Research Statement
My research interests, which deeply inform my teaching, focus on the institution of the American presidency, policy history, and American political development. I am drawn toward problem-driven questions and analyze them through a historical-institutional and interpretive lens, often using archival evidence to better understand the complexities of politics as they exist on the ground. While at UTC, I have maintained an "active and coherent research agenda," in line with the PSPS departmental bylaws. The main focus of that agenda has involved significantly altering my dissertation project into a monograph that now includes two new empirical chapters. Those chapters, and revisions to others, are based on archival research I have mostly conducted since coming to UTC. I have received internal funding to travel to the Franklin D. Roosevelt library and the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Additionally, I conducted research via the John F. Kennedy library’s digital archives.
My book, titled Between Guns and Butter: The Presidency, New Deal Liberalism, and the Politics of Warfare and Welfare, is under contract to be published by the University Press of Kansas in spring 2025. Initial conversations with the press about possible publication began in earnest in spring 2020, right before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. Given my area of expertise in presidential politics, I invested much time and energy during the 2020-2021 academic year ensuring that my classroom was a comforting and liberating space for students to process the social and political upheaval happening during this time. By September 2021, I sent a full manuscript to Kansas for peer review. Unfortunately, due to challenges at the press and the difficulty in finding reviewers, I did not receive reader reports until December 2022. In late spring 2023, the UPK editorial board unanimously voted to offer me a contract. I am in the final stages of completing the revised manuscript, which will be published in spring 2025.
Beyond my book, I have also published a peer-reviewed article in Presidential Studies Quarterly, a book chapter (and an additional revised version) in two editions of a text specifically written for undergraduate use, New Directions in the American Presidency, and several book reviews. Additionally, I regularly present my ongoing work at national and regional academic conferences.
The next phase of my research agenda is to develop a book-length project on the presidential construction of the “war on drugs” and its impact on American state-building. Informed by the work I've done designing and teaching several iterations of a course titled "Drugs in America," in the book I plan to analyze how the federal government developed the institutional and political capacity to conduct drug control policy, which was often viewed as the purview of state and local governments. I plan to identify and apply to external grants for research funding to travel to the presidential libraries of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton to examine relevant archival material on their respective drug policy leadership. I presented a draft of a working paper on this subject at the Policy History Conference in summer 2022, where I received encouraging feedback.
Publications
Books
Between Guns and Butter: The Presidency, New Deal Liberalism, and the Politics of Warfare and Welfare. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, Forthcoming, spring 2025 -- link to document (original submission)
The UPK published series in Presidential Studies is regarded as one of the premier outlets for scholarship on the politics and history of individual presidents and the institution of the presidency.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“A Strategy of Strength: The Truman Presidency and the Rhetorical Linkage of Warfare and Welfare” in Presidential Studies Quarterly, fall 2020, Vol.50 (3), p. 650-665. -- link to document
Published by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, Presidential Studies Quarterly (IF = .8) is the leading journal dedicated to analysis of the institution of the American presidency.
Book Chapters
“Presidents and Domestic Policy,” in New Directions in the American Presidency, third edition, ed. Lori Cox Han, (Routledge) 2023. -- link to document
This is a revised version of my previously published chapter for the book’s third edition. I took the opportunity to significantly revise the chapter to reflect recent scholarship on presidential agenda-setting, policy feedback, and the politics of health care from Obama to Trump.
“Presidents and Domestic Policy,” in New Directions in the American Presidency, second edition, ed. Lori Cox Han, (Routledge) 2017. -- link to document
“Tocqueville’s America: Interest Groups and Lobbying from the Jacksonian Era to the Gilded Age,” with Daniel J. Tichenor, in Interest Groups and Lobbying, eds. Burdett Loomis and Dara Stralovitch, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly) 2012.
Book Reviews
Sarah Burns’, “The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism” in Congress and the Presidency, vol. 47, no. 3, September/December 2020. -- link to document
Matthew Dallek’s, “Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security” in Political Science Quarterly, vol. 132, no. 4, winter 2017-2018. -- link to document
David Greenberg’s, “Republic of Spin: An Insider History of the American Presidency” in Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Autumn 2017. -- link to document
Working Papers
"Keeping the Troops in Line: The American Presidency, the War on Drugs, and Policy Regime Coherence"
This is the immediate project I intend to revisit and prepare for submission as a journal article to either Perspectives on Politics, Policy Studies Journal, Polity, or Presidential Studies Quarterly.
Abstract: This paper applies a policy regime perspective to the study of U.S. drug control policy during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Importantly, a key distinction separating the prior drug policy regime of the early twentieth century from the war on drugs of the ‘80s/90s was the centering of policy entrepreneurship in the White House, rather than bureaucratic agencies. Accordingly, the presidency played a significant role in the emergence of the war on drugs by helping to establish and maintain policy coherence. Understood as a motivating sense of purpose that helps align institutions and political interests, coherence is central to the formation of any regime. I highlight two dynamics of presidential leadership in this policy regime: 1) the political expediency the presidency has gained in defining drug use as a criminal problem, and 2) the use of the tools of the administrative presidency to centralize and coordinate drug enforcement policy.
“Mobilizing the Welfare State: Reconfiguring Ideas of Social Reform through Warfare.”
This is a project developed out of archival material not used in my current book. I intend to revisit and prepare for submission to Studies in American Political Development or Journal of Policy History.
Abstract: Scholars of American political development have carefully shown how the politics of war mobilization (and demobilization) influence the timing of welfare state development and its capacity for economic regulation and social reform. Much of this research centers on the relationship between the New Deal welfare state and the warfare state expansion during World War II, leading to claims that the necessities of the latter halted the advancement of the former. Yet, this historical-institutionalist logic does not adequately account for a thread of continuity that exists between the politics of the warfare state and the welfare state. While certain policies and programs may be cut short during times of war, critical ideas and themes of social reform survive and find new life in future institutional and programmatic reconfigurations. This paper examines an executive agency vital to pursuing the continuation of – and advocating for new developments in – social welfare programs during the transition from World War II to the early Cold War: The Federal Security Agency and its successor, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Using archival evidence, I focus particularly on the entrepreneurship of FSA/HEW administrators and their relations with congressional committees and executive branch officials. I find that, at various times, they articulated social welfare ideas and policies as sources of national strength and security during a period when the concept of “wartime” preparedness was evolving and contested.
Grants and Fellowships
UTC College of Arts and Sciences Summer Writing and Creating Retreat, 2022, ($300)
UTC College of Arts and Sciences Summer Writing and Creating Retreat, 2021, ($500)
UTC Pre-Tenure Enhancement Program, 2018-2019, ($13,434)
UTC Faculty grant for conference presentation, summer 2018 ($725)
UTC Faculty grant for research travel, summer 2017 ($2,446)
Artinian Travel Award, Southern Political Science Association, 2017 ($500)
Moody Research Grant, Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, 2015-2016 ($2,500)
Graduate Research Fellowship, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, University of Oregon, 2013-2014 ($3,000)
Research Grant, Harry S. Truman Library Institute, 2013-2014 ($1,850)
William C. Mitchell Graduate Summer Research Award, University of Oregon Department of Political Science, 2012 ($2,000)
William C. Mitchell Graduate Summer Research Award, University of Oregon Department of Political Science, 2011 ($2,000)
Conference Travel Award, University of Oregon Department of Political Science, 2012 ($500)
Conference Travel Award, University of Oregon Department of Political Science, 2011 ($500)
Presentations
Conference Papers
“Mobilizing the Welfare State: Reconfiguring Ideas of Social Reform through Warfare,” Southern Political Science Association, 2023
“Keeping the Troops in Line: The American Presidency, the War on Drugs, and Policy Regime Coherence,” Policy History Conference, 2022
“The Modern Presidency, the War on Drugs, and the Politics of Policy Regimes,” Southern Political Science Association, 2020
“Vital to the Defense Effort: The Federal Security Agency, Social Policy Advocacy, and Home Front Mobilization during World War II and Korea,” Policy History Conference, 2018
“Projecting National Strength: The Modern Presidency and the Development of the Warfare-Welfare Nexus,” Southern Political Science Association, 2018
“Building the State to Wage the War: Presidents and the Federalization of U.S. Drug Policy,” Southern Political Science Association, 2017
“Visions of National Strength: The Modern Presidency and the Politics of Linkage,” American Political Science Association, 2016
“Rethinking Presidential Leadership and History through a Security Lens,” with Daniel J. Tichenor, Western Political Science Association, 2016
“Considerations of Basic National Security: Eisenhower’s Cold War Mediation of Defense and Social Welfare in the NDEA,” Western Political Science Association, 2014
“Presidential Policy-Making in the Shadow of War: The Mobilization of Truman's Domestic Program during the Korean War,” Western Political Science Association, 2013
“Dr. New Deal and Dr. Win-the-War: The Presidency, Domestic Policy, and War in American Political Development,” American Political Science Association, 2012 (accepted -- conference cancelled)
“Welfare, Work, and Community: The Development of American Civic Nationalism during the New Deal,” Western Political Science Association, 2012
Campus and Department Presentations
“Visions of National Strength: Modern Presidential Leadership and the Warfare-Welfare Nexus,” UTC ReSEARCH Dialogues Conference, 2019
“A View from the Trenches: Commemorating the Centennial of World War I,” UTC ReSEARCH Dialogues Conference, 2019
“World War I and American Politics,” UTC World War I Centennial Commemoration Panel Discussion, 2018
“Building National Strength: New Deal Presidents and the Rhetorical Strategy of Re-Articulation,” UTC ReSEARCH Dialogues Conference, 2017
“Education as a Weapon in the Cold War: President Eisenhower, the NDEA, and New Deal Liberalism,” Department of Political Science, Graduate Student Speaker Series, University of Oregon, 2014
“Mobilizing the Welfare State: New Deal Nation-Building before World War II,” Politics and Policy Colloquia Series, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, University of Oregon, 2011
“War’s Repercussions on Roosevelt’s New Deal Program,” Department of Political Science Graduate Student Speaker Series, University of Oregon, 2011
Connecting Students to My Research
Beyond my advising of undergraduate research projects (as noted in the "Summary of Teaching" section), I find ways to introduce students to the development of my own research. Based on the nature of these close working relationships, the process of "professional" research becomes demystified and instills students with confidence that they have the ability to contribute to academic scholarship.
Graduate Assistantship from PSPS Master of Public Administration program
Amanda Haswell, "preparing tables and charts of federal budgetary data on "defense vs. non-defense spending," fall 2023
Katie Howell, "collection of federal budgetary data on "defense vs. non-defense spending," spring 2022
Honors College Student Research Fellows Program (via faculty application process and selected by students themselves)
Jackson Everett, "developing literature review on presidential rhetoric and the social construction of drug criminality," fall 2022
Sarah Singleton, "collecting and annotating recent publications on presidential domestic policymaking," fall 2021
Paige Freyre, "collecting and annotating recent publications on the politics of the 'war on drugs'," spring 2020
Brooke Sobo, "developing literature review on President Eisenhower, New Deal liberalism, and national security," fall 2018
PSPS departmental "Sweet Research" lecture series introducing students to ongoing faculty research
“Keeping the Troops in Line: The American Presidency, the War on Drugs, and Policy Regime Coherence,” 9/16/2020
“Colored by the Cold War: President Eisenhower, New Deal Liberalism, and the Security-Economy Nexus," 3/22/2019
“Vital to the Defense Effort: The Federal Security Agency, Social Policy Advocacy, and Home Front Mobilization during World War II and Korea," 4/12/18