Welcome to my website. I am an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2011-2018, I was a faculty member in the the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University. In 2016, I was a visiting researcher at the University of Zurich and in AY 2010-2011, I was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University.

My research and teaching focus on international political economy (IPE), particularly the intersection between domestic politics and the global economy. My research examines how political processes resolve the conflict between the economic winners and losers of globalization. As the examples of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump remind us, openness to the international economy is a political choice. Democratic governments in countries open to the global economy must confront a long-standing dilemma. On the one hand, when citizens hurt by globalization demand protection from global competition, governments must respond. On the other hand, governments have to guard the benefits of globalization—jobs created, gains to consumers, growth- inducing innovations—from protectionist (i.e. anti-globalization) rhetoric and policies (e.g. trade barriers). The precise nature of this dilemma, however, continues to evolve in response to techno- logical innovations and deepening globalization.

One of the most significant changes in the world economy in the last 20 years has been the reorganization of production by multinational firms. The emergence of fragmented production—the ability of firms to split up the production of a good or service across countries—means that trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) today produce different winners and losers than in the past. As a result, new interests and political cleavages shape the democratic governance dilemma. In two reserach areas on labor and multinational firms, respectively, I examine how these key actors shape the politics of and policies governing globalization today.