Ph.D. Job Candidates

 

Julia Rabinovich

Dissertation: “Conditional Nature of Administrative Responsiveness to Public Opinion: The Analysis of Telecommunications Policies and Equal Employment Opportunity Policies”

Committee: Dennis Chong (co-chair), Brandice Canes-Wrone (Princeton University, co-chair), Jeffery Jenkins, Benjamin Page

My dissertation project is one of the first to explicitly study the theoretical and empirical relationship between public opinion and the policies of unelected administrative agencies in the United States. This research addresses two important questions: (1) in the absence of an electoral connection, should we expect administrative policies to be responsive to the public’s wishes and (2) if we do expect responsiveness, to what extent does the interaction between political institutions affect the scope of administrative responsiveness to public opinion? I develop a formal theoretical model of administrative policymaking and test the empirical implications of the model using time-series data on regulatory policies of the Federal Communications Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The findings suggest that the relationship between legislative responsiveness and administrative responsiveness to public opinion is conditional on the success of congressional oversight and on the gatekeeping powers of congressional committees. In some cases, legislative responsiveness induces administrative responsiveness; however, under certain political circumstances, such as a divided government, greater legislative responsiveness to public opinion can lead to less responsiveness from administrative agencies. 

Research Interests: Bureaucracy, Presidency, Congress, Public Opinion, Political psychology, Political behavior

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Lee Seymour

Dissertation title:

"Pathways to Secession: Separatist Conflict and Institutional Change"

Dissertation Committee:

William Reno (Chair), Hendrik Spruyt, Ian Hurd

Research Interests:

Separatism and irredentism; sovereignty and statebuilding; ethnic conflict; state failure and intervention.   

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Christopher Skeaff 

Dissertation title:

"Empowered Expression: Spinoza's Enlightenment, Our Democracy"

Committee:

Sara Monoson (chair), Linda Zerilli, Bonnie Honig

Research interests:

History of Political Thought, Theories of Freedom, Modern Political Theory, Contemporary Democratic Theory