Comparative Politics

Research Interest

Mark Danner

Professor
Graduate School of Journalism
English

Professor Mark Danner is longtime journalist and writer who holds the Class of 1961 Distinguished Chair in Undergraduate Education at the University of California at Berkeley, teaching in both the Graduate School of Journalism and the Department of English. He writes about political violence, war, and American politics, mostly for The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, and teaches courses in foreign and war reporting and the realist and modernist novel.

Crystal Chang Cohen

Continuing Lecturer
Global Studies
Political Economy
Crystal Chang Cohen is a Continuing Lecturer in the Global Studies and Political Economy programs. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Chinese and Indian politics, gender perspectives in Asia, theories of contemporary political economy and development, and Silicon Valley's innovation ecosystem.

Soo Sun You

Graduate Student
Political Science

Soo Sun You is pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on comparative politics and political behavior. Her research interests lie at the intersection of economic and political inequality and development and studies how political institutions affect levels of perceived economic inequality and political behavior in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Soo Sun worked as a Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) research fellow in Ethiopia, implementing and analyzing the impact of women’s empowerment programs. She also worked as...

Ritika Goel

Graduate Student
Political Science

Ritika Goel is a PHD candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley. She studies comparative political economy, focusing on democratic accountability, inequality and, upward redistribution and populism.

Otto Kienitz

Graduate Student
Political Science

Otto Kienitz is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on autocratic institutions in comparative perspective ranging from Europe to imperial and post-Soviet Eurasia. His dissertation explores the relationship between local self-government and state capacity in Russia, Ottoman Turkey, and China. He is the co-founder of the Berkeley Historical Social Science Workshop and concentrates on the role of local political economy in autocratic state-building.

Kienitz is a recipient of the 2021...

Rachel Fisher

Graduate Student
Political Science

Rachel Fisher is pursuing her PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on comparative politics and political behavior, including candidate ambition and recruitment, international development, and policy evaluation. She employs experimental methods to study gender differences in political participation.

Fisher is the recipient of the 2021 IIS Simpson Research Grant.

Clara Bicalho

Graduate Student
Political Science

Clara Bicalho is a PhD student in the Political Science Department at the University of California, Berkeley and a Research Associate at the Center of the Politics of Development. Her research focuses on belief formation and political accountability with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Joanna Vasquez

Undergraduate Student
Political Science

Joanna Vasquez is a junior from La Puente, California who is pursuing a B.A. in Political Science. Her research interests include labor law, immigration, public safety in Latin America, international relations, and foreign policy. Following her time at UC Berkeley, Vasquez hopes to work abroad as a teacher and ultimately go to law school to eventually become a labor law attorney and give back to her community.

Isabelle Valdes

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Spanish

Isabelle Valdes is a junior at Cal double majoring in Political Science and Spanish and minoring in Data Science. Her academic interests broadly include postcolonial politics in Latin America, Andean history, indigenous politics, political theory, and quantitative methodology. She is an alum of the Pipeline Initiative in Political Science (PIPS) at UC Berkeley, and plans on pursuing a Ph.D in Political Science focused on Latin America in the future. In her free time, Isabelle is an avid reader and also enjoys cooking, going on hikes, and studying Romance languages.

Serina Li

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Legal Studies

Serina Li is a third-year studying Political Science and Legal Studies with a minor in Global Poverty Practice. Her interests focus on the intersection between law, international relations, technology, and business. Serina Li interned at the NGO China House, where she conducted research on US-China Relations in Africa and contributed to a report published by the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. At Berkeley, Serina Li is a member of UC Berkeley's Model UN competition team and is the director of the Pre-Law Department within an ASUC office that...