Major Field: Comparative Politics
Minor Field: Political Methodology
Teaching Interests: Western Europe, the EU, ethnic politics, quantitative methodology, text analysis
Dissertation Title: When to Talk about Race: Explaining Cross-national Variation in Ethno-religious Salience in Democratic Elections
Dissertation Committee: Dr. Joseph Jupille (Chair), Dr. Jennifer Fitzgerald, Dr. Jennifer Wolak
Dissertation Description: Why does the salience of ethno-religious identity vary between democracies and their elections? To answer this question, I make two original datasets of the text of a) party manifestos and b) politicians' tweets and code them for ethno-religious salience and prejudice using machine learning. I find that in first past the post electoral systems ethno-religious prejudice is a viable strategy for large moderate parties, whereas in proportional representation systems it is only viable for small ideologically extreme parties.
Expected Defense Date: April 2021