Work in Progress
Imaginary Audiences: How Perceptions of Gender Biases Reduce Women's Political Ambition
In a project with Rachel Bernhard, we examine how the perception of different "imaginary audiences" shape and limit the political ambition of women with some political ambition. We contextualize women's ambition as not just a YES or NO, but as potentially denied, delayed, or deferred. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic work, surveys, experiments, and observational data, we show that women imagine that their family and friends, media, other political elites, and voters as critical -- and sometimes hostile -- audiences to their candidacies. Consequentially, even highly qualified women are less likely to run for office or are more likely to seek other opportunities and wait for better conditions before running.
Civically Engaged Communities
In what ways do people participate in their local communities and what is the effect on collective forms of democratic expression. In a series of coauthored projects, I examine how people participate via appointments to local boards and commissions, through community organizing, and on local elected school boards. How do these forms of participation shape what people think about democracy? About the quality of local democracy? And the quality of institutions?
The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs in the United States
Working with Emily Farris, I'm writing a book-length text (under contract at the University of Chicago Press) that evaluates the role that sheriffs play in politics in the United States. The first text to examine the office in a wholistic fashion, we ask: how has the office of the sheriff evolved over time in the United States? Who are sheriffs? What do sheriffs do? What kinds of policies do sheriffs produce and what are the consequences for the communities in which they serve?
Maude Collins, Ohio's first woman sheriff