Recent News & Publications from CAPS Affiliates 

Red, Blue and Grey Abstract pattern

Round up of recent news and publication from CAPS Affiliates:

Danielle Allen has a new book, Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus, coming out Feb. 16, 2022. 

Dan Carpenter’s most recent book, Democracy by Petition (Harvard University Press, 2021), was selected as one of The Five Democracy Books from 2021 You Must Read by Democracy Paradox. 
Prof. Carpenter has a paper, “The Popular Origins of Legislative Jurisdictions: Petitions and Standing Committee Formation in Late Colonial Virginia and the Early U.S. House,” with Ben Schneer, Tobi Resch, and Maggie Blackhawk, forthcoming in The Journal of Politics.  Brian Highsmith published a short essay, “The Beholders’ Veto: Fiscal Federalism and Local Democracy,” at the Law & Political Economy (LPE) blog on fiscal federalism and local democracy. 

Highsmith also published a New York Times op-ed, “Republicans Want You (Not the Rich) to Pay for Infrastructure,” about state and local governments’ reliance on regressive “user-fee” funding structures.  
Forthcoming, a second essay at the LPE blog, co-written with Kathy Thelen. Jennifer Hochschild’s most recent book, Genomics Politics, was published this past fall. See her discussing the book with Evelynn Hammonds in a video of their talk at the Harvard Book Store. 

Other recent publications from Prof. Hochschild: “My Group or Myself?  How Black, Latino, and White Americans Choose a Neighborhood, Job, and Candidate when Personal and Group Interest Diverge,” with Spencer Piston and Vesla Mae Weaver, Perspectives on Politics, 19 (4), December 2021.

“Loyalists and Switchers: Characterizing Voters’ Response to Donald Trump’s Campaign and Presidency,” with Meredith Dost and Ryan Enos.  Political Science Quarterly, 136 (1), spring 2021.  

“Left, Right, and Meritocracy:  Comments on Michael Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit,” in The American Journal of Law and Inequality, 2021. V 1: 106-110.Nick Short has an article, “The Politics of the American Knowledge Economy,” forthcoming in Studies in American Political Development.  

Theda Skocpol has been selected to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State University. This award is among the highest recognition awarded by MSU, and is presented annually to alumni “who have differentiated themselves by obtaining the highest level of professional accomplishment, and who possess the utmost integrity and character to positively reflect and enhance the prestige of Michigan State University”. Congratulations to Prof. Skocpol!

Other news from Prof. Skocpol: Published with co-authors Caroline Tervo (CAPS Undergraduate Fellow, ‘17) and Kirsten Walters, “Citizen Organizing and Partisan Polarization from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance,” in the recent widely publicized Democratic Resilience: Can The United States Withstand Rising Polarizationvolume edited by Robert Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, and Kenneth M. Roberts.

Prof. Skocpol also has a new project involving grad students Kirsten Walters and Ben TerMaat that has been tracking GOP radicalization in states and nationally since 1980.Jim Snyder’s recent publications: “The Growth of Campaign Advertising in the U.S., 1880 to 1930” with Shigeo Hirano, Jaclyn Kaslovsky, and Michael Olson, Journal of Politics, forthcoming 2022. 
What Shapes the Quality and Behavior of Government Officials? Institutional Variation in Selection and Retention Methods” with Claire Lim, Annual Review of Economics, 2021. 

Revealing Malfeasance: How Local Media Facilitates Electoral Sanctioning of Mayors in Mexico” with Horacio Larreguy and John Marshall, Economic Journal, 2021. 

Dyadic Representation in the South and Non-South: The Case of Prohibition” with Michael P. Olson, Journal of Politics, 2021.Elizabeth Thom has  been working with Profs. Steve Ansolabehere and Dustin Tingley on a joint Harvard-MIT research initiative called The Roosevelt Project, a multidisciplinary effort to chart paths toward a low carbon economy that promotes high quality job growth, minimizes worker and community dislocation, and harnesses the benefits of energy technologies for regional economic development. Steve, Dustin and Elizabeth  worked on the Appalachia case study, which focused on low carbon pathways and economic development opportunities in Southwestern Pennsylvania. They launchedthe case study report last fall at Carnegie Mellon University with former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who oversees the Roosevelt Project. They will be hosting an additional launch event here at Harvard on February 1, more details here.Mo Torres recently co-authored a paper in Nature Human Behavior: Small et al. 2021, “Banks, alternative institutions, and the spatial-temporal ecology of racial inequality in US cities.” Nature Human Behavior 5, 1622-1628. 

As a 2021-22 Doctoral Fellow in the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, Torres recently received a small HMUI research grant ($2,500) to support fieldwork in Michigan as part of his dissertation.