DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Project: This book project is motivated by the question of how the ancient Chinese conceptualized the political community in the absence of the freedom and slavery duality that has been so central to political thinking in the West. I reconstruct the ancient Confucian conception of the political community on the basis of the portrayal, in the Five Confucian Classics, of those persons who occupy low positions in the social hierarchy: women, concubines, servants, peasants, artisans, convicts, and foreigners.

Position & time commitment

The Fellow will:

• Search for, read, summarize, and annotate contemporary secondary literature in both Chinese and English on topics related to the book project.
• This position can be remote.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow participating in this project will:

• Learn how to write good précis of articles and books, summarizing succinctly the main arguments and using proper citation form.
• Gain first-hand experience of how research in political theory, and especially the history of political thought, proceeds.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Critical reading skills
• Proficiency in reading modern and, ideally, Classical Chinese.

Learn more about Professor Loubna El Amine | Apply Here »

Project: Global kidnapping has spiked dramatically over the last several decades, as armed groups abduct civilians in war. While hostage-takers ravage communities and confound policymakers, there has been limited scholarly examination of this tool of coercion. Why do some armed groups kidnap for ransom, whereas others do not? How do armed groups kidnap? And does kidnapping "work" for perpetrators? In Ransom, and Rebellion, I explain the causes, conduct, and consequences of kidnapping by armed groups. To do so, I draw on evidence from more than 100 interviews with ex-combatants and former hostages from the Colombian civil war, as well as secondary evidence about armed-group kidnapping in India and the Middle East.

As part of the project, Farrell Fellows will transcribe testimonials and hearings from Colombia's Jurdcción Especial para la Paz (Special Jurisdiction for Peace or JEP), its transitional justice court. The JEP has posted videos from Case 01, its years-long investigation of hostage-taking in the Colombian civil war. https://www.jep.gov.co/macrocasos.case01.html

After transcription, Fellows will participate in early stages of analyzing evidence, by analyzing and coding transcripts using NVivo software.

Position & time commitment:

As part of this project, Fellow(s) will:

• Watch or listen to the JEP testimonials and transcribe and translate the testimonials from Spanish to English;
• Assist in processing the transcripts, by coding and analyzing empirical evidence using NVivo, a software for analyzing qualitative data;
• Observe and participate in a one-day book manuscript workshop in May 2024, in which the book manuscript draft will be presented to a group of scholars from Northwestern and other universities. 

Hours may be split between two fellows. The project will have more work at the start of the fellowship, with a preference for hours completed in December, January, and the first half of February.

Research Training & Outcomes:

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will gain:

• Knowledge about the challenges and benefits of conducting "desk research" on political violence, preparing them to be thoughtful in witnessing, analyzing, and discussing political violence and civilian victimization;
• Knowledge about the dynamics of hostage-taking in the Colombia civil war and the ongoing transitional justice process there;
• A range of research skills, including proficiency in data analysis using NVivo software and analytical skills required to evaluate data to identify patterns and trends.
• By participating in the resulting book manuscript workshop, I hope that Fellow(s) learn about the value of their contributions to a long-term research project.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

Fellow(s) should have:

• Working proficiency in Spanish;
• Have a strong interest in learning to use NVivo
• Have a strong interest in learning about the causes and consequences of kidnapping in Colombia;
• Be prepared to listen to testimonials about armed group violence.

Learn more about Professor Danielle Gilbert | Apply Here »

Project: Industry associations provide a crucial channel for the transmission of elite public opinion about the advisability of certain policies. They are also, by reputation and, according to observable metrics, some of the most important influential lobbying organizations around. But whose interests do trade associations represent, and why among their members?  By linking IRS non-profit tax records from 2009 - 2020, data from biographical information from BoardEx, and public social media profiles, we conduct a study inspired by Dahl's famous "Who Governs?" to examine who governs US trade associations and provide a roadmap for future research on the topic by discussing a number of more specific questions.

These include:

• Are inequalities in resources of influence "cumulative" or "noncumulative"? That is, do firms which are well represented on the boards of trade associations also rank highly on other commonly used measures of political influence?
• How do trade associations make political decisions?
• What kinds of firms and people have the greatest influence on the decisions of trade associations? From what sectors and from which strata within a sector are board members and the firms they represent? How frequent are interlocking trade association board memberships?
• Do trade association board members tend to cohere in the policies promoted by the association or do they tend to conflict and bargain? Is the pattern of leadership oligarchical or pluralistic?
• Are the patterns of influence in trade associations durable or changing? In general, what are the sources of change stability in the ecosystem of trade associations?
• How important is the concept of egalitarianism among members for the functioning of trade associations? Even as we leave many of these questions for future research, we present the first systematic evidence on the backgrounds of board members of trade associations, examine turnover on their boards and evaluate the hypothesis that corporations may at times be able to capture associations and extend their political influence. 

Position & time commitment

•  Hours will be split between two (2) Fellows who ideally work 5 - 10 hours each per week during term time.

This position can be held remotely.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow(s) will:

• Prepare publications quality figures and tables;
• Canvas the academic literature for scholarship that is related to our inquiry;
• Canvas journalistic accounts to identify articles that are related to our inquiry;
• Find and link outside data sources to our growing database.

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will gain:

• The opportunity to get involved in a hands-on way in the research process, developing familiarity with contemporary research methodologies, data analysis, and communication practices;
• Better insight into the field of political science and social science more generally, as well as the policymaking process and the functioning of private organizations
• The chance to work with an international team of leading scholars working on the topic of money in politics;
• The opportunity to develop general professional skills, including time management, project management, communication, and so forth, which are transportable across settings;
• Strengthening critical thinking skills, in particular, learning how to ask questions about data and theories in ways that are seldom taught (and hard to teach) in the classroom setting.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• R or Python
• Latex

Learn more about Professor Brian Libgober | Apply Here »

Project: Ageing politicians are urged by competitors, pundits, and the electorate to retire. Childish politicians are mocked by the media, and their power is strikingly incongruous with the fact that millions of young citizens are denied the vote simply on account of their age and supposed immaturity. First-time votes are often disproportionately influenced by celebrities who have little knowledge or understanding of political complexities. In multiple democracies, generational divides increasingly map onto entrenched partisan differences. This book project aims to explore moral issues bearing on these and other political controversies - all concerning political power through the natural life cycle.

Position & time commitment

As part of this project, Fellow(s) will be:

• Tracing empirical examples to be used in constructing normative arguments;
• Reading drafts of the evolving book manuscript and offering substantive comments; 
• Adjusting article components of this project for different journals across political science and philosophy.

This position can be pursued remotely. 

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will gain:

• Exposure to the different stages of research and argument construction in analytical political philosophy.

Preferred Skills and Experience

Preferred skills the Fellow should have:

• Background in analytical moral and/or political philosophy

Learn more about Professor Shmulik Nili | Apply Here »

Project: Health is a critical part of the inequality between haves and have-nots in our society. Unfortunately, poor health is both an example of and a contributor toward inequality. The relationships are:

1. Being in poor health reduces one’s capacity to work, and increases one’s expenses, thus lowering the individual’s socio-econmonic status, and
2. Being low in socio-economic status exposes people to unhealthy conditions and make its less likely they will receive the care they need.

I am interested in the ways in which health differences among citizens may affect the quality of democratic representation as well as how people engage with politics. If people with chronic health conditions are less apt to vote than their healthier counterparts, there is the potential for “representational distortion” if the policy preferences of the separate groups systematically diverge.

Importantly, however, on issues of health care reform, differences between votes and nonvoters are larger than on many other policy issues such as abortion or foreign policy (Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 2012; Pew Research Center for the People and the Press 2012)

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking a fellow for the winter and spring quarters (January 2024 – June 2024)
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work-study positions
• The student will need to meet/work in person

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellows will assist with research on health and politics. They will oversee and take part in several stages of the research process, including pre-registering analysis with the OSF, finding and writing about the literature in the field, cleaning data, and creating tables and figures. In short, I seek someone to take part in all aspects of the research process.

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Gain a greater understanding of political science research – including how we move from research questions, to hypotheses, to data and to analysis
• Improved critical thinking skills
• Better insight into the field of political science and social sciences more generally
• Develop general professional skills including time management, project management, communications and so forth, which are transportable across settings.
• Critical thinking skills, in particular, learning how to ask questions about data and theories in ways that are seldom taught (and hard to teach) in the classroom setting.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• The Fellows will assist with research on health and politics. They will oversee and take part in several stages of the research process. Including pre-registering analysis with the OSF, finding and writing about the literature in the field, and also in cleaning data and in creating tables and figures. In short, I seek someone to take part in all aspects of the research process.

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Gain a greater understanding of political science research – including how we move from research questions, to hypotheses, to data, and to analysis
• Improved critical thinking skills
• Better insight into the field of political science and social sciences more generally
• Develop general professional skills, including time management, project management, communications, and so forth, which are transportable across settings.
• Critical thinking skills, in particular, learning how to ask questions about data and theories in ways that are seldom taught (and hard to teach) in the classroom setting.

Learn more about Professor Matt Pryor  |  Apply Here »

Project: This project follows up on a previous project that investigated the political invovvlement of billionaires across the globe in the contemporary era. Here we are interested in the political involvement on millionaires in the Gilded Age in the US. We have identified two lists of the richest Americans from the early 1900s and we want to match these lists with candidates for public office (Congress, governor, state legislature) to determine whether they ever ran for office. This would help to contextualize our finding that around 11% of current billionaires have run for or held some political office and see whether it applies in another era with high levels of inequality.

Position & time commitment

As part of this project, Fellow(s) will:

• Be responsible for matching a dataset on millionaires with datasets on political candidates and then conducting historical and statistical research to determine whether there are any errors - ie, whether the millionaire and the candidate were in fact the same person
• Conduct additional analyses to understand the correlates of millionaire political involvement. These analyses would consider variables like geography, age, and insdustry.

The project is flexible across the winter and spring quarters. This position is able to be remote.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will:

• Gain knowledge both of the type of millionaires at the time and the types of people who ran for political office;
• Become familiar with the complexities of constructing a useable dataset from historicial materials;
• Have the opportunit to use the data to conduct their own analyses and potentially write a senior thesis. 

Preferred Skills and Experience

Preferred skills the Fellow should have:

• Some statistical or data management skills - converting text to data, merging and cleaning datsets, finding data from the internet.

Learn more about Professor Andrew Roberts  |  Apply Here »

Project: Research on the use of secret court proceedings to hide massive transfers of taxpayer funds appropriated for health care to Fortune 50 insurance firm officials and shareholders is a recent component of ongoing investigations in which Fellows do hands-on research investigating the implications of government privacy and secrecy for the rule of law. The project includes constitutional litigation in Illinois and research for a law review article. 

Position & time commitment

As part of this project, Fellow(s) will:

• Conduct primary legal research on Illinois appellate procedures; this will include making requests for briefs and orders from the Illinois appellate court division in downtown Chicago and may require trips to the court administration office.
• Fellow(s) may also draft briefs and FOIA requests.
• Fellow(s) must be self-administering and coordinate their work with the other students working on this project.

During the winter quarter, the Fellow(s) will need to be available for two (2) hours a week on either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday; the remaining three (3) hours of work can be remote. No onsite presence is required for the Spring Quarter.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will gain:

• Will acquire professional competencies in legal research on scholarship and case law
• Training on the Freedom of Information Act

Preferred skills the Fellow should have:

• Fellow(s) must be able to work independently, meet their commitments, and make use of university research librarians;
• Fellow(s) should have a strong interest in legal research.

Learn more about Professor Jacqueline Stevens  |  Apply Here »

Project: This project examines the consequences of "divisive concepts" bans (for example, restrictions on the teaching of issues involving race and racism or gender identity) in state and local contexts, for political socialization, engagement, and attitudes among teens and their parents. 

Although an upsurge of public fervor over curricula is not novel (Moreau 2004), there has been a resurgence focused on restrictive educational policies in recent years. For example, by January of 2023, 563 separate anti-"critical race theory" measures were proposed across local and state elections (UCLA 2022), with legislation introduced in 42 state legislatures and adopted in 16 (Bissell 2023, Waxman 2023). Similarly, 37 states in 2022-23 banned certain titles from school libraries - a marked increase over prior years (Meehan and Friedman, 2023). 

Extant research focuses on how these laws were implemented, with less attention to the consequences for stakeholders most affected by these rules. To address this gap, we will analyze data collected from a new parent-teen dyad survey, combined with new measures of state and local educational policy contentiousness.

Position & time commitment

The Fellow(s) will:

• Work with the research team (which includes Professor Thurston and Professor Bonilla (SESP)) to collect and compile data on state and local divisive concepts legislation;
• To maintain an up-to-date literature review on the topic;
• To assist with the analysis of a survey that is currently being fielded.

The hours will be split between two fellows and this position can be remote.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will gain:

• Insight and hands-on experience into the research process, from learning how to track new literature on a topic that has seen a surge in interest in recent years;
• Learning how political scientists develop new contextual measures;
• Insight from the experience of working on a small team collaboration, learning how to effectively communicate, divide tasks, and share and manage data.

Preferred Skills and Experience

The Fellow(s) should:

• Have basic familiarity with searching through databases using Excel or similar spreadsheet programs.

Learn more about Professor Chloe Thurston | Apply Here »

Project: What are the legacies of civil war on the individuals and communities that endure it? This project seeks to investigate how experiences during wartime influence political behavior and local politics in Colombia. Studies across various disciplines have investigated the effects of wartime violence on different outcomes; yet this literature misses a crucial distinction: civil war is about much more than violence, chaos, and destruction. Societies undergoing civil war experience complex social, political, and economic transformations. Armed groups rely on many strategies beyond violence and interact with societal actors not just as their perpetrators but also as their allies, competitors, and rulers. Individuals, families, and communities are impacted, and often transformed, in profound ways. Institutions change and, with them, the patterns of social, economic, and political interaction. This project seeks to investigate the legacies of these wartime experiences on political behavior and local politics.

As part of this project, we recently conducted focus groups and interviews in various communities where guerrillas, paramilitaries, and criminal groups have operated throughout the country. We gathered data on the current situation of communities; individuals' views on the civil war, memory, and its legacies; and the presence and activities of various types of non-state actors. Farrell Fellows will participate in the early stages of analyzing this evidence.

 

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer quarter (June 2023 – September 2023)

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellows will:

• Assist in processing recordings and transcripts of interviews and focus groups conducted in conflict zones. This entails organizing, coding, and analyzing empirical evidence using NVivo, a software for analyzing qualitative data.
• Assist in conducting literature reviews related to the project.
• If there is enough time, Fellows may work on a coauthored paper describing some of the findings of the data they help analyze.

The Fellow participating in this project will:

• Learn about the dynamics of civil war and their long-term impacts on individuals and communities.
• Develop proficiency in data analysis using NVivo software.
• Learn to assess the state of the art in a field and integrate it into a research project.
• Improve research and analytical skills by finding, analyzing, synthesizing, and reporting on multiple sources.
• Enhance analytical skills through the critical evaluation of data and the identification of patterns and trends.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Proficiency in Spanish (required)
• Previous coursework in comparative politics (desired but not required)
• Strong interest in learning to use NVivo
• Strong interest in learning about politics in rural areas, political violence and its legacies and/or local governance

Learn more about Professor Ana Arjona |  Not accepting new applications

Project: The CDP project will entail examining the 2023 mayoral election to uncover minority voting trends and/or patterns. Building off of the CSDD mayoral election poll that I helped conduct this spring, we will use the results to highlight the role of co-ethnicity in voter choice, the importance of coalition politics and specific GOTV and other mobilization efforts. The project examines electoral outcomes at the ward and precinct-level and will use census demographic to match the profile of voters at the block level. The project is also interested in looking at Latino/a political participation trends for the last four mayoral election cycles.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer, fall, winter, spring quarters (June 2023 – June 2024).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow will:

• Collect elections return data
• Incorporate demographic Census information into the existing CDP database
• Analyze election returns using statistical and GIS software
• Be trained in GIS and/or Stata/R to help build maps and other visuals of election results

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Learn to work with election and census data. The goal is to gain a greater understanding of the role of institutions and to develop their quantitative and qualitative skill set to help interpret empirical data.
• Improve interpersonal and communications skills
• Contribute to the CDP website by writing original blog posts based on the findings  uncovered

Preferred Skills and Experience

• The fellow will be required to use several kinds of software, including Excel, Stata and GIS 
• High degree of interest in urban politics and in engaging with data analysis using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Learn more about Professor Jaime Dominguez  |  Not accepting new applications

Project: The only of its kind multi-disciplinary project to study the impact of COVID-19 on Americans outlining over-time surveys with large samples of every state in the country. This allows the study of both the temporal and spatial aspects of COVID-19. A primary objective is to understand the impact of the pandemic on individuals, especially members of vulnerable communities. This includes the effects on health, political views, economic hardship, individual behaviors, social relations, and more. The project thus far has produced more than 100 reports, dozens of published papers, and played a role in state and national policymaking. The COVID-19 project led us to develop novel data collection approaches to obtain large state level samples. The last few years has seen a shift to greater state power on policies such as abortion, guns, climate change, vaccines, education (critical race theory debates), voting rights, etc. We plan to deploy the survey to study these and other topics.

Thus far, I have worked with fourteen undergraduate students on the project (including via the Farrell program) – their tasks range from constructing codebooks, overseeing aspects of data collection, data analyses, co-authoring reports, and co-authoring academic articles.

The project’s website can be found here.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the fall quarter (September 2023 – December 2023).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellows will:

• Review literature, design survey, analyze data, write reports/papers.

The Fellows participating in this project will gain:

• Experience on the research process from start to finish.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Some background working with data.
• Excel and stata

Learn more about Professor James Druckman | Not accepting new applications

Project: This project consists of providing research assistance for a series of essays that investigate democracy and democratic backsliding from a comparative and international perspective. The first essay, tentatively titled “Why Democracy is Important,” will consider the pros and cons of democratic systems with a focus on a fundamental fact about democracies: They are overwhelmingly less likely than their authoritarian or totalitarian counterparts to murder or violently repress their citizens. The second essay, tentatively titled “21st Century Threats to Democracy,” will examine the novel challenges that threaten to undermine democracy in the decades to come, including artificial intelligence, climate change, and the emergence of “post-truth” societies. All these challenges risk exacerbating populism and polarization, two of the forces that have significantly contributed to democratic backsliding in recent years. The third essay, tentatively titled “The Domestic Politics of Russia’s Invasion,” will emphasize the role of democracy’s collapse in Russia’s invasions of Ukraine. If even a modicum of democracy, such as freedom of the press, had survived in Russia, it would have been far more difficult for Putin to mobilize society in support of war. Finally, a fourth essay, tentatively titled “When Did Putin Turn Against the West?”, will argue that analysts seeking the roots of the schism between Russia and the West should focus less on Putin’s reactions to NATO enlargement and more on how the US invasion of Iraq – an invasion justified in part by a democracy promotion agenda – shaped his view of the US-led world order. These topics will be developed in multiple essay formats, some targeted at peer-reviewed publication and others with a broader popular audience in mind.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking a Fellow for the summer, fall, winter, and spring quarters (June 2023 – June 2024)

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellows will:

• Play a central role in creating and validating a dataset of 20th century atrocities committed by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes for the first essay, “Why Democracy is Important”.
•  Conduct a comprehensive literature review of the potential effects of artificial intelligence and climate change on democracy, as well as compile a database of news reports providing illustrative examples of these effects for the second essay, “21st Century Threats to Democracy”
• Conduct a literature review of ongoing debates about the domestic versus international factors underlying Putin’s decision to invade for the third essay, “The Domestic Politics of Russia’s Invasion”
•  Develop a database of Putin’s speeches and other public statements (nearly all of which are available in English translation) pertaining to relations with the West for the fourth essay, “When Did Putin Turn Against the West?”

The Fellow participating in this project develop widely applicable skills for planning and implementing larger-scale research projects, including:

• Strategies for identifying datasources
• Organizing data
• Summarizing information

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Taken courses in Comparative Politics, American Politics, and/or International Relations
• Experience identifying pertinent academic studies, news articles, and primary sources (e.g., Putin’s speeches) using Google Scholar, internet searches, and other relevant tools
• Experience writing literature reviews (for class papers, internships, or previous research assistantships) is a plus
• Ability to write well and work independently is essential
• Reading knowledge of Russian is welcomed but is not required and is less important than general research and writing skills

Learn more about Professor Jordan Gans-Morse | Not accepting new applications

Project: In 2020, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan announced that she would not be seeking re-election. A central reason was threats of violence against her and her family. Ms. Durkan is not alone. In recent years, threats of violence have targeted elected officials at all levels of government. These threats of physical harm and instances of actual violence are aimed at intimidating political actors and changing their political behavior in ways consistent with the political preferences of the people issuing the threats. They are thus a form of political terrorism that extends beyond a rise in political incivility. These phenomena constitute an important challenge to a democratic society. First, these trends may influence how elected officials engage with their constituents and tackle controversial legislative issues, thus shaping representation and governance. Second, public responses to these threats and instances of violence may reflect partisan identities and biases against the opposing party, limiting our collective ability to respond to the challenge posed by these behaviors. Finally, for all groups – elected officials, staff and the public – exposure to threats and violence against elected officials may result in increased partisan animosity toward the opposing party and a normalization of violence in American politics. 

This project explores how harassment, threats and violence against elected officials affects elected officials and the public from several vantage points – interviews with elected officials across the country, surveys of state legislators, mayors, and congressional staff, and survey experiments of the American public. My research assistant will be responsible for tasks on each of these components – e.g., de-identification and content analysis of the interviews, assistance designing and drafting the surveys, etc. – as well as assisting in conducting literature reviews and synthesizing media coverage on the topic. 

Position & time commitment:  

• Seeking a Fellow for the summer, fall, winter, and spring quarters (June 2023 – June 2024). 
• This position can be held remotely (for portions of the year). 
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships. 

Research Training & Outcomes 

The Fellows will: 

• Read and analyze transcripts from interviews with elected officials. 
• Assist in designing surveys of elected officials and the public. 
• Assist in literature review on the topic. 
• Read and synthesize news coverage of threats and violence against elected officials. 
• Meet regularly (e.g., once a week) with me to discuss the project. 

• Learn about human subjects/IRB training, qualitative content analysis (Nvivo or Provalis), survey design and programming (i.e., Qualtrics), among others. 

The Fellows participating in this project will gain: 

• Gain a greater understanding of political science research – including how we move from research questions, to hypotheses, to data and to analysis 
• Improved critical thinking skills 
• Exposure to specific tools and skill sets that may be relevant in other research (e.g., content analysis, survey design, etc.) 

Preferred Skills and Experience 

• Attention to detail 
• Critical eye when evaluating written work 
• Ability to think systematically 
• Some knowledge of American politics 

Learn more about Professor Laurel Harbridge-Yong |  Not accepting new applications

Project: Industry associations provide a crucial channel for the transmission of elite public opinion about the advisability of certain policies. They are also by reputation and according to observable metrics some of the most important and influential lobbying organizations around. But whose interests do trade associations represent, and why, among their members? By linking IRS non-profit tax records from 2009-2020, data from the Encyclopedia of Associations, lobbying records filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act as well as biographical information from BoardEx and public social media profiles, we conduct a study inspired by Dahl's famous "Who Governs?" to examine who governs US trade associations and provide a roadmap for future research on the topic by discussing a number of more specific questions. These include:

• Are inequalities in resources of influence "cumulative" or "noncumulative?" That is, do firms which are well represented on the boards of trade associations also rank highly on other commonly used measures of political influence?
• How do trade associations make political decisions?
• What kinds of firms and people have the greatest influence on decisions of trade associations? From what sectors and from which strata within a sector are board members and the firms they represent? How frequent are interlocking trade association board memberships?
• Do trade association board members tend to cohere in the policies promoted by the association or do they tend to conflict and bargain? Is the pattern of leadership oligarchical or pluralistic?
• Are the patterns of influence in trade associations durable or changing? In general, what are the sources of change and stability in the ecosystem of trade associations?
• How important is the concept of egalitarianism among members for the functioning of trade associations? Even as we leave many of these questions for future research, we present the first systematic evidence on the backgrounds of board members of trade associations, examine turnover on their boards and evaluate the hypothesis that corporations may at times be able to capture associations and extend their political influence.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer quarter (June 2023 – September 2023).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellows will:

• Prepare publication quality figures and tables.
• Canvas the academic literature for scholarship that is related to our inquiry.
• Canvas journalistic accounts to identify articles that are related to our inquiry.
• Find and link outside data sources to our growing database

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Hands-on experience in the research process, developing familiarity with contemporary research methodologies, data analysis, and communication practices.
• Better insight into the field of political science and social sciences more generally, as well as the policymaking process and the functioning of private organizations.
• The chance to work with an international team of leading scholars working on the topic of money in politics.
• Develop general professional skill including time management, project management, communication, and so forth, which are transportable across settings.
• Critical thinking skills, in particular learning how to ask questions about data and theories in ways that are seldom taught (and hard to teach) in the classroom setting.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• R or Python
• Latex

Learn more about Professor Brian Libgober |  Apply here

Project: When people are equipped with shared information and structured discussion-guidance, can potentially difficult conversations with personally-close but ideologically-distant others lead to (i) a decrease in “political sectarian” attitudes, (ii) opinion change, and (iii) increased political engagement on an issue. 

This project is a field experiment focused on climate change attitudes and opinions, designed o test these questions. The field experiment employs a novel experimental design, using referral sampling to recruit personally-close but ideologically-distant discussion pairs into the study. The discussion partners know each other personally (friends/family/co-workers) and hold opinions opposite to each other on climate change.  

Outcomes measured for participants in four conditions will include pre-/ post- survey responses on political attitudes and beliefs, as well as a behavioral measure collected online (writing to your representative) and qualitative data from recorded meetings and exit interviews. 

Position & time commitment:  

• Seeking a Fellow for the summer and fall quarters (June 2023 – December 2023). 
• This position can be held remotely. 
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships. 

Research Training & Outcomes 

The Fellow will: 

• Manage the project 
• Assist with the logistics of setting up and running this 5-week long program 
• Assist research -- e.g., reviewing and coding recorded interviews 

The Fellow participating in this project will gain: 

• Experience in setting up and managing a long-term field experiment (5 weeks live, plus pre-launch logistics) 
• Experience with coding and analysis of qualitative data. 

Preferred Skills and Experience 

• Requires a high level of general research-related skills: excellent attention to detail, organizational skills, creative and pro-active problem-solving. 

Learn more about Professor Mary McGrath |  Not accepting new applications

Project: In this project, we seek to identify and understand the opportunities for strengthening Ojibwe resilience to climate change. One of the largest confederations of Indigenous Peoples in the United States, Ojibwe Nations in the Upper Great Lakes exert tribal sovereignty on reservations and exercise treaty rights throughout their ceded territories spanning three U.S. states (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin). Although leading climate actors in environmental stewardship and adaptation, Ojibwe Nations, like other Indigenous communities around the world, are amongst the groups most vulnerable to climate change (UN 2017). These include threats to food, water, and cultural security that are rooted in Ojibwe relationships to place and their relationships with manoomin (wild rice, Zizania palustris), an annual aquatic grass that produces highly nutritious seeds en masse in late summer.

STRONG’s vision is to enhance disaster anticipation, preparation, mitigation, and response in Indigenous communities by expanding the availability, utility, and usability of Indigenous knowledge and socio-ecological data. The project team includes 10 Ojibwe tribes in the Upper Great Lakes region, university researchers, and scientists and policy analysts from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), which works directly for the Ojibwe tribes. Our planning efforts over the past year have established clear links between Ojibwe sovereignty and resilience, and a need to collect and integrate new environmental data within a culturally-appropriate resilience framework.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer, fall, winter, and spring quarters (June 2023 – June 2024).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow will:

• Learn about the relationships between tribal sovereignty, climate resilience, data science, and advanced sensing technologies
• Participate in the following research activities: (1) data collection, including conducting interviews with policy makers and natural resource practitioners and policy reviews; (2) draft annotated bibliographies and thematic review summaries; (3) assist with data organization and file management
• Training will include decolonial and anti-colonial methodologies, data analysis techniques and programs, and data management and archival curation
• Depending on the progress made in the project, the student may also be able to participate in data analysis, interpretation, policy analysis, and writing up results for publication.

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• As part of a team of researchers, the research assistant will have the opportunity to work with scholars and students from a variety of disciplines including political science, ecological sciences, engineering, and journalism, among others. This will help enhance the research assistant’s interdisciplinary literacy and expose her/him to alternative ways of understanding and examining questions in environmental social science.
• Because the project is team-based, the research assistant will gain experience in collaborative approaches to research and how team-based research unfolds across different stages of research.
• Through field research, student team members will gain substantive knowledge around Indigenous politics, climate change and resilience, environmental science, sensing technologies, and transdisciplinary methodologies while also gaining transferable research skills, such as surveying, organizing, and synthesizing research to answer empirical research questions.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Excellent attention to detail
• Experience with web-based communication
• Skills with Excel, QSR NVivo and EndNote (or be willing to learn).
• Ability to troubleshoot.
• Must be comfortable and capable of dealing with and organizing large amounts of diverse types of data
• Sself-driven and able to work independently
• Capable of be able to follow data storage guidelines and procedures, and complete research ethics training.

Learn more about Professor Kimberly Marion Suiseeya |  Not accepting new applications

Project: This project investigates the relationship between the physical structure of cities and patterns of protest and violence in the Arab world. Specifically, a growing literature examines very local patterns of contention, but focuses primarily on characteristics of the populations living in these spaces and less on the nature of physical space itself. This is an important lacuna--work in sociology and urban studies has demonstrated how physical space clusters patterns of solidarity and deprivation, and inhibits or enables contentious action. This project will unpack the relationship between the physical fabric of urban neighborhoods, the populations that inhabit them, and patterns of protest and violence, focusing on four Arab cities across four national contexts (Tripoli, Lebanon; Taiz, Yemen; Baghdad, Iraq; and Aleppo, Syria). It has a quantitative component--combining neighborhood-level administrative and demographic data with original event catalogs and new mappings of urban expansion using GIS software--and a qualitative component, drawing on interviews and Arabic-language secondary literature.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking a Fellow for the summer quarter (June 2023 – September 2023).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow will:

• Assist with constructing and analyzing the quantitative datasets. Specifically, they will use GIS software to trace the physical footprint of four Arab cities from the 1980s to the present, and then use statistical software to describe patterns of their expansion, producing descriptive statistics relating these changes with contemporary data on protest and violence.

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Technical skills in building and using spatial data, ideally across both GIS and statistical software
• Hands-on experience of designing and executing a research project using original data

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Proficiency in a GIS software (i.e., ArcGIS or QGIS) and basic familiarity with a statistical software (preferably R)
• Ability to learn new statistical packages and techniques independently, based upon general direction from a supervisor
• Interest and background knowledge about third world urban development.

Learn more about Professor Kevin Mazur  |  Not accepting new applications

Project: This project examines Asian American beliefs about anti-Asian racism and collective political resistance in the United States. Amidst heightened racial anxieties and xenophobic impulses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to understand Asian American political (in)action in response to surges in racist rhetoric and hate crimes is increasingly urgent. Yet we still know too little about when and why some Asian Americans perceive a need to organize as a group, and potentially across groups, while others do not. In this study, I investigate how anti-Asian racism beliefs among Asian Americans shape their responses to it, paying close attention to identity, experience, and status differences within the group. 

Position & Time Commitment 

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer and fall quarters (June 2023 – December 2023) 

Research Training & Outcomes 

The Fellow(s) will: 

• Collect and analyze original data: in-depth interviews, large-N surveys, media content 
• Write research memos and annotated bibliographies 
• Meet regularly as a research team 

The Fellow(s) participating in this project will: 

• Observe and gain hands-on experience across different stages of the research process 
• Develop and strengthen skills in conducting qualitative and quantitative research 
• Cultivate a passion for pursuing rigorous and engaged political science research 
• Contribute to advancing the study of Asian American politics and racial group politics in the U.S. 

Preferred Skills and Experience 

• Required: excellent communication (speaking, writing) and organizational skills, including attention to detail and ability to multitask 
• Strongly preferred but not required: experience with conducting interviews; knowledge of statistics and familiarity with R; coursework related to racial and ethnic politics and/or immigration in the U.S. 
• Strongly valued but not required: speaking or writing proficiency in an Asian language (e.g., Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese) 

Learn more about Professor Julie Lee Merseth |  Not accepting new applications

Project: "Summoning Socrates" and "Aristotle Beyond the Academy" are distinct classical receptions projects being developed in tandem.   

Summoning Socrates is based at Northwestern and is well-developed already. It compiles, catalogs, digitizes and analyzes an archive of examples of uses of Socrates in a wide range of popular media in a variety of settings in the US and internationally in the 20th and 21st centuries. Farrell fellows in past years have helped build the archive's US and international content. In spring 2023 we are starting to work with a digital humanities librarian at University Library to design a website. A book project is also under way. 

Aristotle Beyond the Academy is a large international project based in Durham, UK involving a set of scholars. I am on the advisory board and will contribute some US sources of a sort like the kind of material collected in the Summoning Socrates archive. Their website also debuts in April 2023.  

I will be guest editor for six months next year for the blog for the Oxford, UK- based Classical Receptions Studies Network (CRSN). A Fellow will be Professor Monoson's editorial assistant. Both projects above will be featured. 

Position & time commitment:  

• Seeking two Fellows for the fall, winter, and spring quarters (September 2023 – June 2024). 
• This position can be held remotely. 
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships. 

Research Training & Outcomes 

The Fellow will: 

• Help research details and context for discrete items 
• Catalog items on a spreadsheet, and 
• Digitize records focused on Socrates, especially international items.  

• Initiate a new excel-based record of sources regarding Aristotle in the US 
• Assist with editorial work (communications, tracking down things) for the CRSN blog 

The Fellow participating in this project will gain: 

• Understanding of what goes into building an archive of humanistic sources 
• Ability to manipulate collections of humanistic data 

• Command of excel 
• Knowledge of the extraordinary variety of “conjurings” of ancient figures that speak to contemporary events in meaningful ways 
• Appreciation of how great sources have many complex afterlives beyond the academy (not only diverse scholarly interpretations) 
• Editorial experience 

Preferred Skills and Experience 

• Detail oriented 
• Familiarity with the topic (ancient political thought) 
• Good writing skills 

Learn more about Professor Sara Monoson  |  Not accepting new applications

Project: Blacks have been exiting central cities for the suburbs at accelerating rates over the last four decades. This suburbanizing trend is one of the most significant demographic developments in the Black population since the mid-twentieth century Great Migration. Yet researchers still know very little about the political lives of this unprecedented wave of Black suburban newcomers. Their political participation patterns, policy preferences, and ideas about their racial identities and ties to other Blacks remain understudied. This book project aims to help fill this gap in our understanding of the political ramifications of this geographic sorting between the growing tide of Black suburbanites and their Black central city counterparts.

The research team will primarily conduct additional analyses on interview data from the American Voices Project (AVP). The AVP is the country's first qualitative platform for conducting interviews with a nationally representative sample. It consists of approximately 1,500 interviews, including an oversample of Blacks respondents in suburban and central city Census blocks in high-poverty metropolitan areas. The interview protocol also features a module with questions about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and racially charged issues such as anti-Black police violence.

The research team plan to link U.S. Census tract variables with the AVP interview and survey data to conduct these additional analyses, using geo-identifiers for the interview data crucial for making causal inferences about the influence of neighborhood type on Blacks' political attitudes

The team also will map BLM protests in central cities and surrounding suburbs in the metropolitan areas that have seen the sharpest increases in Black suburbanization.  The team will help with organizing  interviews with leaders in majority-Black suburbs in the Chicago area this summer and collecting archival, census, and other data on the municipalities to be included in case study analyses for the book project.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer and fall quarters (June 2023 – December 2023).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow will:

• Analyze geo-coded interview data
• Collect archival data on selected municipalities
• Map social movement events in selected metropolitan areas
• Organize the data for the contextual analyses of the interview material and the research on Black suburban municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan area

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Firsthand exposure to the research process, with an opportunity to help extract and analyze interview data from an innovative new research platform. AVP is the country's first qualitative platform for conducting interviews with a nationally representative sample. The work will entail learning about the theoretical issues at stake in the study and methods for analyzing interview and Census data.
• Familiarity with scholarly debates about change and stratification in Black political opinions and the sources of Blacks' political views, particularly on racial issues. They also will learn how to code interview and archival data for analyses. Although the geo-coded interviews will be the focus of most of the research experience, the fellows also will develop some familiarity with extracting and organizing U.S. Census data and with tools for mapping the data (e.g., ArcGIS).

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Students with good writing skills and who have taken courses that cover theories of political behavior and empirical methods are encouraged to apply.
• IRB training and experience with Excel, ArcGIS, and R would be beneficial as well, but are not required.

Learn more about Professor Reuel Rogers  |  Not accepting new applications

Project: This is an ongoing project in which Fellows do hands-on research investigating the implications of government privacy and secrecy for the rule of law. Specific topics include Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemptions on so-called national security grounds; the use by military contractors of offset payments; and the competing privacy and good government interests brought to the fore by recent rule changes sealing immigration court proceedings in the federal court electronic database, PACER. Past Farrell Fellow research has resulted in works in progress on immigration judge misconduct, the unlawful deportation of U.S. citizens, and dollar per day payments to those in custody under immigration laws. In October, 2021, a federal jury found GEO guilty of minimum wage violations, a lawsuit based on Stevens' research and to which Farrell Fellows contributed. The media regularly report on findings to which the students contribute. Ongoing research can be viewed here.

Position & time commitment:

• Seeking two Fellows for the summer, fall, winter, spring quarters (June 2023 – June 2024).
• This position can be held remotely.
• Positions can be held in conjunction with other work study positions, internships, or research assistantships.

Research Training & Outcomes

The Fellow will:

• File, track, and assist in litigating requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
• Perform original legal research using academic legal databases
• Depending on interest, Fellows may co-author research articles
• Develop professional scholarly research and investigative skills, including working knowledge of numerous databases and techniques useful for further academic research and investigative journalism.
• Learn research methods and tools including data analysis, HTML, website management

The Fellow participating in this project will gain:

• Acquire direct knowledge of civil litigation, policy-making in Congress and the executive branch
• Develop professional level research and investigative skills, including knowledge of databases and techniques useful for further graduate level research and investigative journalism

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Strong communication skills
• The ability to problem-solve, work independently, and be persistent in acquiring information
• Experience with HTML and Excel is helpful, but can be learned on the job
• Some experience with statistical analysis is preferable but not required

Learn more about Professor Jacqueline Stevens  |  Not accepting new applications