Dissertation

The main focus of my current research is on the political consequences of labor markets and income insecurity in young democracies. Many developing countries have dual labor markets, with large informal sectors where workers are not covered by formal labor arrangements and have no access to social security institutions. In my dissertation, I analyze the effect of economic informality on three key dimensions: social policy preferences, partisan attachments, and citizen-politician linkages.

My central argument is that economic informality reduces the demand for redistribution and weakens programmatic linkages between voters and political parties. The research builds on cross-national survey data for Latin America, an original survey conducted in Mexico in 2014, as well as in-depth interviews with informal workers.

Publications

• 2015. “Clientelism in Latin America. Effort and Effectiveness” (with Herbert Kitschelt) in Ryan Carlin, Matthew Singer, and Elizabeth Zechmeister (eds), The Latin American Voter, University of Michigan Press.

• 2015. “The Origins of Dualism” (with Erik Wibbels and David Rueda), in Pablo Beramendi, Silja Husermann, Herbert Kitschelt and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.), The Politics of Advanced Capitalism, Cambridge University Press.

• 2015. “Race, Skin Tone, and Social Inequalities in Mexico” (with Guillermo Trejo) part of the APSA Task Force on Racial and Class Inequalities in the Americas (forthcoming).