Research

My research focus is environmental politics and behavior. One strand of work focuses on the international relations of global environmental cooperation. The second focuses on individual environmental behavior, with a focus on water conservation and sustainability literacy. My interest in teaching has also led to projects on sustainability literacy and graduate student pedagogy. Some ongoing projects and recent publications are listed below:

Regions in Global Environmental Politics

"Regions and the Ratification of International Environmental Agreements”

"Regional Variants and State Environmental Behavior: A Novel Approach Using Dyadic Analysis"

Water Conservation and Individual Environmental Behavior

"Water conservation interventions: A review using the information-motivation-behavioral skills model ” with Phil Ehret, Heather Hodges, Cameron Brick, and Sarah Anderson

"Global Sustainability Literacy: The Sulitest and International Understandings of Sustainable Develop-

ment” with Aaron Sparks, Heather Hodges, and Eric Smith

"Delivery Energy (Often) Requires Public Consent“with Eric Smith, Heather Hodges, and Aaron Sparks, in Raphael Heffron and Gavin Little (ed.)Delivering Energy Law and Policy in the EU and the US: A Reader, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press (2016)

Book Project

My book project explores the social factors that underlie a state’s decision to ratify global environmental agreements. It examines the role regionally defined logics of appropriateness play in shaping state behavior toward the environment. The project explores two unique, yet under-studied, aspects of the environmental treaty ratification process by integrating logics of identity with understandings of regions. Regional identities, defined as socially constructed groupings of multiple states sharing a collective understanding of their place in the international system, are hypothesized to establish expectations of appropriate behavior for states within a given region. These expectations are argued to increase the likelihood that states sharing the same regional identity will adopt similar policies. This overarching hypothesis is then tested using a mixed-method research design integrating traditional regression analysis, tools of network analysis, and qualitative case studies. The research sheds new light on the role of identity and regional dynamics in shaping state behavior across international relations.

Methods

I am a firm believer in first asking a good question and then finding the best methodological approach to answer it. This is reflected in the wide variety of methods I’ve used. In my research I use; traditional IR large-N regression analysis, network analysis, surveys, survey experiments, and field experiments.

*Working paper versions of all listed papers are available upon request.

Teaching and Sustainability

"Teaching Assistants and Pedagogy: A Survey of Political Science Instructors in Training" with Caleb Miller

"When are we ever going to use this: Discussing Programmatic Learning Outcomes in the Classroom." (2018) with Margarita Safronova and Caleb Miller Journal of Political Science Education