Hire a Binghamton PH.D.
Michael Allen
Dissertation Title: "Military Basing Abroad: Polity, Behavioral Expectations, and Deployment"
Chair: Benjamin Fordham
Committee: Patrick Regan, Olga Shvetsova, & Dave Clark
Michael's research focuses on asymmetric relationships between states and other actors. The rule of power is a common theme in international relations, but the relationships between the very strong and the very weak seem to offer counter-intuitive anecdotes and data that are exceptions to our general understanding of international relations. His work includes research on military base negotiations and deployment, US troop deployments abroad, hegemonic stability and trade, acquisition of mercenary fighters, and inter-, intra- and extra-state conflicts between asymmetric opponents.
K. Chad Clay
Dissertation Title: "Learning Some Respect: Information-Providing Events and the Diffusion of Human Rights Practices"
Chair: David Cingranelli
Committee: Benjamin Fordham & Patrick Regan
Publications:
"Neighborhood Watch: Spatial Effects of Human Rights INGOs." Journal of Politics. Forthcoming. (with Sam Bell and Amanda Murdie).
Chad's research focuses on the international determinants and diffusion of human rights practices, political violence, and economic development. His dissertation examines the idea that state leaders learn from the experiences of foreign governments and, in response to the new information gleaned from those experiences, change their human rights practices in an attempt to either avoid or replicate the observed outcomes. Alongside the dissertation, Chad has several ongoing projects focusing on the ability of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) to affect domestic outcomes, as well as the degree to which international institutions and global economic conditions affect local levels of repression and civil unrest. Finally, Chad is also engaged in several long-term data collection projects, serving as senior research associate for the CIRI Human Rights Data Project (http://www.humanrightsdata.org) and co-principal investigator on the Worker Rights in Law and Practice (WRLP) data project.
Ellen Cutrone
Dissertation Title: "Donor Competition and Cooperation in Foreign Aid Allocation"
Chair: Benjamin Fordham
Committee: David Cingranelli & David Clark
Ellen's research concentrates on foreign policy, particularly US foreign policy and issues related to trade, foreign direct investment and foreign aid. She has taught courses on the political economy of US foreign policy and international foreign aid programs. Ellen’s dissertation seeks to explain why and when donor states use their foreign aid budgets to compete or cooperate with each other to gain influence in recipient states. Donors will compete when their policy preferences are further from each other than they are from the recipient, and cooperate when they are on the same side of the recipient in policy space. This argument can help explain both traditional Cold War politics as well as the reaction of Western donors to new powers entering the aid game.
Matthew DiGiuseppe
Dissertation Title: "Guns, Butter & Debt: Sovereign Credit & Foreign Policy"
Chair: Benjamin Fordham
Committee: David H. Clark, Patrick Regan & Katja Kleinberg
Matthew's research focuses on the political economy of armed conflict (both interstate and internal). His dissertation explores the relationship between sovereign debt/credit and the domestic politics of foreign policy. While the economic costs of conflict have direct effects on a nation's power, I argue that subsequent political costs imposed by those asked to shoulder the fiscal burden of national security constrain policy makers. The dissertation demonstrates that creditworthy states can alleviate this constraint by borrowing on international credit markets and delaying the immediate fiscal burden imposed on citizens and elites. As a consequence, these policy makers have greater autonomy to pursue conflict and defend national interests.
Alper Ecevit
Dissertation Title: "Understanding Suffrage Extension"
Chair: Michael McDonald
Committee: Olga Shvetsova, Mikail Filippov, Seden Akcinaroglu
Alper's research attempts to explain rationale behind suffrage expansion.
He explores constitutional amendment processes in U.S. political history
where suffrage expanded and also focuses on immigrants' right to vote in
European democracies. Existing scholarly work on suffrage expansion explains
the process by referring to political struggle, while Alper tries to explore
whether political principle became a matter of concern during decision-making
processes. His research includes, institutional change, democratization in
divided societies, social cooperation, behavioral analysis and political
physcology with different applications of quantitative methodology.
Jenna Kelkres Emery
Dissertation Title: "The Anti-Partisan: Social Identification and
Partisan Preference"
Chair: Jonathan S. Krasno
Committee: Gregory Robinson, Michael D. McDonald
Publications: "The First State Lobbyists: State Offices in Washington During World War II," in the Journal of Policy History. April 2011. (with Jennifer Jensen).
Jenna's research and teaching interests focus on American politics and
political behavior, much of it using theories of psychology and
sociology. She has taught courses on these topics and on public
administration. Her dissertation draws from literature on party
identification and social identity to examine the effect that social
groups have on our party preferences. She is a George L. Hinman Fellow
and currently a Visiting Scholar at Florida State University where she
is collaborating with faculty to conduct an experiment as part of her
dissertation.
Ian Farrell
Dissertation Title: "Taking the Lead: Presidential Party Leadership and its Influence on Congressional Politics"
Chair: Michael McDonald
Committee: Gregory Robinson & Jonathan Krasno
Ian's research and teaching interests focus on American politics, specifically: the presidency, the United States Congress, executive-legislative relations, political parties, and research methodology.
Benjamin Farrer
Dissertation Title: Substitutable Organizational Strategies for Policy Influence by Niche Interests
Chair: Olga Shvetsova
Committee:Mikhail Filippov and Michael D. McDonald
Ben's research interests center on environmental parties and pressure groups, as well as on formal and empirical methods. His dissertation explains the variety of organizational mechanisms used by niche interests to influence mainstream politicians.
Michael Flynn
Dissertation Title: "Those Halcyon Days: The Evolution of the American Foreign Policy Establishment"
Chair: Benjamin Fordham
Committee: David Clark and Olga Shvetsova
Michael's research interests include the causes and consequences of foreign policy, security, conflict, human rights/repression, the influence of private and non-state actors in world affairs, and network analysis. His dissertation examines the domestic underpinnings of America's liberal-internationalist foreign policy by looking at how major events in US foreign policy have impacted the partisan/bipartisan and professional characteristics of presidential appointments to the bureaucratic agencies responsible for crafting and implementing foreign policy. Beyond his dissertation, he also has a number of ongoing research projects that continue to pursue these lines of research.
Weiwei Hu
Dissertation title: "Career Ambition, Party Unity, and Party Policy Positioning: A Comparative Examination of Intra-party Organization, 1945 - 2010"
Chair: William B. Heller
Committee: Olga Shvetsova and Michael D. McDonald
Weiwei's research broadly centers on questions relevant to democratic procedures, democratization, and elite influence. Her research interests include comparative politics, political parties, legislatures, institutional analysis, and research methods (formal modeling, quantitative methods, and experimental methods). As the diversity of her research interests attests, she does not confine myself to a specific region or substantive field. Her interests and qualifications allow her to compare political institutions around the world in both advanced industrialized democracies as well as non democracies.
Her dissertation applies the principal-agent framework and examines the relationship between party leaders and rank-and-file members within a legislative party. She argues whether and when individual members utilize the institutional environment to wield influence on publicly-established party policy positions depends on how and to whom intra-party organization provides opportunities for such influence. Contrary to the expectations generated by veto player theory, the logic of her argument suggests that party policy positions are less likely to be consistent and predictable when high levels of party unity is a function of career ambition, and the ability of the leadership to put their will on rank-and-file members. To that end, her dissertation research provides a foundation for future research about how the internal dynamics among party members shape the inter-party bargaining and policy-making process.
Aparna Kher
Dissertation Title: "Know Then Thyself. Domestic Delegation, Information, Leadership Uncertainty and Foreign Policy Decisions during Crisis Bargaining"
Chair: David Clark
Committee: Benjamin Fordham, Olga Shvetsova, & Katri Sieberg
Aparna's research and teaching interests include: Domestic Forces in International Relations, Foreign Policy Decision-Making, Bargaining Models of War, Strategic Models of Interstate conflict and cooperation, US and Comparative foreign policy, political violence, civil wars, human rights, South Asian and Indian Politics and Foreign policy, and comparative bureaucracies. Research methods, game theory and experimental methods.
Julie Vandusky-Allen
Dissertation Title: "The Polycephalic Leviathan: The Concurrent Development of Centralized, Decentralized, and Private Property Protection Mechanisms within the State"
Chair: William Heller
Committee: Olga Shvetsova & David Clark
Julie's research interests include comparative political institutions, political parties, Latin American politics, and democratization. Her dissertation focuses on the development of property protection mechanisms in late colonial Spanish America. She received a Fulbright scholarship to collect data for this project during the 2008-2009 academic year. The Fulbright allowed her to live in Mexico City for the year while she collected data from the AGN and taught a class at ITAM. She also has working papers that examine how political parties adapt to legislative bicameralism (with William Heller) and how political parties adapt to term limits.
