Hire a UNC Political Science Ph.D.

Our graduate students represent an extraordinary pool of talent and scholarly accomplishment. This year, we are proud to draw your attention to several Ph.D. candidates seeking academic appointments. We invite you to contact them directly regarding their credentials and areas of expertise. If you would like more information about Ph.D. job placement, please contact Chris Reynolds at ckreynolds@unc.edu.

American Politics

American politics/Political psychology/Health policy
Jenny Benz is a PhD candidate in American Politics with research in political psychology and health policy. Her dissertation is titled “The Role of Self-Interest in the Political Context” and is chaired by Tom Carsey. The dissertation bridges the theoretical and methodological differences between social psychology and political science in order to uncover an integrated understanding of how self-interest operates in politics. Her primary case study is health care. She has presented all three empirical chapters at conferences and expects to defend in early Spring. While at UNC, she received a university-wide interdisciplinary fellowship and several small research grants. She also works part-time as a survey researcher for the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.

American Politics/Political Institutions and Political Methodology
Justin H. Kirkland is a PhD candidate in political science concentrating in American Politics and Political Methodology. Justin specializes in legislative politics, organized interest politics, and methods of social network analysis. His dissertation, entitled “The Relational Nature of Legislating,” is supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant and is chaired by Tom Carsey. Justin’s published works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Journal of Politics, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Business and Politics, and Publius: The Journal of Federalism. For more information about Justin, his current research, teaching materials, and his CV, please visit his website: http://www.unc.edu/~jhkirkla.

Jeff Harden is a 5th Year Ph.D. candidate studying American Politics and Political Methodology.  His substantive interests focus on representation in American State Politics.  His dissertation develops and tests a multi-dimensional supply and demand theory of representation.  He has two of three main empirical chapters completed.  The first conducts several original survey experiments with citizens, the second is based on several survey experiments with state legislators, and the third involves a detailed analysis of the websites operated by several thousand state legislators.  Jeff also has an extensive research agenda in quantitative methods, focusing on the analysis of clustered data, model robustness, sample-based tests of the underlying distributional assumptions of models, and Monte Carlo simulation and resampling methods.  Jeff has six peer reviewed publications, an additional paper conditionally accepted, three more papers with very positive “Revise and Resubmit” decisions, and at least one more paper under review. – a remarkable record for any graduate student.  Jeff has received an NSF grant to support his dissertation along with several departmental and university awards and fellowships.  He has served as a TA for our graduate methods sequence, for a summer ICPSR course on Monte Carlo Simulation and Resampling methods, and for an undergraduate state politics course.  He has also taught several short courses in the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science on using R and LaTeX.  Tom Carsey is the chair of his dissertation committee. To learn more about Jeff, please visit his website at: http://jjharden.web.unc.edu/.

American politics/Political Behavior/Public Policy
Jason Windett successfully defended his dissertation in the summer of 2011 after just four years in our program.  He will spend the 2011-12 academic year teaching at State Louis University.  Jason’s dissertation examined the emergence and success of female candidate for Governor of the U.S. states.  His dissertation involved large-N quantitative analysis of previous elections, detailed in-depth interviews with current and former gubernatorial candidates, and a detailed analysis of the campaign advertising strategies of female gubernatorial candidates and their male opponents.   The first chapter is already published in State Politics and Policy Quarterly.  The second and third chapters are also under review.  Jason has another paper based on a survey experiment that explores how votes react to male and female candidates and whether that reaction is conditioned by the perceived age of the candidates.  Jason also has an active research agenda dealing with race.  He has one co-authored paper already under review and a second one about to got out as well.  Jason has extensive teaching experience in American Politics, State Politics, Gender and Politics, and Urban politics and policy.  Tom Carsey was the chair of his dissertation committee.

To learn more about Jason, please visit his website at: http://www.unc.edu/~jwindett.

Comparative Politics

Comparative Politics/European Union Studies
Anna Brigevich is a comparativist with a minor in methodology. Her work analyzes public opinion data across EU countries and regions. Her dissertation is titled “Territorial Identity Configurations in the European Union: The Impact of Regional Identity on European Attachment and Support,” and is chaired by Liesbet Hooghe. Ms. Brigevich has completed one of the three articles that comprise her dissertation, and expects to finish the dissertation by April 2011. In the past, she has received two Foreign Language and Areas Studies Fellowships for Hungarian and a UNC Center for European Studies Summer Research Grant for fieldwork in Paris.

Comparative Politics/Political Institutions/Asian Politics
Sarah Shair-Rosenfield is a Ph.D. candidate in comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation, titled Electoral Reform, Party System Evolution and Democracy in Contemporary Indonesia and chaired by Jonathan Hartlyn, investigates the links between electoral reforms and effective representation, focusing on the role of political elites and parties during the process of democratization.  She completed 15 months of fieldwork in Indonesia collecting archival materials, original elite interviews and election return data for her dissertation and two related projects: one on the causes of increased female political representation, which is under review at a major comparative politics journal; and one on the effects of decentralization on subnational party system fragmentation.  Sarah is also the co-author on a series of papers introducing a dataset measuring subnational authority in Asia.  To learn more about Sarah, please visit her website at http://www.unc.edu/~sarahsr.

International Relations

International Political Economy
Joe Weinberg. Dissertation Completed May 2010 “A Consumer Based Approach to Agriculture Protectionism” Chaired by Thomas Oatley. Awarded UNC Interdisciplinary Dissertation Fellowship (2009). Currently working as a Visiting Lecturer at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Joe has extensive teaching experience in IR/Comparative/American as well as a healthy research agenda (4 articles currently under review, one R and R) in Trade Politics, the European Union, and Agriculture Policy. His work is methodologically sound and he is eager for a position with a healthy mix of teaching and research anywhere in the country.

Conflict Processes
Rebecca Best is a Ph. D. candidate in international relations in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Her dissertation, titled Negotiation in the Shadow of an Extremist Threat and chaired by Navin Bapat, formalizes the effect of a factionalized insurgency on the bargaining process between the insurgency and its target state, incorporating a formal model, experimental data, and a case study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  She has co-authored a piece in the International Studies Association Compendium, presented papers at annual meetings of the Peace Science Society, International Studies Association, and Midwest Political Science Association and is scheduled to present an empirical chapter of her dissertation at the University of South Carolina conference on the Middle East in October 2011.  During her doctoral program Rebecca has taught and assisted various courses on international relations, terrorism and American politics, and worked as a research assistant on two National Science Foundation grants. To learn more about Rebecca, please visit her website at: http://web.me.com/rhbest.

Political Theory

American Political Thought
Joel Winkelman works in political theory. Within theory, he specializes in American political thought. His dissertation is entitled, “A Working Democracy: Progressivism and the Politics of Work.” It is written under the direction of Michael Lienesch. At present, two of three analytic chapters are approved by his advisor, and the third chapter is in preparation for presentation this October at the meeting of the Association for Political Theory. He expects to complete by May 2011. His research has been supported by departmental Uhlman grants. His manuscript “Democratic Occupation: Herbert Croly and the Organization of Work” is under review at Polity. Additional information is available on his website: http://jmwink.web.unc.edu