My research is situated at the intersection of urban politics, the politics of race and ethnicity, and American Political Development. These interests have led me to examine how geography and informal institutions shape politics and public policy. Methodologically, I integrate different approaches of data collection and analysis, including statistics, survey analysis, case studies, historical institutionalism, and geographic information systems.

I currently a visiting scholar at the Center for Urban Research at CUNY. I am also the co-Director of the Chicago Democracy Project at Northwestern University, Research Lead at Co-Lab Research, and a partner at 2040 Strategy Group. Previously, I’ve held academic positions at the Advanced Research Collaborative at the CUNY Graduate Center, the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University, the Centre d’études européenes and École Urbaine at Sciences-Po (Paris), and the Department of Political Science and Urban Studies Program at Northwestern University.

Click on (most of) the images from each piece below to read it in full.

The Cities on the Hill:
How Urban Institutions Transformed National Politics

My first book was published by Oxford University Press in 2018 in their series on Postwar American Political Development.

Over the second half of the 20th century, American politics was reorganized around race as the tenuous New Deal coalition frayed and eventually collapsed. What drove this change? I argue that the answer lies not in the sectional divide between North and South, but in the differences between how cities and rural areas govern themselves and pursue their interests on the national stage. Using a wide range of evidence from Congress and an original dataset measuring the urbanicity of districts over time, I show how the trajectory of partisan politics in America today was set in the very beginning of the New Deal. Both rural and urban America were riven with local racial conflict, but beginning in the 1930s, city leaders became increasingly unified in national politics and supportive of civil rights, changes that sowed the seeds of modern liberalism. A key theoretical insight of this analysis is that— paradoxically—the same local party institutions often identified as corrupt or repressive can help bridge the divides that keep Americans apart.

Cities on the Hill was awarded a Best Book prize from the American Political Science Association section on the Politics of Race and Ethnicity, and an Honorable Mention for the J. David Greenstone Prize for Best Book in Politics and History. It was reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, The Journal of Urban History, and The Boston Globe. Here are some slides from a recent presentation I gave using some of the arguments from this book.

In 1980, NYC was hollowed out. Read for-print draft here.

In 1980, NYC was hollowed out. Now it’s not. Chapter proofs here.

The City Re-centered? Local Inequality Mitigation in the 21st Century

Proponents of a “New Localism” have suggested that national gridlock and recent urban “renaissance” may make cities a relatively promising site for addressing inequality and collaborative problem solving on major issues. This chapter assesses the premises of that argument by analyzing changes in property value concentration and decommodifying policies across major U.S. cities I find that while the urban renaissance is indeed real–especially in cities with booming knowledge economy sectors–there is only limited evidence that such a boom has generated significant local policy effort to spread the wealth to benefit most city-zens. In Thelen et al (eds) The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power. Link to ungated chapter here.

Working Families, Global Cities

Some analysts see cities as islands of pragmatic responsibility in a sea of divisive polarization. But has anything really changed from previous eras, when deep divisions made cities “ungovernable” in the face of overwhelming structural forces?

Engaging a wide array of original evidence from the U.S. and abroad (and some of the other pieces described below), this book takes a closer look at how shifting political economy and political demography present both opportunities and challenges for cities (and their residents). This book is under contract with Oxford University Press. Here is the manuscript description and here are the slides for two recent presentations on two of the book’s analyses.

Support for Emanuel dropped more near closed schools. (For-print version)

Support for Emanuel dropped more near closed schools. (For-print version)

Close to Home: Place-Based Mobilization in Racialized Contexts

(With Sally Nuamah) American Political Science Review. Most research finds that Americans don’t care much about local politics, and voters with fewer resources and less formal education are less tuned in. The dramatic protests in big cities across the nation suggest these insights need a revision. We employ survey data, election results, and spatial-difference-in-difference techniques to analyze how Black Chicagoans responded to a massive wave of school closures: they increased their civic participation to learn about the policy change, and then organized and mobilized to oppose the closures, and incumbent mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who implemented them. Our findings suggest that when a policy negatively targets a community, residents organize and mobilize to oppose the policy change and hold accountable the officials in charge. Appendix linked here pending APSR upload. Link to summary of this paper and Nuamah’s broader project here.

Rep. John Rankin (D-MS/CSA), who wore a Confederate flag necktie when he argued against racial integration.

Rep. John Rankin (D-MS/CSA), who wore a Confederate flag necktie when he argued against racial integration.

Pride or Prejudice? Racial Prejudice, Southern Heritage, and White Support for the Confederate Battle Flag

(With Spencer Piston and Logan Strother) Debates about the meaning of Southern symbols such as the Confederate battle emblem are sweeping the nation. These debates typically revolve around the question of whether such symbols represent “heritage or hatred:” racially innocuous Southern pride or White prejudice against Blacks. In order to assess these competing claims, we first examine the historical reintroduction of the Confederate flag in the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s; next, we analyze three survey datasets, including one nationally representative dataset and two probability samples of White Georgians and White South Carolinians, in order to build and assess a stronger theoretical account of the racial motivations underlying such symbols than currently exists. While our findings yield strong support for the hypothesis that prejudice against Blacks bolsters White support for Southern symbols, support for the Southern heritage hypothesis is decidedly mixed. Despite widespread denials that Southern symbols reflect racism, racial prejudice is strongly associated with support for such symbols.

Link to article here and ungated here. Related LSE Blog post here. Related Washington Post Monkey Cage post here.

Bosses Daley and Dawson. Read for-print draft.

Bosses Daley and Dawson. Read for-print draft.

In the Streets and on the Hill: Paradoxical Pluralisms and Civil Rights, 1921-1964

This chapter, in Dilworth and Weaver, eds (2018), contrasts the positioning of big-city leaders on civil rights and racial justice issues at the local and national levels during the Long New Deal. The national anti-racist pro-civil rights coalition included some of the same persons who upheld and exacerbated racial hierarchies in local politics. This seeming contradiction suggests that it is more useful to think of the fight for minority rights in a democracy as a coalitional politics of uneasy alliances, rather than a Manichean ideological struggle between members of transformative egalitarian and white supremacist racial orders.

Ungated version

Ungated version

Locally Rich, Nationally Poor: Income, Place, and White Voters in the 2016 Presidential Election.

(With Spencer Piston and Luisa Godinez Puig) The relationship between income and voting has weakened dramatically in recent cycles. But the typical measure of household income fails to account for the fact that a given absolute income level (e.g., the national average of $54,000 per year) might mean something very different in Clay County, GA, where the median income is about $22,000, than in Greenwich, CT, where it’s $203,000. We estimate a measure measure of voters’ place in their local income distribution, and find that Republican presidential support is concentrated among nationally poor but locally affluent whites. These results suggest that social scientists interested in class and politics would do well to conceive of income not just in absolute terms but also in relative terms: relative to one’s neighbors. Link to Washington Post Monkey Cage blog post here.

Our respondents

Our respondents

Chicagoland Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Study

(With Traci Burch, Matthew Nelsen, Kumar Ramanathan, and Reuel Rogers, Maria Abascal, and Delia Baldassari) This survey project investigates the opinions and behaviors of Chicagoland residents. We are seeking to learn more about how people feel about their neighborhoods, what their policy priorities are, and how that connects to politics. We’re using the data for initial papers and analyses now. Here are two examples here and here.

The pilot study for the project was generously supported by a Weinberg College “W” Seed Grant and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics.

L’arbre et sa pomme (qui n’est pas tombée trop loin). A lire.

L’arbre et sa pomme (qui n’est pas tombée trop loin). A lire.

When the Second Dimension Comes First: Culture-First Forces and the Politics of Social Provision

(with Quinn Mulroy). We approach contemporary xenophobic populism from a different angle by focusing on the political priorities of these groups rather than their political style. We introduce the alternative concept of culture-first forces: blocs that prioritize their “2nd-dimension” (cultural) preferences over the “1st dimension” (economic) concerns. What types of policy and governance positions are we to expect from such forces? We identify the sequence of welfare statebuilding, salient social diversity, and culture-first force emergence as crucial for explaining the policy trajectories of culture-first forces. We illustrate this model with a comparative historical analysis of two cases of culture-first forces in leading western democracies: white southern Democrats in the U.S. and the Front National in France. Dixiecrats and the FN dramatically shifted their positions on redistribution and capitalism while defending their exclusionary cultural positions. Over time, these shifts shaped and were shaped by the distinct political systems in which they operate. See latest version here.

Unions Can Help White Workers Become More Racially Tolerant

(With Paul Frymer and Jake Grumbach) This chapter, in Cornell and Barenberger, eds (2022), reviews and presents new research on the relationship between unions and racial attitudes among white Americans. While unions have had a mixed history of promoting interracial comity in the workplace and society more generally, recent evidence presented suggests that white union members are less likely to express racial resentment views than similar respondents. This relationship between union membership and racial liberalism has strengthened since the 1990s. You can read the chapter here.

 

Voting against their interests?

What’s the Matter with Park Slope? Interests, Issues, and Identities in 2013 NYC Mayoral Election

This presentation describes the political geography of issue and candidate support in the 2013 NYC mayoral election, identifying a core area of support for “Working Families” issues in relatively affluent gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Upper West Side. This bloc represents an emerging ideological and electoral faction within New York’s increasingly consolidated Democratic Party dominance.

Posting about national issues or policing makes waves.

Alders generate clickbait, too!

Going Viral and Making Waves: Social Media Use Among Aldermen in Chicago, 2015-2018.

(With Kumar Ramanathan) This paper, part of a larger project on place-based Facebook groups in Chicago, tests theories of “professional” and “amateur” politicians’ communication patterns on social media. We find that ideologically outspoken posts about non-local issues garner more community engagement, especially after the 2016 national election, but that such dramatic position-taking on high-profile issues carries risks as well as rewards, generating both polarized debate and potentially short-circuiting career advancement. You can read the paper here. An MPSA presentation based on the paper is here.

Filibuster Vigilantly: The Liminal State and 19th Century U.S. Expansion

Nineteenth-century American territorial expansion was accomplished in a variety of ways: war, purchase, treaty, and annexation are the most famous. This paper examines another phenomenon that contributed to American expansion, the filibuster. Filibusters—privately organized and executed invasions of other countries, launched from American soil—were banned under Neutrality Laws from 1794 on, but throughout the antebellum era they often received tacit (or, in some cases, material) support from important state actors. By differentially enforcing anti-filibuster laws, the American state manipulated the behavior of these private actors and the outcomes of their adventures, effectively using filibusters as a tool for foreign policy implementation. Through the example of the filibuster, I theorize the contexts in which the American state actors has fostered private violence by its proxies and argue that liminal institutions like the filibuster are the hallmark of the liberal state.

 

What even is urban?

The state of urban research: Views across the disciplines

(With Harold Wolman, William Barnesa , Jennifer Clark, Samantha Friedman, Richard Harris, and Jeffrey Lin). Journal of Urban Affairs. An “urban” subfield exists in virtually every social science discipline, but these subfields seldom engage one another. We asked scholars from five urban subfields to respond to questions about the state of urban research within their discipline. This article consists of their consequent essays and reflections on their responses. The questions posed included the discipline’s conception of “urban,” the main concerns motivating the subfield, the primary methodologies pursued, the extent to which their subfield interacted with or was informed by research in other urban subfields, and the main concepts or approaches it had to offer to other subfields or might take away from them. In our reflections, we particularly note the intellectual and institutional difficulties in creating a broader field of urban research or of engaging in truly inter-disciplinary research. We also highlight the desirability of greater engagement across these subfields through encouraging a “republic of conversation” among them. Open access availability here.

Wither the machine?

Commentary on the 2023 Chicago Election

These are the slides for a short presentation I gave at Northwestern’s Center for Civic Engagement on the 2023 Election. It draws on a poll from the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy that I worked on, as well as electoral returns.

Guaranteed Income and Worker Power

(With Community Change) This working paper provides a theoretically informed literature review of the likely effects of guaranteed income (GI) programs on worker power. Because no generous, wide-scale GI programs have been enacted in capitalist democracies, insights are drawn from economic theory and programs that approximate aspects of a GI. I argue that, contra traditional accounts of welfare state development that assert labor power as causally (because historically) prior to generous social provision, GI programs, if implemented and secured, would likely enhance worker power at both the individual and collective levels.

 

Now more than ever

Once Unimaginable, Now Inevitable: Governors Respond to 21st Century Hurricanes

What factors shape effective emergency response by state leaders? This chapter considers how political alliances and rivalries shaped the responses by leaders in Louisiana and Mississippi during the emergency period of response to Hurricane Katrina. It further critiques the “permanent emergency” of contemporary U.S. disaster relief policy, emphasizing the importance for legislative leadership—and the democratic peril of reliance on emergency orders—in an area of policy that is likely to become an increasingly important and regular part of public policy as the climate crisis intensifies. Forthcoming in Governors and the Crises that Define Them, Rutgers University Press. Pre-proof draft here.

You know it when you see it.

Good neighbors? Experiences of policing in Chicago’s gentrifying neighborhoods

(with Kumar Ramanathan and Matthew Nelsen; Forthcoming at Urban Affairs Review.) As many urban neighborhoods are transformed by gentrification, do longstanding patterns of unequal policing persist or transform? This article uses an original survey of Chicago residents and crime reporting data to assess whether gentrifiers and longtime residents of gentrifying neighborhoods experience and interact with policing differently. Our findings suggest that longstanding patterns of unequal policing persist within gentrifying neighborhoods, even without the sharp neighborhood segregation normally associated with those patterns. We also find evidence that while the average gentrifier has low levels of police contact, a subset of gentrifiers who do call the police are more likely to call about quality-of-life issues compared to neighbors and residents of other neighborhoods. Our methodological approach provides a blueprint for how survey research can be used to provide insights on individual-level experiences and attitudes in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Underwhelming and waning: Support for neoliberalism in the U.S. public

(With Spencer Piston, Denise Baron, Zander Furnas, and Data For Progress) This project, supported by the Hewlett Foundation, examines the distribution of public opinion about neoliberal principles and policies in the U.S. public using original survey data. Using K-means clustering, we identify segments of the public who embrace or reject different dimensions of neoliberal ideological commitments. Using available data from previous studies, we also assess how these attitudes have changed over time. Forthcoming.

 

What Should Democrats Do to “Win Back” Black Men?

This research brief for 2040 Strategy Group examines polling evidence to offer a deep dive into the ideological structure of Black men’s political opinions and their attachment to the Democratic Party. Contrary to the cultural conservatism thesis prevalent among Democratic strategists, we find that Black men are on average slightly more liberal on both cultural and economic issues than the public at large. Building a strategy to appeal to this small, more conservative segment of Black men would move messaging farther away from the majority of Black men and the majority of the Black community, potentially alienating, confusing, or demobilizing the significant majority of this key segment of the party’s base.

Organizing to Win: Real change relies on grassroots organizing

This forum essay (with Dorian Warren) contributes to a forum in the Boston Review about the fraught dynamics of the 21st-century Democratic coalition. While the conversion of many highly-educated, relatively affluent voters into the Democratic coalition presents new challenges for holding together a heterogeneous electoral majority, it also presents opportunities for consolidating a metropolitan coalition and strengthening effective governance. And the Party must continue efforts to meet working-class voters of all stripes where they are, allowing them to see government work for them and to see themselves in the party’s image.

Who Governs Now?

This review essay in Political Science Quarterly assesses the rebirth of local politics studies in the United States. While conventional wisdom holds that local democracy is more responsive and potentially better positioned to address some of the major issues of our time, scholars of local politics have always been skeptical of that view. A new generation of political scientists has applied a wide range of sophisticated analytical tools that helps us go beyond the older set of case studies and demonstrate the serious democratic deficits that exist in local government in the U.S. While this quantitative approach helps update the field, when taken to the extreme it adopts a level of abstraction that makes it hard for strategic democracy-builders to know what to do from here. Adopting the more grounded mixed-methods approaches of comparativists may help reorient our subfield for its next generation of development.

 

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