Jacob Sutherland

Hello, hello, hello! My name is Jacob Sutherland, and I am a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. 

My research investigates how local institutions and community members engage with one another through formal and informal political practices. Traditional understandings of this relationship have largely centered on broad principal-agent models, conceptions of institutionalism, constraints on street-level bureaucrats, and public-driven accounts of mobilization and participation. My research challenges and extends these approaches by analyzing how the principal-agent relationship operates in overlooked institutional contexts and examining the diverse range of actors who shape local political life and contribute to emerging forms of institutional polarization. In doing so, I bring attention to the informal and hybrid institutions often overlooked in studies of American political institutions, public policy, and civic engagement. 

My research has been published by Routledge and in State and Local Government Review and the Journal of Management Policy and Practice. I have received research grants from the UC Irvine Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, the Citizenship Lab at UC Irvine, and the UC Irvine Department of Political Science.

Email: jacob.sutherland@uci.edu | Bluesky: @jacobsutherland.bksy.social