Research

Book Project

• "The President's First Moves: The Dynamics of Agenda Construction, 1968-2025"

  • Summary: This book manuscript asks how presidents determine their domestic policy priorities at the start of their terms. It advances an agency-centered perspective on agenda construction that emphasizes self-assertion over conformity to external constraints, exposing the disruption and defiance fundamental to presidential democracy.

  • Awards: Dissertation awarded "departmental distinction," Stan I. Bach Fellowship ($50,000), O’Donnell Grant from the Scowcroft Institute at Texas A&M ($2,500)

Book

• "Congressional Expectations of Presidential Self-Restraint" with John A. Dearborn  (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2025)

  • Coverage/Op-Eds: New Books Network (Political Science), Lawfare, Yale ISPS News,

  • Award: 2025 MPSA Patrick J. Fett Award for best paper on the scientific study of Congress and the presidency 

Articles (peer- and editor-reviewed)

• "2022 Midterms," in Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, 2nd edition, eds. Alison Howard and Michael Genovese (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2025).

• "The Case for Agency: Three Dimensions of Discretion in Presidential Agenda Construction," Presidential Studies Quarterly 54 (2024): 290-309.

• "Why Health Care Came First, and Other Observations on Barack Obama’s Early Domestic Policy Agenda," in Evaluating the Obama Presidency: From Transformational Goals to Governing Realities, ed. Meena Bose and Paul Fritz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), 55-70.

Working Papers

• "The President’s Publics: Societal Constructions and Policy Resonance"

• "Prudish Presidents: The Gilded-Age Challenge to the Logic of Power Maximization" (paper drawn from prospective third book project)

In Progress

• "Overreach, Not Outreach: Presidential Ambition as an Institutional Motivation"

• "The Role of Unilateralism in Advancing Presidential Priorities"

• "Wither the Rights of the Place: Congressional Acquiescence to Judicial Override, 1926-1976"