Governance / Democracy

Research Interest

Pol Fité Matamoros

Graduate Student
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
Pol Fité Matamoros is pursuing a PhD in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, as recipient of the Regent’s Fellowship. His research explores fascism as a spatial matter—i.e. as not only deploying certain spatial tactics, but also as premised on certain spatial imaginaries—through the case of early 20th century Spain. Its key contention is that exploring fascism through a spatial lens illuminates the links between European imperialism and fascism that are hinted at when calling the latter “the boomerang effect of...

Elena Chachko

Assistant Professor of Law
Berkeley Law
Elena Chachko is an Assistant Professor of Law at Berkeley Law School. She was the inaugural Rappaport Fellow at Harvard Law School. Motivated by experience in diplomacy and intelligence analysis, Professor Chachko’s research explores the intersection of law and geopolitics. Her recent projects study international cooperation in the administrative state, how agencies engage with international norms and practices in domestic regulation, the emergency governance of domestic and international institutions, the security and geopolitical aspects of tech governance, national security in economic...

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.

Jennie Barker

Graduate Student
Political Science

Jennie Barker is a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studies international influences on democratization. Her current research examines recipient government behavior toward democracy assistance. Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, Barker worked at the National Endowment for Democracy and completed a Fulbright fellowship in Germany.

Barker is also a recipient of the 2021 IIS Pre-Disseration Research Fellowship.

Arjun Solanki

Undergraduate Student
Operations Research and Management Science
Economics

Arjun Solanki is a sophomore majoring in ORMS and Economics. He is interested in financial, behavioral economics, and economic development. Previously, he has worked with the Union I&B Ministry (GOI) in tracking and analyzing various government policies in the broadcasting sector. Outside of his academic pursuits, he loves playing cricket and is a part of the professional Cricket Team at UC Berkeley. On his path towards graduation, Arjun aspires to pursue Quant/Finance.

Chris Hoofnagle

Professor of Law in Residence
Law

Chris Jay Hoofnagle helps students from different disciplines understand the interplay of law and technology. He is the author of Law and Policy for the Quantum Age (with Simson Garfinkel, Cambridge University Press, 2022). An elected member of the American Law Institute, Hoofnagle is of counsel to Gunderson Dettmer LLP.