Research

Book project

Building a Civil Rights Agenda: The Democratic Party and the Origins of Racial Liberalism

This book project, based on my dissertation, investigates the construction of a legislative agenda on civil rights during the realignment of U.S. political parties on racial issues (1933-68). Building on a literature that explores the timing and causes of party position change, my project turns its attention to the policy agenda at the center of the realignment. I explore why northern Democrats in Congress, who led the charge on civil rights legislation, advanced and prioritized some issues and proposals on the agenda while neglecting others. I argue that they selectively prioritized issues and proposals in order to balance competing pressures from within their party coalition. Since national parties are made up of varied local parties, variation in the structure of local party coalitions across the north shaped how susceptible differently-situated legislators were to these pressures.

Read full description of book project

Through analyses of bill sponsorship patterns and omnibus bill debates, I show that an expansive set of proposals emerged at the margins of the congressional agenda, but that northern Democrats selectively pursued a narrower agenda. They were most unified and assertive on southern-centric issues, such as voting rights. On issues that could affect their northern constituencies, they were cautious and selective: they aggressively pursued action on employment discrimination, but avoided other issues such as housing discrimination.

I argue that coalitional dynamics shaped these agenda-setting choices: northern Democrats faced competing pressures from new groups (e.g., Black voters and civil rights advocacy organizations) and existing groups (e.g., urban white voters and housing industry groups) in their party coalition. By pursuing a selective agenda, they could attempt some responsiveness toward new groups in their coalition while not alienating existing groups. Through analyses of congressional activity, public opinion data, archival records, and secondary sources, I show the presence of such competing pressures and politicians’ awareness of them.

These dynamics did not affect all northern Democratic politicians in the same way, since national parties are made up of varying local party coalitions. Taking a closer look at the small subset of legislators who pursued a more expansive civil rights agenda, I argue that their distinctiveness was enabled by the demographic composition of their districts and the structure of their local party coalitions. Through a comparison of Chicago, New York, and Detroit, I show that local parties varied in the extent to which they prioritized policy responsiveness (as opposed to other benefits such as patronage) when incorporating Black and other non-white voters into the coalition.

The project shows how racial liberalism—and the civil rights law it built—were limited from the start, constrained by the heterogenous and fractious northern Democratic party coalition. It also makes contributions to theories of political parties and party realignment.

Research on urban politics

Politics of gentrifying neighborhoods

My ongoing research project with Tom Ogorzalek and Matt Nelsen examines how gentrification shapes political experiences and attitudes, drawing on the Chicago Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Survey (CMANS), an original survey that included oversamples of rapidly changing neighborhoods and suburbs in the Chicago area.

Our article published in Urban Affairs Review examines how policing-related experiences and attitudes differ between gentrifiers and longtime residents. We find that the longstanding cross-neighborhood pattern of “over-policing and under-protection” is replicated within gentrifying neighborhoods, showing how forms of urban inequality may persist even as patterns of spatial segregation change.

A working paper examines how gentrification shapes perceptions of and experiences with neighborhood diversity, intervening in a longstanding debate among social scientists about whether neighborhood diversity promotes conflict (due to status threat) or reduces conflict (due to intergroup contact).

The emergence of factional politics in Chicago City Council

In an ongoing project, I explore factional conflict in Chicago’s non-partisan City Council. For two decades, council members focused on city service provision and largely delegated policymaking to the mayor, leaving little conflict in the legislative process. Since the mid-2010s, however, factional conflict has re-emerged in the Council. Analyzing roll call votes and a range of other evidence, I trace how three factions are gradually crystallizing: a progressive faction that seeks to advance a policy agenda, a reactionary faction that opposes the progressive agenda, and a non-ideological faction that prioritizes service provision over legislative functions.

Some early findings from this project are forthcoming in a chapter co-authored with Zack Taylor in the forthcoming Twenty-First Century Chicago (Cognella, 2026).

Commentary on local politics

For the Chicago Democracy Project at Northwestern University, I wrote several blog posts on current affairs in Chicago politics, including analyses of the 2019 mayoral election, the 2020 State’s Attorney election, experiences of policing, and fractures in the Democratic party coalition.

Research on law and public policy

Civil rights and social welfare policy

My article published in Studies in American Political Development examines the impact of civil rights law on social policy in the United States through a case study of family and medical leave policy. I argue that the distinctive gender-neutral and broad-coverage design of US family and medical leave policy lies in contestation over civil rights law. I summarized these findings in 3Streams and the Gender Policy Report.

Judicial power and democratic accountability in the policymaking process

My ongoing research project with Warren Snead explores how the politics of the contemporary Supreme Court affect democratic accountability in the policy process. This project includes three papers:

One article, published in The Forum, argues that the “major questions doctrine” exacerbates the prevalence of policy drift in federal governance.
One article, additionally co-authored with Robin Bayes and forthcoming in Journal of Law and Courts, examines how the public attributes responsibility for Supreme Court decisions and how political actors can change these attributions through strategic communication.
A working paper (under review) examines the relationship between political parties and the Court, revisiting concerns about the “counter-majoritarian difficulty” in light of contemporary conditions of high inter-party competition and high intra-party cohesion.

Research on race and political behavior

Partisanship and racial politics in the Civil War

My co-authored article with Nathan Kalmoe, published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, examines the distinct motives of the mass public, activists, and elites in the U.S. Civil War. We argue that partisanship better explains white northerners’ war participation than their racial views, and suggest that parties can effectively mobilize the mass public even when their preferences do not align with those of party elites.

Immigration policy and politics

My co-authored article with Natalie Masuoka and Jane Junn, published in Political Research Quarterly, argues that rates of political participation among Asian Americans must be interpreted in light of the structural barriers that the large proportion of non-citizens in this group face. We summarized the findings at the LSE US Centre’s American Politics and Policy blog.

For a full list of publications, ongoing projects, and presentations, see my CV.