Identity Politics and Democracy

Instructor: lafleur stephens-dougan

Broadly speaking, we will address how to refine research questions, develop testable hypotheses, and analyze data, related to the study of identity politics and democracy. Research Prospectuses written in this practicum will leverage existing datasets to assess how different institutional arrangements across time and space influence the functioning of democracy for various marginalized groups. Students in this practicum will utilize various existing datasets, including, but not limited to:

• Correlates of State Policy
• The Segregation Index   
• The American Local Government Elections Dataset
• U.S. Census Data

Alternatively, if students do not want to rely on one of the aforementioned datasets, they can propose the use of another existing dataset, or conceptualize the creation of their own dataset and data collection plan.  

Research Prospectuses written in this practicum might address questions such as: How does the local context influence intergroup relations?  Does ranked-choice voting reduce racial polarization? Under what conditions are marginalized groups most likely to be represented descriptively?