Boundary Defense: Evidence from a Referendum Against School Reform

Abstract: 

Policies that reinforce unequal opportunity persist in democracies. I develop a theory of "Boundary Defense" to explain why. Middle-class families mobilize to defend these opportunity boundaries against reform when they lack alternative strategies to secure uncertain status. In Germany, I argue early-age sorting across stratified schools is an opportunity boundary that excludes immigrants and that status uncertain German families defend it against reform. To test this, I introduce a 2010 referendum which blocked a reform to early-age sorting in Hamburg and collect data from precinct-level votes, city-district demographics, election studies, and archival sources. Results show referendum support was highest in places where German families faced academic competition from immigrants, among less educated parents, and predicted electoral backlash against reformers. I suggest this theory applies to different boundaries in both education and other fields, and that policies which reduce middle-class uncertainty can equalize opportunity better than technocratic reforms given boundary defense. 

Local Dependence: Evidence from the Rollback of Dodd-Frank

Abstract: 

Specific US banks secured looser risk oversight when Congress rolled back the Dodd-Frank Act in 2018. Existing theories suggest large US banks wield instrumental influence to secure deregulation, but this rollback benefited smaller banks. I explain this with a theory of local dependence, arguing that geographically concentrated and represented firms use local disinvestment threats to influence policy. I hypothesize that local dependence on banks predicts representatives' votes for the rollback, and test this by linking district-level local dependence on banks, bank-representative instrumental influence, and roll-call votes. Results show that realized disinvestment threats predict rollback support unconditionally, while instrumental influence only predicts support for low-salience precursor bills or when complementing prospective disinvestment. Qualitative evidence provides further support. I conclude by suggesting this outcome shows how specific US firms constrain policy agendas due to their delegated local social policy functions, and that such domestic politics can help explain failed consensus in international policymaking.

Opportunity Boundaries: The Politics of Fair Chances in Rich Democracies

Technological revolutions eliminate many jobs even as they create new ones, forcing families to find new pathways to opportunity. Theorists have argued that liberal democracies should offer these opportunities on equal terms, for both positive and normative reasons. But access to opportunity remains durably unequal in these countries. Why are opportunities so persistently unequal across social groups, despite the ever-higher stakes of securing them and the normative appeal of equal opportunity? This dissertation develops a comparative theory to answer this question and tests it on cases in which specific “opportunity boundaries” are challenged yet persist nonetheless in the United States, Germany, and Japan.

I argue that when middle-class families are uncertain about their future status, they mobilize to defend boundaries that allow them to hoard opportunities. Which groups of “marginal insiders” mobilize to defend an opportunity boundary depends on how institutions shape the alternative strategies they have to secure their status and the presence of representation gaps between this group and “marginal outsiders” whom reform would benefit. This theory explains the political resilience of specific types of opportunity boundaries within and across three democratic cases. I test the theory against attempted reforms to residential sorting across stratified schools in the U.S., early-age student sorting across diverging school tracks in Germany, and worker sorting across employment tracks in Japan. I find that in each case a group of insecure but well represented marginal insiders successfully defend specific boundaries against reform even as other boundaries are relaxed. In the wake of successful boundary defense, I observe that marginal outsiders then seek alternative political strategies to secure access to opportunity. Lacking efficacy in electoral politics, they form coalitions with producer groups to pursue gradual reform, which reinterpret the rules that define boundaries and develop policy alternatives that compensate for persistent boundaries with potential costs to the broader public.

This study offers new perspectives on the politics of distinct but functionally parallel policy areas that determine group-level access to opportunity in three diverse national cases. In contrast to conventional views that high-status elites preserve status quo policies that reproduce economic inequality, I show that lower-status families defend opportunity boundaries that reinforce unequal opportunity when they lack alternative strategies to secure their social status in times of economic uncertainty. To close, I argue that attempts to suppress this backlash by insulating opportunity reform from democratic pressure may have helped to foster explosive political resentments that pervade contemporary democracies, and suggest in turn that efforts to address boundary defenders’ anxieties with social policy may both better accord with the democratic side of the normative ideals that define liberal democracy and also be more effective than technocratic alternatives in political practice to secure equal opportunity for outsiders.

[Synopsis]

“Esoteric Critique in Children’s Fiction: ‘How Do You Live’ and Imperial Ideology in Japan”

(Presented: WPSA 2025)

"Teaching the Political Science-Political Theory Divide: Insights from Course Design for Research Tutorials"

(Presented: APSA Teaching and Learning Conference 2025)