DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Interests

Research Interest(s): American political economy; American political development; politics of housing, finance, credit, and debt; policy feedback; interest groups and social movements; racial and gender inequality; historical analysis

Program Area(s): American Politics

Regional Specialization(s): United States

Subfield Specialties: American Political Development; American Political Economy; Comparative Historical Analysis; Feminist and Gender Studies; Race, Ethnicity and Politics

Biography

Chloe Thurston is associate professor of political science and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. Her work focuses on the politics of economic and social policymaking, with particular interests in the politics of policy feedback, and in the political drivers and consequences of citizens' access to housing, credit, and financial markets.

Professor Thurston is the author of At The Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination and the American State (Cambridge University Press, 2018), co-author (with Emily Zackin) of The Political Development of American Debt Relief (University of Chicago Press, 2024), and has published numerous articles and book chapters. Her research has been recognized with several awards, including the J. David Greenstone Prize for the best book in Politics and History (co-winner, 2020; honorable mention, 2025), the Heinz Eulau Prize for the best article published in Perspectives on Politics (2023). Her public writings have appeared in the Monkey Cage, Made By History, Law and Political Economy Blog, The Daily Beast, Ms., and the Berlin Journal, and her work has been featured in outlets including The Atlantic, The Nation, and Marketplace.

Thurston received her B.A. in economics and political science from Johns Hopkins University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a member of the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 2019-2020, and an American Political Economy Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in 2025. She is co-editor (with Professor Dan Galvin) of the University of Pennsylvania Press Series, American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law, and Associate Editor of Perspectives on Politics.

Select Publications:

Book

• The Political Development of American Debt Relief. University of Chicago Press. 2024. Joint with Emily Zackin.
• At the Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination and the American State. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2018. 

Articles and Chapters

• 2026. "Financial Epidemiology: Linking Financialization to Population Health." Social Science & Medicine. No. 392 (2026). Joint with Joseph Bruch.
• "Building a Nation of Investors." In Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King, eds., Picking Winners: Citizenship, Central Banks, and Consumer Finance. Oxford University Press, 2026.
• "The Political Economy of Racial Capitalism in the United States." Annual Review of Political Science. Volume. 28 (2025): 521-41.
• "From the Margins to the Center: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship." Joint with Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle. Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 20, No. 1 (2022): 154-169.
• "How should we govern housing markets in a moral political economy?" Daedalus, Vol. 152, No. 1: 194-197, 2023.
• "Race and Historical Political Economy." In Oxford Handbook in Historical Political Economy, edited by Jeffrey Jenkins and Jared Rubin. Joint with David Bateman and Jacob Grumbach, 2023.
• "From the Margins to the Center: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship." Joint with Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle. Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 20, No. 1: 154-169, 2022.
• "Racial Inequality, Market Inequality, and the American Political Economy." Chapter 4 in Jacob Hacker, Alex Hertel-Fernandez, Paul Pierson, and Kathleen Thelen, eds., American Political Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press), 2021.
• "Hidden Fees?" UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review, Vol. 4, No. 1. 2020.
• "The Limited Party-Building Effects of Policy Feedback," chapter 2, in Phil Rocco and Zac Callen, eds. An Unsettled Time: American Political Development and the Trump Presidency, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Joint with Daniel Galvin. 2020.
• "From Personal to Partisan: Abortion, Party, and Religion Among California State Legislators." Joint with David Karol. Studies in American Political Development. Vol. 34. No. 1. 2020.
• "Black Lives Matter, American Political Development, and the Politics of Visibility." Politics, Groups, and Identities 6(1): 162-70. 2018.
• "Policy Feedback in the Public-Private Welfare State: Citizens Advocacy Groups and the Expansion of Access to Government Homeownership Programs." Studies in American Political Development 29(2):250-67. 2015.
• "From Metaphors to Measures: Observable Indicators of Gradual Institutional Change." Journal of Public Policy 34(1): 35-62. Joint with Phil Rocco. 2014.

Honors and Awards

• Berlin Prize Fellow, American Academy in Berlin, 2025
• APSA Heinz Eulau Award for best article published in Perspectives on Politics, 2023
• Distinguished Teaching Award, Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, 2022
• J. David Greenstone Book Award, American Political Science Association Politics and History section, 2020