The Political Science Post Winter 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD 2
POPULISM AS A THIRD DIMENSION
IN SPAIN 4
EVENTS AND PROGRAMS 7
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 15
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS 17
STUDENT SPOTLIGHTS 19
FACULTY SPOTLIGHTS 22
FACULTY PUBLICATIONS 25
CONCLUSION 29
Publisher:
Jay Goodliffe, Chair
Editor:
J. Matthew Clarke
The BYU Department of Political Science, consistent with the aims of
a BYU education, intends to foster “Lifelong Learning and Service.”
We hope to provide our alumni with intelligent, thoughtful and
sophisticated analysis of important issues, and to act as a catalyst for
service in our communities, neighborhoods, nations and the world.
Graphic Designers:
Seraphina Johnstun,
Abby Myers
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FOREWORD
In this issue, we move to Spain during its particularly challenging 2016 election
cycle. The struggles to build a governing coalition were aggravated by the influence
of Spanish politicians using the rhetoric of populism, a term and point of discourse
that has also gained significance in recent US elections. Professor Kirk Hawkins and
his Spanish co-authors write about how populist ideas worked to deepen the divide
between political parties in Spain in 2016, making coalition formation an almost
insurmountable task. Populism is now a globally discussed ideal, as divisions that
seem impossible to mediate continue to exist between citizens and the political elite.
We also examine the influence of social media on correcting public opinion—in
this case, opinions related to empathic behavior. Finally, we celebrate the scholarly
accomplishments of our students during the now-annual College of FHSS Mentored
Research Conference.
We hope you enjoy this issue at the beginning of the new year.
The Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain
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3

The Third
Dimension
Examining Populism in Spanish Politics
Kirk Hawkins
The 2016 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 26 June 2016,
to elect the 12th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in
the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in
the Senate. No party had secured a majority in the 2015 election, resulting in
the most fragmented parliament since 1977.
Ensuing negotiations in late 2015 failed to produce a stable governing
coalition, paving the way for a repeat election on 26 June 2016. The political
deadlock marked the first time that a Spanish election was triggered due to
failure in the government formation process. Podemos and United Left (IU)
joined forces ahead of the election to form the Unidos Podemos alliance,
along with several other minor left-wing parties.
Opinion polling going into the election predicted a growing polarization
between this alliance and the People’s Party, which would be fighting to
maintain first place nationally. This turbulent divide in Spanish governance
gave a third influencing group of politicians—the “populists”—significantly
greater influence, since neither of the traditional left and right parties
achieved a winning formula for the Spanish populace.
Professor Kirk Hawkins and his co-authors, Hugo Marcos-Marne and
Carolina Plaza-Colodro (both from the University of Salamanca), study
this third group of influential populists from an ideational approach in their
article, “Is populism the third dimension? The quest for political alliances
in post-crisis Spain.” Therein, they describe the way populism functions
in an actual state; in this case, 2016 Spain. They also defend the ideational
approach to populism by arguing that populist rhetoric has significant
4

5
consequences for government formation and the
coalition choices of political parties.
Populism refers to a range of political stances that
emphasize the idea of “the people” and juxtapose
this group against “the elite.” It is frequently
associated with anti-establishment and anti-political
sentiment. Populism has roots in the thoughts of
Edmund Burke, John Locke and Adam Smith.
A common approach to defining populism is known
as the ideational approach, so called because
it emphasizes that populism should be defined
according to specific underlying ideas, as opposed
to common economic policies or leadership
styles that populist politicians sometimes display.
The core principles of idealistic or “ideational”
populism are as follows.
In ideational populism, there are two primary
units of analysis: ‘the people’ and ‘the elite.’ As
described by political analysts, ‘the people’ are
viewed as virtuous and homogenous, while ‘the
elite’ are seen as dangerous ‘others’ who attempt to
deprive the people of their rights, values, prosperity,
identity, and voice. There is an antagonistic
relationship between these two units, and the idea
of popular sovereignty—the rule of ‘the people’—
underlies this dynamic and irreconcilably divides
the parties.
Using two attempts of government formation
in Spain during 2016 as an example, Hawkins
and his co-authors show that incorporating a
populist dimension of competition alongside the
two traditional issue divides in Spain (left-right
and center-periphery) can successfully explain
agreements where approaches restricted to the two
traditional dimensions fail. Essentially, populism
forms a third, “ideational” dimension with its own content,
one that can be considered alongside strong ideological
dimensions in formal spatial analysis, and which
influences alliances among political parties.
The ideational approach does not argue that populism
overrides traditional issues and ideologies. Unlike
traditional ideologies such as liberalism, socialism, or
conservatism, populism is not consciously articulated and
speaks to only limited numbers of issues on its own. The
thin, transitory nature of populous discourse means that
it must be combined with more traditional ideologies to
have comprehensive programmatic content. Thus, there
are populists on both the right and the left, all of whom
share a similar way of framing their (very different) issue
positions.
Similarly, populism
played an important
role in determining
the outcome of the
November 2022 U.S.
midterm elections.
Election results
appear to have been
dominated by an
anti-populist majority
that rejected the rise
of global populism
for many reasons,
but mostly due to the
concern about the rise
of global authoritarianism; most populist candidates (on
the right but also the left) did poorly.
“Unlike
traditional
ideologies such
as liberalism,
socialism, or
conservatism,
populism is
not consciously
articulated and
speaks to only
limited numbers
of issues on its
own.”
Spanish elections in 2015 and 2016 necessitated either
a coalition government or a minority government with
substantive support from third parties. Populist positions
may have modulated the order of preferences of the major

parties in a way that explains the coalition outcomes.
Because populism was generally rejected by the larger
traditional parties such as the PSOE, it made the leftwing,
non-populist Ciudadanos the PSOE’s party first
choice. Thus, populism in the ideational sense has
the ability to influence which parties are perceived
as potential allies in negotiations and resulted in
agreements reached in 2016 Spain between left and right
forces, as well as more pro-center positions.
Since the article was published, the populist Podemos
party has joined with another left-populist party,
Izquierda Unida, to form Unidos Podemos, highlighting
the ability of populism to unite otherwise dissimilar
parties. Also, Spain has seen the emergence of a new
populist party, Vox, that has split away the traditional,
conservative People’s Party. Founded in 2013, Vox is
currently led by party president Santiago Abascal, vice
presidents Jorge Buxadé, Javier Ortega Smith, Reyes
Romero, and secretary general Ignacio Garriga. Vox is
identified as right-wing to far-right by academics and
mainstream journalists.
“A Revolution of Rights in American Founding Documents” was published in the Journal of Political Institutions and
Political Economy: Vol. 3: No. 2, pp 124-147, 28 Jun 2022. © 2022 S. F. Abramson, M. J. Barber and J. C. Pope
6

Bear Ears National Monument Trip
Professor Adam Brown took his Politics of Public Lands
class down to the Moab area the weekend of November
12 to see dinosaur tracks, petroglyphs, national parks, and
national monuments.
EVENTS &
PROGRAMS
POLI 325, titled “Politics of Wilderness, National Parks,
and Public Land Management,” examines the history,
management, and legal environment surrounding federallyowned
public lands in the west, particularly those managed
by the National Parks Service, the Bureau of Land
Management [BLM], the Forest Service, and the Fish
and Wildlife Service. Students learned in the classroom
about the paleontological, archeological, geological, and
biological resources that compete for protection against the
demands of tourism, development, extractive industry, and
even deliberate vandalism.
Students were able to touch 150-million-year-old allosaurus (top) and
camarasaurus (left) tracks, causing many to exclaim about how much
more impactful the physical example was than simply viewing fossils
in a museum.
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Seeing oil wells and mining activity so close to the northern
boundary of Bears Ears National Monument—and so close to
unprotected petroglyphs just outside the monument—invigorated
discussions about how to balance impulses for preservation against
modern society’s economic realities. Comparing the crowding at
Delicate Arch (protected in Arches National Park) to the relative quiet
at Corona Arch (on BLM land) drove home the costs of preservation,
since “protecting” Delicate Arch results in so much publicity and
visitation. Lessons from this experiential learning trip will stay with
these students longer than anything taught in the classroom.

8

The Economics and Politics of Gender
Discrimination
The Economics and Politics of Gender Discrimination, a seminar led by Dr. Olga Stoddard and Dr. Jessica
Preece from BYU Political Science, was held on Tuesday, October 25. The purpose of their research was to
conduct a field experiment that examined the ways in which political parties could increase women’s desire to
run for office (their “political ambition”). Experiments conducted by Dr. Preece and Dr. Stoddard revealed that
women are considerably more competition-averse than men, and this likely contributes to why women are less
likely to run for office. They found large differences in the response rates of men and women—men were twice
as likely to respond as women. These results contradicted the limited research that suggested women and men
respond similarly to political party recruitment.
This paper is currently under review at the Journal of Business Economics and Organization.
Dr. Olga Stoddard and Dr. Jessica Preece of BYU Political Science
9

Does the American Experience Still Matter?
Professors Danielle Allen and William B. Allen, held a discussion together on November 29, 2022 at the
Wheatley Institute Center. This father-daughter duo discussed educating for American democracy and
citizenship across generations.
They also discussed this question of whether the American Experience still matters, to which they responded
with a resounding “yes.” There have always been moral choices in government, they said. The voice of liberty
and equality has been there from the beginning of the United States. Moral equality integrates and binds
together the entire Declaration of Independence. The affirmation of the good and the right is more important
to repeat than the evidence of the evil. We have established the reality of the political experiment that resulted
in the United States, and the principles upon which it is founded. But we have a burden of knowing that if [the
American Experiment] does fail, it won’t fail because the experiment failed, but because we failed. “I want to
counsel all of us to take patriotism seriously, and take love of country seriously, but not to turn it into a divine
principle,” William Allen counsels.
Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University
Professor at Harvard University where she also directs
the Safra Center for Ethics. Her work focuses on political
philosophy, ethics, and public policy. Professor Allen,
a former Marshall Scholar and MacArthur Foundation
Fellow, has chaired the Pulitzer Prize board and the
Melon Foundation Board.
William B. Allen is Professor Emeritus of Political
Science at Michigan State University where he taught
political philosophy, American government, and
jurisprudence. A nationally recognized expert on George
Washington and the American Founding, Professor
Allen has served on numerous boards and commissions
including the National Council on the Humanities and as
chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
10

Political Science Poster Conference
The College of FHSS “Mentored Student Research Conference” at BYU was held on December 8, 2022. The
event was a half-day poster conference made possible by the Mary Lou Fulton endowed chair in the College
of Family, Home, and Social Sciences. All undergraduate and graduate students from any department or school
in the college were invited to participate. The conference gave students an opportunity to orally present their
research to other students, faculty members, and the public. Cash prizes were awarded in each category, and
those who participate may apply to be reimbursed for graduate school applications.
PSPC Winners
1st Place: “Constitutional
Choices with Populist
Consequences”
Ethan Johnson, mentored by Prof.
Kirk Hawkins
2nd Place: “Independents: The
Worst of Both Worlds”
Elle Diether & Jacob Lunt,
mentored by Prof. Quin Monson
3rd Place: “The ‘Electable’
Woman: Effects of Gendered
Language on Voting Behavior in
Spain”
Megan Baird, mentored by Prof. Liz
McGuire
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Civic Engagement
1st Place: “#themoderncampaign:
Twitter Rhetoric during the 2022 Midterm
Elections”
Grace Burns, Kathryn Fontano, & Ashlan
Gruwell, mentored by Profs. Alejandrea
Aldridge & Chris Karpowitz
Honorable Mentions
“Electoral Costs for Congressional Corruption in 2022”
Sarah Read Mitchell, mentored by Prof. Celeste Beesley
“Corruption and Democracy”
Julia Chatterley, mentored by Profs. Michael Barber & Darren Hawkins
“Vote the Bums Out: What do Americans Really Think About Career Politicians?”
J. Quincy Taylor & Elijah Whitaker, mentored by Prof. Alejandra Aldridge
“That Which Goes Beep in the Night: The Game Theory of Cyberattacks” M. Grant Macgregor, mentored
by Jay Goodliffe
“#themoderncampaign: Twitter Rhetoric during the 2022 Midterm Elections” Grace Burns, Kathryn
Fontano, & Ashlan Gruwell, mentored by Profs. Alejandrea Aldridge & Chris Karpowitz
12

Brent Taylor Gala
The Major Brent Taylor Foundation Gala was held on November 12, 2022 at the David Eccles Conference
Center in Ogden, Utah. Kray Jubeck, one of our BYU Political Science students, gave a keynote address. Kray
spoke about the scholarship he received and thanked Jennie Taylor and the Foundation for their support in his
academic achievements. Attended by approximately 800 people, the Gala event raised funds for the Foundation
and highlighted many of the recipients of Brent Taylor Foundation Scholarships, including both high school and
university students from all over Utah.
Major Brent Taylor was on his second term as the mayor of North Ogden when he took an unprecedented year
of absence to serve his fourth deployment with the Utah National Guard in Afghanistan. In November 2018,
Major Taylor was killed in Kabul, the first sitting U.S. politician to be killed in action since the Civil War. He
is survived by his wife, Jennie Taylor, and seven children. To Brent, God, family, and country were everything,
and it was this mantra that steered his life.
Brent Taylor was born on July 6, 1976, in Ogden, Utah. From the start, he has always been a leader in his
endeavors. He graduated from Chandler High School, where he was elected as student body president and
earned an Eagle Scout award. Strongly rooted in his faith, Brent served a mission in Maceio, Brazil, for the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1998 to 2000 after his graduation.
Contact Information:
Major Brent Taylor Foundation
2637 N Washington Blvd, Box #272
North Ogden, UT 84414
BYU Political Science student Kray Jubek giving a keynote address. Kray
is a recipient of one of the Foundation Scholarships for leadership and
academic performance.
11 13
801-628-3848
info@majorbrenttaylor.com
Donate at majorbrenttaylor.com.

Miguel Cervantes
and Don Quixote
Political Character from Spanish Fiction
Don Quixote was, first and foremost, the brainchild of Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish soldier who,
down on his luck after a life of mediocre writing, inadvertently penned one of the great masterpiece of Western
literature (1605, 1615): the tale of a bored, middle-aged dilettante who, infatuated with his obsessive readings of
knights and chivalry, decides to abandon his former life and become a knight himself, traveling all throughout
Spain to make things right, battle evil and protect justice. Cervantes may have written the original book, but it is
the fictional Quixote who is our true guide through his idealistic political notions.
Quixote, as written by Cervantes, was forever challenging authority in his native Spain, criticizing
both the government and the church in the name of his own philosophy of universal humanism. The Knight of
La Mancha, in all his extraordinary eccentricities and altruism, is considered amongst the highest echelon of
humanity.
Don Quixote had the courage to trust his intuition, to break forth from the masses to become who he was
meant to be, to live an authentic life without being repudiated by the bullying or sneer remarks of people who
couldn’t do the same for themselves.
Don Quixote thought that if he couldn’t live forever, then he would live in such a way that should be
remembered forever– to live heroically, accomplishing great deeds that deserve their chapters in the annals of
history. Such is the political philosophy of Don Quixote. Even if one cannot be immortal, one still should live
and act as if one deserved to be.
Miguel Cervantes, 1547-1616
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POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHER
15

George
Santayana
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y
Borrás (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952),
also known as George Santayana, was a Spanish and
American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in
Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the U.S. from
the age of eight, though he always retained a valid Spanish
passport. He graduated from Harvard and later returned
there to teach from 1889-1912, mentoring students such as
W.E.B. Du Bois, T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost. He moved
permanently to, and spent the rest of his life in, Europe
Santayana’s book, The Life of Reason, is arguably the
first extended treatment of pragmatism written. Like many
of the classical pragmatists, and because he was wellversed
in evolutionary theory, Santayana was committed
to metaphysical naturalism. He believed that human
cognition, cultural practices, and social institutions have
evolved so as to harmonize with the conditions present
in their environment. The alternate title to The Life of
Reason, “The Phases of Human Progress,” is indicative of
this metaphysical stance.
soon after.
In The Life of Reason, he compared the “lived” world
Santayana was a broad-ranging cultural critic spanning
many disciplines. He was an early adherent of
epiphenomenalism and was profoundly influenced by
Baruch Spinoza’s life. He thought and, in many respects,
with the “ideal” world, and Santayana sought therein
to outline the ancient ideal of a well-ordered life. He is
widely known for his aphorisms, especially the oft-quoted
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
was a devoted Spinozist.
repeat it.”
“To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we
come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best,
to be carried by the contemplation of nature of a vivid faith in
the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science
can hope to be.”
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, The Life of Reason
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ALUMNI
SPOTLIGHTS
Baxter Oliphant
BA Political Science
Baxter Oliphant is a senior researcher at Pew Research Center, in Washington,
DC, where he focuses on U.S. politics and policy research including partisan
polarization, trust in government, gun policy and U.S. foreign policy.
He received doctoral and master’s degrees in politics from Princeton
University and holds a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University.
His dissertation explored the impact of moral judgments on U.S. presidential
elections. Before graduate school, he worked in political polling for
campaigns and industry groups.
Oliphant is a member
of the American
Association for Public
Opinion Research and
the American Political
Science Association.
15 17

Aerin Burns
Christensen
Aerin is a second year law student at J. Reuben Clark Law School. She grew
up in Highland, Utah and loves working with people and finding solutions.
Before starting law school she worked in local policy and interned with
Senator Mike Lee in Washington, DC, 2019, for five months. Her internship
on Capitol Hill allowed her to meet and work with some of “the most amazing
people” she has ever met. “And don’t even get me started on the free reign
over some of history’s most amazing buildings!”
She says that “the Washington Seminar is such a worthwhile program and it
has given indispensable insight into both my education and my future career!”
She is looking for opportunities to work with law firms here in Utah.
Brady Long’s career has taken him to law school and back to Capitol
Hill as the head of our Government Relations group. Brady says that this
journey is a reminder to our grads that wherever their career leads them, the
principles and framework they learned in Poli Sci can be incredibly useful
down the road.
Brady K. Long
Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor based on
revenue. Based in Vernier, Switzerland, the company has offices in 20
countries, including Canada, the United States, Norway, the United
Kingdom, India, Brazil, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. It also has an
office in Houston, Texas, where Brady works.
Transocean’s website, found at deepwater.com, provides worldwide, rigbased
well construction services to its customers by integrating motivated
people, quality equipment and innovative technology, with focus on
technically demanding environments.
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STUDENT
SPOTLIGHTS
Amy Kurtzweil
Amy grew up in Crestwood, Kentucky, right outside of
Louisville, and lived there until she came to BYU. While at
BYU, she’s been blessed to participate in organizations such
as the BYU College Democrats, the Political Affairs Society,
the Political Review, research for professors in the Political
Science Department, and an internship with the Utah State
Legislature. These organizations here have connected her with
some of the most “wonderful and inspiring people” she’s ever
met, and have taught her so much about what it means to be
involved with politics, and represent BYU in all we do.
Her interest in politics first grew while she was in high
school and she began learning more about issues affecting
Kentuckians, such as coal in Eastern KY. She realized she
didn’t like how a lot of issues were dealt with, and she felt
like a lot of people were being underrepresented or not taken
care of at all, which inspired her interest in working with/in
politics someday. More than anything, she feels like politics
and political science can teach us how to take care of each
other, and she wants to dedicate her work to helping people
and creating policies that will represent the needs of people
from all walks of life.
Amy’s plans for after she graduates right now is to attend law
school. No matter what she does, she wants to make sure that
she’s representing issues she cares about,
and that she’s making a difference in
people’s lives. Whether that’s working to
help craft and pass important legislation,
or litigation and representing certain issues
and people in court, she wants to help
others and make a meaningful difference
in the world.
Amy is currently the President of the BYU
College Democrats organization.
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Ethan Johnson
Ethan is a junior studying Economics and
Political Science with a minor in Global
Women’s Studies. He grew up in Kansas City,
where frequent political conversations with
his father sparked his political curiosity. He
is just starting to serve a mission in Boston,
Massachusetts.
He received 1st Place in the FHSS College
Mentored Research conference poster event,
with this poster: “Constitutional Choices with
Populist Consequences.” After graduation,
Ethan plans to get a PhD and eventually return
to BYU as a professor.
Olivia Craig
Olivia Craig is a Junior from Albuquerque, New Mexico
studying political science. She has been interested in
politics since she was young. In middle school, she
volunteered as a Senate Page at the New Mexico State
Capitol. Her interests have since evolved into her major.
She enjoys politics because it’s a place to help others learn
about what is happening in their community and find their
voice.
Last winter she was an intern in Idaho Senator Mike
Crapo’s Washington DC office, where she worked with the
press and legislative teams. Olivia is participating in the
Utah State Legislature internship this winter semester. In
the future, Olivia is interested in continuing to work with
the legislative branch or getting involved with campaigns.
Outside of politics, Olivia is an entrepreneur at heart. In the
summer, she teaches swimming lessons to babies and does
wedding florals.
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PIC OF CAMPUS ON THIS PAGE

FACULTY SPOTLIGHTS
Kirk
Hawkins
Kirk Hawkins grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, close to downtown, near the “tough part of town” and served a mission in
Chili, Concepcion. He returned to BYU studying Mechanical Engineering, but a student friend told him about IR and he
switched majors eventually graduating in IR and Area Studies.
He went to Duke for his MA, and while he was in his PhD program in Political Science at Duke, his roommate, Matt
Holland, introduced him to a friend, who then introduced him to a young woman who was studying in her PhD in Political
Science at University of Wisconsin in Madison. They both did fieldwork in Chili, and they helped each other conduct
their research. She had also grown up in Arizona, so they had a lot in common. She eventually flew out to Duke and they
married soon thereafter.
While Kirk was doing research in Venezuela during his dissertation in 1999, Hugo Chavez had just come to power after
legitimate democratic elections, after a constitutional convention, and Kirk thought it would be interesting to interview
Chavez or some of the people who worked around him. So he waited outside the gates of the Chavez political offices in
Caracas and knocked on the door, and eventually got in. He never got to Chavez, saw him only in a military parade, but
he spoke with a lot of the people who got Chavez into government. Soon, Venezuela moved away from democracy toward
authoritarianism, and Maduro is the anointed heir to Chavez. Kirk studies some of the populist ideas that helped move
Venezuela from democracy to a dictatorship.
Kirk Hawkins teaches comparative politics with an emphasis on Latin America. His current research focuses on political
organization and populism, and he directs “Team Populism,” a global scholarly network studying populism’s causes and
consequences. Projects include the creation of a global populism dataset, experimental research on populism’s rhetorical
mechanisms, and the mitigation of populism’s polarizing consequences for society. He studies the role of ideas in politics,
and theorists who focus on ideologies, political ideas, not normative justifications for politics, but the spread and impact of
ideas.
Kirk received his Ph.D. from Duke University (2003), an M.A. in Political Science from Duke (1998), and an MA from,
Brigham Young University (1995), and a B.A., Brigham Young University (1993) He is a Professor, Brigham Young
University Department of Political Science, 2019-present (Associate Chair over Curriculum, 2020-present)
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PIC OF CAMPUS ON THIS PAGE

FACULTY SPOTLIGHTS
Darin Self
Quin
Monson
Darin received a PhD from the Department of Government at
Cornell University, Fall 2022. He specializes in Comparative
Politics with a minor in International Relations. His research
focuses on authoritarian incumbent parties, militaries, party
systems, and democratization.
His dissertation explained why some militaries support
democratization. He argues that the military’s confidence
in civilians is higher when the military and civilians share a
vision of the national project, and when parties allied with
the military are institutionalized and electorally strong.
He tests this argument using archival research and elite
interviews conducted in Indonesia and Paraguay, and crossnational
quantitative data using an original dataset he created
on military behavior during 150 different regime transitions
following military-backed authoritarian rule.
His other research looks at the role of authoritarian
incumbent parties and their effects on various aspects of
democratic development and consolidation. For example,
he has working papers under review on how authoritarian
incumbent parties affect democratic party system
development globally, as well as how these parties restrain
former military officers’ political prospects. These papers,
along with other papers, can be found in Working Papers.
Darin has received several awards and fellowships including
the Fulbright Fellowship, Henry Luce Foundation Research
Grant, Southeast Asian Research Group pre-Dissertation
Fellowship, Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship,
and has served as a Cornell Latin American Studies Program
fellow. Darin began at BYU Political Science during
Summer 2022.
Quin has been with BYU Political Science since 2001
and has held positions as Director of CSED, Associate
Chair of BYU Political Science, Senior Scholar at
CSED, Director of the BYU Office of Civic Engagement
Leadership, and is a founding partner of the influential
Y2 Analytics. He is an expert in polling and American
Politics, speaks Portuguese, and plays saxophone since
his youth, and was a member of BYU’s prestigious jazz
band Synthesis. In the summer of 2022, he was promoted
to Professor of Political Science at BYU.
Alejandra is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at
Brigham Young University. She studies how Americans
think about democracy in an era of polarized politics
and how presidents influence conceptions of democratic
norms. Broadly, her research interests include survey
methodology, experimental methods, presidential
influence, voter behavior, presidential elections, and
gender and politics. She graduated with her PhD in
political science from Stanford University in 2022, and
graduated from Brigham Young University with her BA
in Political Science in 2016.
On the side, she loves tennis, Crossfit, Sprinkles
cupcakes, and dark chocolate.
Alejandra
Aldridge
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FACULTY PUBLICATIONS
Kirk Hawkins
The Ideational Approach to Populism
Populism is on the rise in Europe and the Americas. Scholars increasingly understand populist forces in terms of their
ideas or discourse, one that envisions a cosmic struggle between the will of the common people and a conspiring elite.
In this volume, we advance populism scholarship by proposing a causal theory and methodological guidelines – a research
program – based on this ideational approach. This book argues that populism exists as a set of widespread attitudes among
ordinary citizens, and that these attitudes lie dormant until activated by weak democratic governance and policy failure.
It offers methodological guidelines for scholars seeking to measure populist ideas and test their effects. And, to ground
the program empirically, it tests this theory at multiple levels of analysis using original data on populist discourse across
European and US party systems; case studies of populist forces in Europe, Latin America, and the US; survey data from
Europe and Latin America; and experiments in Chile, the US, and the UK.
The result is a truly systematic, comparative approach
that helps answer questions about the causes and
effects of populism.
25

Adam R. Brown
The Dead Hand’s Grip: How Long Constitutions Bind States
In The Dead Hand’s Grip, Adam R. Brown examines constitutional specificity--or length--as a new way to evaluate
how different policies govern citizens and regulate themselves. As Brown shows, many states and nations bloat their
constitutions with procedural and policy details that other polities leave to statutory or regulatory discretion. American
state constitutions vary in length from under 9,000 to almost 400,000 words. Constitutional endurance has often provoked
fears that the dead hand of the past may reach into the present; lengthy constitutions strengthen the dead hand’s grip,
binding states to a former generation’s solutions to modern problems.
Brown argues that excessive constitutional specificity restricts state discretion, with three major results. First, it compels
states to rely more frequently on burdensome amendment procedures, increasing constitutional amendment rates. Second,
it increases judicial invalidation rates as state supreme courts enforce narrower limits on state action. Third and most
importantly, it results in severely reduced economic performance, with lower incomes, higher unemployment, greater
inequality, and reduced policy innovation generally. In short, long constitutions hurt states.
While Brown’s analysis focuses on just one set of sub-national constitutions, their broad functions make his thesis relevant
to those wanting to understand institutional variation between nations.
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Busby, Howat, Rothschild, Shafranek
The Partisan Next Door
The Partisan Next Door, 2021, published by Cambridge University Press, explores the idea that in the United
States, politics has become tribal and personalized. The influence of partisan divisions has extended beyond
the political realm into everyday life, affecting relationships and workplaces as well as the ballot box. To help
explain this trend, we examine the stereotypes Americans have of ordinary Democrats and Republicans.
Using data from surveys, experiments, and Americans’ own words, we explore the content of partisan
stereotypes and find that they come in three main flavors—parties as their own tribes, coalitions of other
tribes, or vehicles for political issues. These different stereotypes influence partisan conflict: people who hold
trait-based stereotypes tend to display the highest levels of polarization, while holding issue-based stereotypes
decreases polarization. This finding suggests that reducing partisan conflict does not require downplaying
partisan divisions but shifting the focus to political priorities rather than identity—a turn to what we call
responsible partisanship.
Professor Ethan Busby at BYU Political Science, along with colleagues Adam Howat, Jacob Rothschild, and
Richard Shafranek, authored this intriguing analysis of neighbors and friends who disagree with us, and why.
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See: Ethan C. Busby, Adam J. Howat, Jacob
E. Rothschild, and Richard M. Shafranek.
The Partisan Next Door: Stereotypes of Party
Supporters and Consequences for Polarization
in America, October 2021. Available on
Amazon and other online bookstores.

Gubler, Karpowitz, Monson, Romney
Changing Hearts and Minds Through Media
It seems intuitive: if you want to soften hearts toward marginalized people, show that they are human like
everyone else. That’s the theory behind untold media messages depicting “outgroups” having relatable
experiences, such as images of immigrants eating Thanksgiving dinner or videos of refugees hugging their
children.
Unfortunately, although humanizing messages do increase empathy in those who already view the group
positively, they do almost nothing to increase empathy in people with high animosity toward an outgroup,
according to new BYU research from political science professors.
Using two experiments focused around Latinos, they found that while media messages humanized the
Latino groups for all respondents, the treatment messages produced the largest empathy response among
those with the most positive prior attitudes. A key intended target of the media messages—those with the
highest pretreatment antipathy toward the out-group—reported a dramatically lower increase in empathy. In
a second study, they show that unpleasant effects from dissonance are an important mechanism driving these
differential results. In both studies, treatments designed to provoke increased empathic concern produced little
change in policy attitudes. Thus, changing hearts using empathy-inducing media is a complex task, making
the ability to change minds elusive.
See: Joshua Gubler, Chris Karpowitz, Quin Monson and David
Romney, Changing Hearts and Minds? Why Media Messages
Designed to Foster Empathy Often Fail, The Journal of Politics,
Volume 84, Issue 4, October 2022, Pages 1885-2311
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pic of campus or whatever. could also include Don Quixote
bonus article in here
IN CONCLUSION
Words from Noel B. Reynolds, 2021
Noel Reynolds, Professor Emeritus, BYU Political Science
In all their teachings, the Nephite prophets recognized the human potential for both goodness and evil. Because of
his infinite goodness, God prepared a plan of salvation, including the atonement of Jesuis Christ, so that in this state of
probation, all humankind could choose the covenant path of his gospel by repenting and coming to him. And this path will
prepare them as they follow him and endure to the end to become good like him so that they might enter into his presence
and into eternal life. . . In Nephite discourse, the goodness of God was a phrase that was used in two different ways–to
explain God’s provision for the possibility of eternal life for all men and women and to explain his miraculous support and
deliverances, day by day, for those who are enduring to the end on the covenant path. The Book of Mormon portrays the
goodness of God as the divine feature he desires all his human children to emulate and to incorporate into their souls.
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See Noel B. Reynolds, “The Goodness of God and His Children as a Fundamental Theological Concept in the
Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, Vol. 46, 2021, at 131-156.
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