Speaker Series

Academic Year 2025-2026 Speaker Series

• Douglas L. Kriner, Cornell University (October 6, 2025)

  Douglas L. Kriner
  Clinton Rossiter Professor in American Institutions, Department of Government, Cornell University

  Talk Title: "When Disaster Meets Relief: Partisan Moderation of Crisis and Aid Effects in the 2020 Election"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, October 6, 2025 | INTS 1113

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Abstract: How do voters respond when a national crisis imposes harm but also delivers federal aid? The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique test of what considerations voters bring to bear in response to both loss and relief. We theorize that federal spending can mitigate the political costs of disasters, but only under certain partisan and contextual conditions. Specifically, we hypothesize that the electoral effects of pandemic costs and relief will be interactive, and their effects will vary across partisan subgroups depending on whether each factor reinforces or conflicts with partisan priors.

  Drawing on county-level data and nationally representative survey evidence from the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we find that pandemic costs and relief had the greatest effects on vote choice among independents who lacked strong partisan priors. Among partisans, exposure to pandemic costs was most influential among Republicans and localized relief was most influential among Democrats. Relief spending also shaped the 2020 election outcome indirectly by mobilizing Republican turnout and changing the composition of the electorate.

  Finally, we find strong evidence that the effects of pandemic costs and relief on political behavior are interactive, with the influence of each varying on the level of the other and across partisan subgroups. These findings advance theories of retrospective voting and distributive politics by demonstrating how crisis exposure, partisan identity, and economic relief jointly shape the electoral consequences of national emergencies.

• Margaret E. Roberts, UC San Diego (November 3, 2025)

  Margaret E. Roberts

  Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego

  Talk Title: "Propaganda or Parity? TikTok’s Algorithm and Pro-China Messaging"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, November 3, 2025 | INTS 1113

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Abstract: Does TikTok's recommender system advance the interests of the government of China? We collect multiple large data sets of China-related TikTok videos and longitudinal metadata to examine two potential mechanisms for platform influence: (1) high-salience interventions like video removal and (2) more subtle reductions in reach---shadowbanning or downranking, which we model using engagement growth curves---specifically when they unexpectedly flatline. We pair these signals with annotations from human coders and an open-weight reasoning LLM (GPT-OSS-120b) on stance toward China, topics the Chinese government considers sensitive, and collective action, as well as ``control'' annotations such as hateful, harmful, and copyright-violating content. Our preliminary findings suggest platform differences by language: first, in English, anti-China videos are more likely to be removed or see engagement flat-line; in Chinese, if anything the opposite is true. Similarly, our community-guidelines controls predict flat-lining engagement in English but not in Chinese, perhaps aligning with TikTok's locale-based moderation practices.  We emphasize that these results are preliminary, cover a period of heightened U.S. regulatory pressure, and may mask other underlying mechanisms. Our hope is that the multilingual audit framework we've outlined, combining removal checks, trajectory analysis, and content annotation---can be replicated and extended to other geopolitical topics.

• Lisa Beard, Western Washington University (November 17, 2025)

  Lisa Beard
  Associate Professor, Political Science Department, Western Washington University

  Talk Title: "Identificatory Appeals Against the Grain of Power"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, November 17, 2025 | INTS 1113

  

   

   

   

   

   

  Abstract: We can understand identification as the processes through which people politically come to understand who they are, what are their interests, and how they are connected to others. To turn to identification is to turn to a supremely messy and rich terrain at the very heart of politics itself. Rather than being a priori and settled, forms of identification (and the identities that they together constitute) are products of politics, ever-unfolding and constantly contested. Forms of identifications are forged and fought over through political appeals, in work that is risky, uncertain, volatile, messy, and historically contingent. Contestations over the we of politics vibrate in many tones – from kinship language, to appeals to national identity, to demonological invocations of dangers and threats that might bind a vulnerable we. What is at stake in these appeals is the possibility of upholding or changing relationships of power. 

  This talk will ground the study of identification in a close reading of appeals issued in the early 1970s and early 2000s by trans liberation activist Sylvia Rivera, whose countercalls claimed and defended genealogies of transformative multi-issue struggles within a broader contest over what LGBT forms of identification would come to mean politically. Rivera’s appeals not only illuminate the relationship between practices of identification and disidentification and help us think about how access to participating in identificatory struggles is policed, but also leave a powerful record of visions of a we based in mutuality and shared freedom. 

• Valentina González-Rostani, USC (March 3, 2026)

  Valentina González-Rostani
  Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Department of Political Science, University of Southern California

  Talk Title: "The Political Economy of Automation and Fragmented Production: Evidence from Mexico"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, March 9, 2025 | INTS 1113

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Abstract: How does automation in advanced economies reshape politics and violence in developing countries? We develop a political economy theory in which technology adoption in the Global North reduces demand for export-oriented labor in the Global South, depressing wages and employment and triggering social and political responses. We test this argument in Mexico, a major trade partner of the United States. Using commuting-zone data, we construct measures of exposure to foreign robot adoption and offshoring, while accounting for domestic automation and other local shocks. To address endogeneity, we instrument foreign exposure with robot diffusion in Europe. We show that regions more exposed to foreign automation experience higher levels of violent organized crime—including homicides and narcoticsrelated violence—and increased electoral support for left-populist candidates. These results demonstrate that automation shocks propagate through global value chains with profound consequences for violence and democratic politics in developing countries.

• Claire Adida, Stanford University (April 20, 2026)

  Claire Adida
  Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Relations and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

  Talk Title: "Overcoming Barriers to Women’s Political Participation: Evidence from Nigeria"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, April 20, 2025 | INTS 1113

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Abstract: This study, part of the EGAP Metaketa V initiative, tests whether training interventions in Nigeria designed to strengthen women’s sense of collective efficacy improved their voice and agency in local political engagement, and whether trainings of their husbands to be champions of women’s voice and agency augmented their effects via a randomized control trial (RCT). The RCT was conducted with over 5,800 women in 450 communities in three southwestern states of Nigeria (Ogun, Osun, and Oyo) during 2023. In both treatment and control communities (i.e., wards), we recruited previously unaffiliated women to join women’s groups (WGs): 1/3 of WGs (control group) received basic training in civic education; 1/3 (treatment group 1, T1) received civic education training in addition to intensive training in leadership, organizing, and advocacy, intended to build women's collective agency and improve their articulation of demands to policymakers and policymakers' responsiveness to them; and 1/3 (treatment group 2, T2) received the same training as treatment group 1 and their husbands were invited to participate in a parallel men's training focused on men's allyship. Using data from a baseline survey conducted in May – June 2023 and an endline survey conducted in January– February 2024, we find substantial evidence that both treatments contributed to significant improvements in not only the level of treated women's political participation, but also its quality, and leaders' responsiveness to women's priorities. Improvements appear to be driven by an increased sense of self-efficacy and group efficacy among treated women, as well as greater identification with women as a group. However, we find little evidence that T2 had statistically significantly greater effects on these outcomes compared to T1. Our findings underscore the importance and value of addressing both individual and societal barriers to women’s civic engagement.

• Jonathan Homola, UCLA (May 11, 2026)

  Jonathan Homola
  Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles

  Talk Title: "Does Mandatory Voter ID Suppress Turnout? Empirical Evidence from the UK Voter ID Reform"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, May 11, 2025 | INTS 1113

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Abstract: Mandatory photo voter identification (ID) laws are increasingly adopted in democracies without national ID systems, sparking debate about their effects on electoral participation. Most prior research focuses on the United States, a uniquely polarized context with a history of racialized voter suppression, limiting generalizability of the findings. We study the introduction of mandatory voter ID in the United Kingdom, a less polarized democracy, exploiting three contrasts: (1) pre- and post-reform changes in local election turnout across England and Northern Ireland over three decades (1993–2023), (2) individual-level turnout changes in the British Election Study panel (2014-2023), and (3) turnout differences around an age-based discontinuity in ID ownership. Across all designs, we find consistent turnout reductions in the short term among eligible voters. These results provide rare, comprehensive evidence from a non-US setting, highlighting the need for safeguards protecting access for all eligible voters, with implications for voter ID legislation worldwide.

• Julia Park, Ohio State University (May 18, 2026)

  Ju Yeon (Julia) Park
  Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University

  Talk Title: "Political Grandstanding: An Electoral Strategy"
  Details: 12:10-1:30 PM | Monday, May 18, 2025 | INTS 1113