Graduate Student Directory
- PhD Program
Muuhammet Akkus makkus1@binghamton.edu Rael
Almonteralmont4@binghamton.edu Democratic Backsliding, Inquality and Civic Participation, Social Movements, Latin America & the Caribbean LinkedIn Shambralyn
Bakersbaker13@binghamton.edu International environmental politics, international institutions and law, biodiversity politics Kathleen
Bannonkbannon1@binghamton.edu American Foreign Policy, International Relations, Bureaucratic Politics LinkedIn Onsel Gurel
Bayraliobayral1@binghamton.edu Public Policy, Constitutional Political Economy, Machine Learning Michael
Catalanomcatala4@binghamton.edu Law and Courts, Judicial Independence, US State Courts, Constitutional Law Weebly Ekin Cengiz ocengiz1@binghamton.edu Hyoungrohk
Chuhchu13@binghamton.edu European Party Politics, Voting Behavior, Political Ideologies, Democratic Erosion, Public Policy Tyler
Clarketclarke3@binghamton.edu Shawn
Donahuesdonahu1@binghamton.edu Furkan
Emerfemer1@binghamton.edu Political Opposition, Authoritarian Regimes, Democratic Backsliding Viktorya Erdogu verdogu@binghamton.edu Yusuf
Evirgenyevirge1@binghamton.edu Contentious Politics, State Repression, Human Rights, Coups Andrew
Footeafoote1@binghamton.edu Alice
Hongyhong33@binghamton.edu Oguzhan Irguren oirgure1@binghamton.edu Hyesung
Janghjang41@binghamton.edu Abdinasir
Jimaleajimale1@binghamton.edu Muhammet Furkan
Karakayamkaraka1@binghamton.edu Hadis Karatashi hkaratashi@binghamton.edu Ethan Krzysik ekrzysik@binghamton.edu Enzo Jeson Li eli19@binghamton.edu Mary Lind mlind@binghamton.edu Ezgi
Muftuogluemuftuo1@binghamton.edu Jongho
Parkjpark374@binghamton.edu Alexander
Perdueaperdue2@binghamton.edu European Party Politics, Political Ideologies Almira
Sadykovaasadyko1@binghamton.edu Dini
Sasmidsasmi1@binghamton.edu Kaan
Senerksener1@binghamton.edu Didem
Seyisdseyis1@binghamton.edu Democratic Backsliding, Populism, Third Wave Democracies, Nationalism, Political Parties Moyan
Shimshi12@binghamton.edu International conflicts, authoritarian regimes, state violence, terrorism Oner
Yigitoyigit1@binghamton.edu Comparative politics, Ethnic and religious minorities, State minority policies, Political violence TianYi
Zhaotzhao19@binghamton.edu - MA Program
Sean Collery scollea1@binghamton.edu Kaya Foster kfoster@binghamton.edu Baran
Kusoglubkusogl1@binghamton.edu Shannon
O'Connorsoconnor@binghamton.edu Law and Courts Hudai Sencan hsencan@binghamton.edu
Student Excellence Award Winners
- Student Excellence Awards
- Michael Catalano (Research 2023)
- Tara Riggs (Teaching 2023)
- Mert Can Bayar (Teaching 2022)
- Esol Cho (Teaching 2022)
- Roya Izadidastgerdi (Teaching, 2021)
- Christine Sylvester (Teaching, 2020)
- Marc Davignon (Teaching, 2020)
- Allison Bugenis (Teaching, 2019)
- Jeremy Berkowitz (Teaching, 2018)
- Mert Moral (Research, 2017)
- Halil Ozen (Research, 2016)
- Scott Boddery (Research, 2015)
- Graig Klein (Research, 2015)
- Sheryl Symons (Teaching, 2015)
- Ben Farrer (Research, 2014)
- Josh Zingher (Research, 2014)
- Chad Clay (Research, 2012)
- Ian Farrell (Teaching, 2011)
Student Publications
- Graduate Student Publications
Akcinaroglu, S & Shi, M, "Digital Shadows: Exploring the Impact of Cryptocurrency on Terrorism", Terrorism and Political Violen, forthcoming
Cingranelli, D., Mark, S., & Sadykova DuMond, A. (2023). Democracy, Capacity, and the Implementation of Laws Protecting Human Rights. Laws, 12(1), 6.
Ye, H. (2023). Delayed Cooperation: Political Systems, Elections, and the Outcomes of Trade Negotiations. Review of International Political Economy.
Pashayan, A., Kehlenbach, E., Ye, H., Mueller, G., & Willis, C. (2023). The Realities Facing Graduate Students: Before, During, and After the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic. PS: Political Science & Politics, 56(3), 391-397.
Munir, H., Catalano, M., & Martinek, W. (Forthcoming). Judicial Decision Making on Lower Federal Courts. In M. Fix & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Research Handbook of Judicial Politics. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Catalano, M., & Chan, A. (2023). Common Law Systems and COVID-19 Policy response: Protective Public Health Policy in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. In
Catalano, M. A. (2022). Ex Ante and Ex Post Control Over Courts in the US States: Court Curbing and Political Party Influence. Justice System Journal, 43(4), 503-523
Catalano, M. (2023). Can the US Constitution Handle Political Parties? In D. Klein & J. Smith (Eds.), The US Constitution in Five Minutes. Equinox Publishing Home
Shvetsova, O., Zhirnov, A., Adeel, A. B., Bayar, M. C., Bayrali, O. G., Catalano, M., Catalano, O., Chu, H., Giannelli, F., Muftuoglu, E., Rosenberg, D., Seyis, D., Skopyk, B., VanDusky-Allen, J., & Zhao, T. (2022). Protective Policy Index, a Global Dataset of Origins and Stringency of COVID-19 Mitigation Policies. Scientific Data, 9(319).
Shvetsova, O., Zhirnov, A., Giannelli, F., Catalano, M., & Catalano, O. (2022). Can Correlation Between Governor's Party and COVID-19 Morbidity Be Explained by the Differences in COVID-19 Mitigation Policies in the States? American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 62(6), E381-E383
VanDusky-Allen, J. A., Utych, S. M., & Catalano, M. (2022). Partisanship, Policy, and Americans’ Evaluations of State-Level COVID-19 Policies Prior to the 2020 Election.
Shvetsova, O., Zhirnov, A., Giannelli, F., Catalano, M., & Catalano, O. (2022). Governor's Party, Policies, and COVID-19 Outcomes: Further Evidence of an Effect. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 62(3), 433-437.
Seyis, D., & Heller, W. B. (2021). Voter Support for Anti-Immigrant Populist Parties: The Effect of Economic Pessimism and "Out-Group" Immigration. Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, 2(3), 429-451.
Best, R., & Seyis, D. (2021). How Do Voters Perceive Ideological Congruence? The Effects of Winning and Losing under Different Electoral Rules. Electoral Studies, 69.
Naushirvanov, T., Rosenberg, D., Sawyer, P.S., & Seyis, D. (2022). How populists fuel polarization and fail their response to COVID-19: An empirical analysis. Frontiers in Political Science
Mark, B. S., Ye, H.-J., Foote, A., & Crippin, T. (2021). It’s a Hard-Knock Life: Child Labor Practices and Compliance with IMF Agreements. Social Sciences, 10(5), 171.
Walz, Matthew and Andrew Foote, 2020. “Keeping the Left at Bay: Delegate Selection System Choice in US Democratic Nominations.” Electoral Studies. 67
Didem Seyis and Hayley Munir. "Judiciary Under Attack: Populists in Government and the Independence of the Judiciary." In The Ideational Approach to Populism: Consequences and Mitigation, edited by Kirk Hawkins, Eliza Hawkins, Nina Wiesehomeier, Levi Littvay, Angelos Chryssogelos (Submitted to Cambridge University Press).
Robin E. Best and Didem Seyis. How Do Voters Perceive Ideological Congruence? The Effects of Winning and Losing under Different Electoral Rules. Forthcoming at Electoral Studies.
Catalano, Michael A. (with Gerald Benjamin). 2020. New York State’s Multi Party System. In The "Other" Parties: Minor Political Parties in Contemporary American Politics, eds. Richard Davis. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Mark, Brendan S. Program Lending by the IMF in Human Rights Research: Lessons for Policymakers, eds. David Cingranelli and Mikhail Filippov, under contract at UPenn Press.
Akcinaroglu, Seden and Efe Tokdemir. 2018. To Instill Fear or Love: Terror Groups and Strategy of Building Reputation. Conflict Management and Peace Science. 35(4).
Moral, Mert, and Andrei Zhirnov. 2018. Issue Voting as a Constrained Choice Problem. American Journal of Political Science. 62(2): 280- 295.
Ozen, H. Ege. 2018. Egypt’s 2011-2012 Parliamentary Elections: Voting for Religious vs. Secular Democracy? Mediterranean Politics. 23(4): 453- 178.
Tokdemir, Efe and Mark, Brendan S. 2018. When Killers Become Victims: Political Use of Force, Human Rights, and Strategic Target Selection, with Efe Tokdemir. International Interactions. 44(2)
Moral, Mert. 2017. The Bipolar Voter: On the Effects of Actual and Perceived Party Polarization on Voter Turnout in European Multiparty Democracies. Political Behavior 39(4): 935-965.
Moral, Mert, and Efe Tokdemir. 2017. Justices 'en Garde': Ideological Determinants of the Dissolution of Anti-Establishment Parties." International Political Science Review 38(3): 264-80.
Tokdemir, Efe. 2017. Winning hearts and minds (!): The dilemma of foreign aid in anti-Americanism, forthcoming at Journal of Peace Research. 54(6)
Zhiyuan Wang and Youn, Hyunjin. 2017. Repress or Respect? Precarious Leadership, Poor Economy and Labor Protection. Human Rights Review 18(1): 21-43.
Klein, Graig R., and Efe Tokdemir. 2016. Domestic diversion: Selective targeting of minority out-groups. Conflict Management and Peace Science. 36(1)
Moral, Mert. 2016. The Passive-Aggressive Voter: The Calculus of Casting an Invalid Vote in European Democracies. Political Research Quarterly 69(4): 732-45.
Tokdemir, Efe and Seden Akcinaroglu. 2016. Reputation of Terror Groups Dataset: Measuring Popularity of Terror Groups. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 53(2): 268-277.
Zhirnov, Andrei. 2016. Electoral Coordination in India: The Role of Costly Campaign Communication. India Review 15(4): 359-378.
Zhirnov, Andrei. 2016. Campaigns, Information, and Coordinated Voting in Multi Party Elections under Plurality Rule. Electoral Studies 41: 190–201.
Zhiyuan Wang and Youn, Hyunjin. 2016. Locating the External Source of Enforceability: Alliances, Bilateral Investment Treaties, and Foreign Direct Investment. Social Science Quarterly. 99(1): 80-96.
Best, Robin E., and Andrei Zhirnov. 2015. Perils and Pitfalls of Ignoring Disproportionality’s Behavioral Component. Electoral Studies 40: 256-267.
Madariaga, Amuitz Garmendia and H. Ege Ozen. 2015. Looking for Two-sided Coattail Effects: Integrated Parties and Multilevel Elections in the U.S. Electoral Studies, 40:66-75.
Moral, Mert, H. Ege Özen, and Efe Tokdemir. 2015. Bringing the Incumbency Advantage into Question for Proportional Representation. Electoral Studies 40: 56-65.
Carkoglu, Ali; Thomas Vitiello, and Mert Moral. 2012. Voter Advice Applications in Practice: Answers to Some Key Questions from Turkey. International Journal of Electronic Governance 5(3/4): 298-317.
Zhirnov, Andrei. 2010. Issues of Territorial Stability in India. In “Giant”-States: Problems of Territorial Stability. Eds. I.M. Busygina, L.V. Smirnagin, M.G. Filippov. Moscow: MGIMO- University.
Hire a Binghamton PhD
- Hire a PhD
- Dissertation Title: Court Curbing in the US States
- Chair: Wendy Martinek
- Committee: Jeffrey Yates, Olga Shvetsova
- Dissertation Synopsis: State courts in the United States operate in varying levels of judicial independence, conditioned in large part by attacks on those courts by state legislatures through the use of court-curbing policy. My dissertation explores three specific questions about court-curbing in the US States. First, how should we measure court-curbing activity? Not all court-curbing is created equal; I develop two new indicators of court curbing that measure intensity (rate of proposed institutional change) and likelihood of passage of court-curbing proposals. Second, why do we see variation in the use of court curbing in the US states? I explain that ex ante control mechanisms of courts (i.e., judicial nomination and selection systems) condition the motivation for ex post control mechanisms (i.e., court curbing). Third, what are the implications of court curbing on judicial behavior? While court curbing aims to influence judicial decision-making, my dissertation contributes to the small group of scholarship on the topic in the US states, with broad implications on the study of judicial independence.
Andrew Foote
- Dissertation Title: Choosing Who Votes
- Chair: David Clark
- Committee: Amanda Licht, Ekrem Karakoç
- Dissertation Synopsis: When are we likely to see incumbents undertake electoral reforms that selectively alter the voting population? I argue that reforms such as absentee voting, citizenship extensions and revocations, and ballot quotas are tools of pre-election manipulation (PEM) that an incumbent can use when there is growing support for an opposition group, but she has committed to improving the quality of elections. When an incumbent commits to improving the quality of elections, she makes it more costly to engage in electoral fraud or to repress the growing base of opposition support. PEM strategies allow the incumbent to selectively alter the electoral playing field while avoiding the perception that her commitment to election quality has weakened. I introduce the Citizenship, Absentee Voting and Suffrage Dataset, and create an index of PEM usage. I test the relationship between growing opposition support, commitment to election quality, and uses of PEM strategies, and also test the effects of PEM usage on the likelihood of future protests and leader turnover.
- Dissertation Title: A Third Wave of Autocratization?: An In-Depth Look into the Populist-
Driven Executive Aggrandizement - Chair: Robin E. Best
- Committee: Ekrem Karakoc, William B. Heller
- Dissertation Synopsis: In my dissertation, I argue that populists, when they control
the executive and the legislative branches, gradually expand their control over checks
and balances and erode democratic institutions. To show this phenomenon, which Bermeo
(2016) calls “executive aggrandizement,” in Chapter 1, I explore the global trends
of democracy measures and show that democracies governed by populist incumbents who
also control the majority of the legislature experience democratic backsliding. In
Chapter 2, I
turn to the judiciary, arguably the most vital democratic check on the executive and
legislative branches. I specifically focus on judicial independence and demonstrate
quantitatively that populist incumbents who control the majority of the legislature
gradually expand their control over the judicial system. After showing quantitative
evidence for global populist-driven executive aggrandizement in two chapters, I study how populists erode the independence of the judiciary by conducting process tracing on
Turkey and Ecuador. My dissertation contributes to the democratic backsliding and populism literature by showing that (1) the populist-driven democratic decline is not limited to a few outliers but a global trend, although (2) (younger) unconsolidated democracies are affected more significantly than consolidated democracies. Also, this study explores (3) the specific conditions and chain of events that lead to executive aggrandizement at the expense of judicial independence.
