Job Market PhD

Simon Ballesteros
Ph.D. Candidate – Comparative Government
BA University of Chile; MA University of Chile
Constitution-making; Democracy; Latin American Political and Legal Institutions

Ph.D. dissertation
Democratic Constitution-Making in Comparative Perspective
Diana Kapiszewski (chair), Marko Klašnja, George Tsebelis 

Abstract
A growing empirical literature shows that democratic processes of constitutional change are associated with desired political outcomes, such as reductions in post-conflict violence and increases in democracy once the new constitution comes into effect. However, despite these desired outcomes, we still do not know the factors that make democratic constitution-making processes more likely to emerge. This article presents and tests a theory that explains the democratic nature of constitution-making processes. Specifically, I theorize that the configuration of the relevant political actors that initiate the process and the conflict settings in which this decision takes place are the main determinants of the democratic characteristics of these processes. I test this theory using an original dataset with the characteristics of constitution-making and new measures of participation and contestation from all constitutional drafting processes worldwide since 1945. I found that the configuration of actors and the type of conflict before the constitutional reform process determine the level of contestation but do not significantly explain the level of participation in these processes. This dissertation contributes to the literature by conceptualizing democratic constitution-making, facilitating the distinction between truly democratic processes and those that only pretend to be so to obtain a democratic seal as a façade, and identifying the main factors that cause them, which is critical to designing future constitution-making processes.

Nicholas Barden
Ph.D. Candidate – Political Theory
Early Modern Political Thought, Sovereignty, Constitutionalism, Civil War

Ph.D. dissertation
Bridling the Prince: Reforming French Constitutional Thought, 1532-1586

Niccolò W. Bonifai
Ph.D. Candidate – International Relations
BS Bocconi University; MS London School of Economics and Political Science International Political Economy; Globalization; Economic Nationalism

Ph.D. dissertation
The Dog That Stopped Barking: Firms and the State in the New Phase of Globalization.

Publications
Economic Risk and Willingness to Learn about Globalization: A Field Experiment with Migrants and Other Underprivileged Groups in Vietnam (with Eddy Malesky and Nita Rudra), Conditionally Accepted, American Journal of Political Science.

Bonifai, Niccolo W., Nita Rudra, Carew Boulding and Samantha L. Moya. Globalization and Nationalism: Contending Forces in World Politics. 2022. International Studies Review 24(2): 1-7.

Rudra, Nita, Irfan Nooruddin, and Niccolo W. Bonifai. Globalization Backlash in Developing Countries: Broadening the Research Agenda. 2021. Comparative Political Studies, 2416-2441.

Benjamin Burnley
Ph.D. Candidate – American Government
BA Florida State University; MS Middle Tennessee University
Technology; Political communication; Political knowledge; Tech policy; Public opinion

Justin Casey

Ph.D. Candidate – International Relations
BS Towson University; MA Georgetown University
Propaganda; Ideology; Power Politics; Subversion; Hegemony; the Far Right

Ph.D. dissertation
Enemy Voices: The Evolution of Anglo-American Propaganda
Daniel Nexon (Chair), David Edelstein, Abraham L. Newman

Abstract
Despite a long and illustrious history, and increasing scholarly attention to subversion, propaganda — the use of information to achieve foreign policy outcomes by influencing populations — remains largely untheorized in international relations. Depending on who you ask, propaganda is either a relic of the past or a ubiquitous tool that all states use, a weapon of the weak or a means for the strong to subvert the weak. But these assumptions mask important variations in where and why democracies employ propaganda in peacetime. In comparison to authoritarian states, I find that democracies have immense difficulty in building and maintaining support for propaganda policies. This is because elites disagree about the risks, effectiveness, and appropriateness of propaganda. I argue that strong propaganda policies, with greater scope, intensity, and institutional support, emerge when policymakers perceive their country’s influence to be waning. Doubters of propaganda may assume that rival propaganda is hitting its mark, leading them to discount their misgivings. Meanwhile, greater sophistication in measuring public opinion and indicators of “success” further embolden leaders to take action. Normative concerns are harder to allay, and they prompt either restraint or innovative reframings like public diplomacy and soft power. To test this argument, I draw on thousands of archival documents gathered from The National Archives in London and the Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan Presidential Libraries. I conduct comparative process tracing of US and UK policymaking at four critical junctures: the interwar (1919-1941), Early Cold War (1945-1956), Late Cold War (1977-1987), and post-1991 world. This dissertation draws on recently declassified documents on the covert propaganda policies of the Thatcher administration and speaks to the need for the US and UK to reply to Chinese and Russian disinformation campaigns. 

Publications
Ideological Topography in World Politics: A Guide to the End of the Unipolar-Homogeneous Moment (International Studies Quarterly)
With Friends Like These: The Disadvantages of Total Ideology (working) Alternate Universalities: The Sources, Conduct, and Outcomes of Ideological Bloc Conflicts(with Daniel Nexon, Working)

Andrew P. Gibson
PhD Candidate – Political Theory/International Relations
BA Michigan State University; MA The University of Chicago; MA Georgetown University
Machiavelli, Republicanism, Renaissance Political Thought, IR Realism

Ph.D. dissertation
The Transatlantic Machiavelli: Political Realism, Renaissance Republicanism, and Twentieth Century Power Politics (1915-1975)

Abstract
This dissertation traces the place of Niccolò Machiavelli(1469-1527) in twentieth century political thought. Part I begins by examining the triplet concepts of Machiavellismus, Militarismus (militarism), and Machtpolitik (power politics) during the early days of the Weimar Republic into the rise of the Third Reich. In these chapters, I explore how Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), Gerhard Ritter (1888-1967), and other historians of the modern state used the popular image of Machiavelli and the historical development of his writings to reflect on themes of republican government and great power conflict in modernity. In Part II, I trace how German-Jewish émigré scholars—influenced by these earlier debates and their own experience of persecution and exile—wrote scholarly monographs on Machiavelli seeking to revive and defend “republican” and “civic humanist” theories of citizenship. In these chapters, I focus on the lives and works of Felix Gilbert (1905-1991) and Hans Baron (1900-1988). By uncovering the political origins of these émigré engagements, I show how layers of thinking on crisis in republican governments shaped twentieth century visions of state power.

Publications
A ‘Republican by Reason’: Friedrich Meinecke, the Reason of State, and the Problem of Machiavellism (working paper)

Matthew David Hamilton
Ph.D. Candidate – Political Theory
BA Moody Bible Institute; MA Princeton Theological Seminary
Normative and International Relations Theory

Ph.D. dissertation
Whose Autonomy? Which Self-Determination?

Publications
“Opening the Thucydides Trap” “Laughing to Death”

Ji Min Kim
Ph.D. Candidate – Political Theory
MA New York University
People’s sovereignty in liberal democracies; Constitutional justification of ‘the people’; Political participation through non-institutional means

Ana Paula Pellegrino
Ph.D. Candidate – Comparative Government
BS PUC-Rio; MA PUC-Rio
Political and criminal violence; Bureaucracies in developing countries; Brazil and Latin America

Ph.D. dissertation
The Warrior’s Paradox: The Rise of Parapolice Groups in Brazil 

Abstract
My dissertation project explains why police form their own armed criminal groups (ACGs), which I call Parapolice Groups. I argue that police cultures which encourage violent combat, when faced with the emergence of ACGs, create vacuums of power that entrepreneurial officers exploit for private gain, mimicking the very groups they supposedly battle. I draw on two years of fieldwork, during which I conducted elite interviews and collected administrative documents to examine who forms PPGs and where they establish themselves. In a cross-case comparison of two Brazilian police forces in two major cities, I combine quasi-experimental tests of micro-level implications of my theory with bayesian process tracing to uncover the political economy of group formation. This book project contributes to our understanding of the state’s ambivalent relationship with violence. It also contributes to literature on bureaucratic deviance, armed and criminal group formation and challenges to democratic politics in developing countries.

Dain Yoo
Ph.D. Candidate – Comparative Government
BA Binghamton University; MA Seoul National University
Political violence and repression; authoritarian resilience; public opinion; terrorism; political framing; Middle East and North Africa region

Publications
“The Invisible Impact of Conflict: A Study of Terrorism, Regime Type and the Shadow Economy,” International Interactions, 2024. (with Da Sul Kim)