News

Recent PhD Alex Cohen, along with UC Davis PhD alumni Cory Struthers and Professors Scott MacKenzie and Matthew Shugart, have published a new article in Political Research Quarterly, studying the effectiveness of intermittent advocacy and lobbying on climate-related bill outcomes in the California State Legislature. The authors develop an index of interest group diversity and show that letters of support from a diverse set of small, less politically active groups increase the likelihood that a bill passes committee.

Professors Brandon Kinne and Juan Tellez, along with current and former PhD students Anya Stewart, Shreya Murthy, and Patrick Bernhard, recently published an article in International Organization titled "Transnational Networks and Interstate Competition: How Support for Nonstate Actors Increases Conflict between States." Their research shows that government support for foreign nonstate actors -- such as terrorist organizations, rebel groups, and militias -- worsens relations between states and increases the risk of political violence.

Assistant Professor Hanno Hilbig has published "Do Autocrats Respond to Citizen Demands? Petitions and Housing Construction in the GDR" in Comparative Political Studies with Hans Lueders and Sascha Riaz. Using a novel panel of housing-related petitions to the East German government and a difference-in-differences design, the paper shows that construction was targeted at regions with higher petitioning rates. The findings demonstrate that citizen demands can yield tangible improvements in authoritarian regimes, contributing to scholarship on non-democratic responsiveness.

PhD Candidate Daniel Scates won the prestigious Bilinski Fellowship from UC Davis for the 2026-2027 academic year. This fellowship enables Daniel to focus on his research on the impacts of local and non-local exposure to Ukrainian refugees on support for the populist radical right. Congratulations Daniel!

Assistant Professor Hanno Hilbig has published "Estimating Controlled Direct Effects with Panel Data" in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A with Matthew Blackwell, Adam Glynn, and Connor Phillips. The paper develops a new semiparametrically efficient estimator for controlled direct effects that relaxes strong identification assumptions by leveraging panel data and a parallel trends design.

Associate Professor Juan Tellez and PhD candidate Anya Stewart published "Economic Subversion in Civil Wars: Evidence from the Colombian Armed Conflict" in International Studies Quarterly. The paper introduces the concept of 'economic subversion'—rebel attacks that disrupt normal economic activity and impose large costs on the state and civilians—and tests its logic using historical data from Colombia's armed conflict (1993–2010).

Professor Hanno Hilbig has published "The Gendered Persistence of Authoritarian Indoctrination" in the British Journal of Political Science with coauthors Nourhan A. Elsayed, Sascha Riaz, and Daniel Ziblatt. Using a regression kink design, the paper shows that exposure to authoritarian education in the GDR reduced support for democratic capitalism and reunification. Three decades later, these attitudinal effects persist only among men, not women, revealing gender disparities in the long-run legacies of authoritarian indoctrination.

Juan Tellez and Braeden Davis's new research published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution examines public attitudes toward ethnic federalism — a system that organizes subnational governments along ethnic lines — in Ethiopia. Using survey experiments with Ethiopian university students, the study investigates two core tensions: where ethnic group members should live relative to their designated state, and how power should be divided between central and regional governments.

Soon-to-be PhD Julian Haddad has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Political Science position at Solano Community College, starting this fall. Congratulations, Julian!

Recent PhD Yu-Shiuan (Lily) Huang has published an article in the British Journal of Political Science, entitled "Love Blinds? Winners, In-Party Favoritism, and Support for Violations of Democratic Norms." In this article, Huang asks why electoral winners are more willing to support democratic norm violations.