstract:

Why do some democracies revert to non-democratic forms of governance? We develop an explanation of democratic reversals that emphasizes the influence of states’ external border relations on domestic politics. Latent threats to a state’s territory encourage political centralization of authority in the executive to defend against danger to the homeland. Latent territorial threat also facilitates the construction and maintenance of large land armies to fight threatening neighbors. Combined, latent territorial threat increases leaders’ domestic power, weakens democratic institutions, encourages other conditions threatening democratic survival, and, ultimately, leads to democratic reversals. Synthesizing prior research on territorial conflict, we generate a quantitative, continuous measure of latent territorial threat against all democracies with contiguous neighbors from 1946 to 2016, using Bayesian estimation. Empirical tests accounting for measurement uncertainty and other common determinants of reversals as well as brief reviews of individual cases of reversal provide robust evidence that democracy failed at higher rates in countries facing high levels of threats to their territory from neighbors. Our study implies that a complete account of the development of democratic institutions should emphasize that domestic factors alone fall short of explaining why democracies fail.

Off

Exchange rates and immigration policy

By: Adrian Shin

Abstract:

What explains cross-national and temporal variations in migrant rights? This article argues that policymakers implement more exclusionary or inclusive policies toward migrants in response to exchange-rate fluctuations. Since exchange rates affect the real value of remittances, exchange-rate depreciation of the host state’s currency makes migration less valuable for existing and potential migrants, while exchange-rate appreciation increases the degree of migrant pressure on the host state by doing the opposite. This well-documented relationship between exchange rate valuation and migration movements affects how host country governments craft immigration policy. Under exchange-rate depreciation, policymakers will implement more inclusive policies to deter the “exit” of migrants and maintain a stable supply of labor. Under exchange-rate appreciation, increased migration pressures heighten public anxiety over immigration in the host country, in turn causing policymakers to restrict further immigration by implementing more exclusionary policies. Consistent with the argument, the empirical results show that the purchasing-power-parity (PPP) currency values of migrants’ home countries are positively correlated with more pro-migrant policies in host countries.

Learn more Here: 

Off

Migration and Economic Coercion

By: Brendan J Connell, Samantha L Moya, Adrian J Shin

Abstract: 

Sender costs of economic sanctions exacerbate the enforcement problem associated with multilateral coercive measures. When third-country sanctioners share strategic interests with the target state, they have commercial and diplomatic incentives to defect from multilateral sanctions arrangements. In addition to these well-documented sender costs, this article argues that migration pressure from the target state has become an important consideration for potential sanctioners. Economic sanctions often increase the economic distress on the target country, which in turn causes more people to migrate to countries where their co-ethnics reside. Countries hosting a large number of nationals from the target country face a disproportionately high level of migration pressure when sanctions increase emigration from the target country. Therefore, policymakers of these countries oppose economic sanctions on the target country as an attempt to preempt further migration. Analyzing the sanctions bills in the European Parliament from 2011 to 2015, we find empirical support for our prediction.

Learn more here: 

Off

Voice and Inequality 

By: Carew Boulding

Abstract: 

The first large-scale study of political participation in eighteen Latin American democracies, focusing on the political participation of the region's poorest citizens.

Political regimes in Latin America have a long history of excluding poor people from politics. Today, the region's democracies survive in contexts that are still marked by deep poverty and some of the world's most severe socioeconomic inequalities. Keeping socioeconomic inequality from spilling over into political inequality is one of the core challenges facing these young democracies. In Voice and Inequality, Carew Boulding and Claudio Holzner offer the first large-scale empirical analysis of political participation in Latin America. They find that in recent years, most (but not all) countries in the region have achieved near equality of participation across wealth groups, and in some cases poor people participate more than wealthier individuals. How can this be, given the long history of excluding poor people from the political arena in Latin America?

Boulding and Holzner argue that key institutions of democracy, namely civil society, political parties, and competitive elections, have an enormous impact on whether or not poor people turn out to vote, protest, and contact government officials. Far from being politically inert, under certain conditions the poorest citizens can act and speak for themselves with an intensity that far exceeds their modest socioeconomic resources. When voluntary organizations thrive in poor communities and when political parties focus their mobilization efforts on poor individuals, they respond with high levels of political activism. Poor people's activism also benefits from strong parties, robust electoral competition and well-functioning democratic institutions. Where electoral competition is robust and where the power of incumbents is constrained, the authors find higher levels of participation by poor individuals and more political equality. Precisely because the individual resource constraints that poor people face are daunting obstacles to political activism, Voice and Inequality focuses on the features of democratic politics that create opportunities for participation that have the strongest impact on poor people's political behavior. Ultimately, Voice and Inequality provides important insights about how the elusive goal of political equality can be achieved even in contexts of elevated poverty and inequality.

Off