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Tiffany D. Barnes

Education:
Ph.D., Rice University, 2012
Biography:

My research is in the field of Comparative Politics with an emphasis on comparative legislatures, comparative political institutions, gender and politics, and Latin America. I am interested in understanding the causes and consequences of diversity in political institutions—particularly as it pertains to politically marginalized groups (e.g., women, racial and ethnic minorities, and working-class people). To better understand questions surrounding representation, I collect and analyze a wealth of original quantitative and qualitative data. I have fielded original surveys in Argentina, Mexico, and the U.S. and conducted extensive fieldwork in Argentina. I employ a mixed-methods approach that incorporates advanced statistical techniques, elite interviews, in-depth case studies, and survey experiments. My research on representation focuses primarily on Latin America, but I have increasingly explored these issues in other contexts, including cross-national global analyses. 

My service to the department, college, university, and discipline is broad in scope, including commitments such as serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies, chairing the college Passport to the World: Keys to our Common Future, designing and directing a new university-wide internship program, WilDCats at the Capitol in Washington D.C., editing the Legislative Studies Newsletter, serving on multiple editorial boards, and presiding over the Midwest Women’s Caucus. Though general in scope, I’ve leveraged these positions to pursue my dedication to changing the opportunity structure for poor and first-generation college students and to advancing women and under-represented minorities in higher education.

I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at Rice University in 2012, where my dissertation won the John W. Garner Award for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences and Humanities at Rice University. In 2018 I was honored to receive the Emerging Scholar Award from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association. This award was designed to recognize a scholar who is no more than 6 years from the year of their PhD who has informed the study of legislative politics through innovative and rigorous scholarship. In 2017 I was honored with the Early Career Award from the Midwest Women's Caucus for Political Science, an award that recognizes a junior (pre-tenure) female faculty member based upon her research accomplishments and contribution to the discipline. In 2013 I was a Research Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. I have plans to spend Spring 2019 at Tulane University as the Greenleaf Scholar-In-Residence in the Stone Center for Latin American Studies.

In 2017 my book, Gendering Legislative Behavior: Institutional Constraints and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press, 2017), was awarded the Alan Rosenthal Prize for the best book or article written by a junior scholar that has potential to strengthening the practice of representative democracy, by the American Political Science Association Legislative Studies Section. In this book, I ask when and why do legislators—and particularly women legislators—have incentives to collaborate? And how do different legislative institutions facilitate or constrain women's legislative collaboration? To answer these questions, I spent over 20 months in Argentina, visited 19 of the country’s 24 provinces, and collected an original dataset that combines archival data (e.g., bill cosponsorship, leadership appointments, committee appointments, incumbency) and over 200 interviews with legislators and other elite political observers. My fieldwork was supported through research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Ora N. Arnold Fellowship, and the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences.

My other peer-reviewed research appears in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Political Research Quarterly, Governance, Politics & Gender and Politics, Groups, and Identities. In 2017 I won the Sophonisba Breckinridge Award from the Midwest Political Science Association for a paper co-authored with Abby Córdova. I was also awarded the best article published in Political Research Quarterly in 2017 and the Marian Irish Award in 2017 from the Southern Political Science Association for a paper I co-authored with Erin Cassese. Additionally, I have won over $580,000 in grants and fellowships to support my research.

For more information about my book, my fieldwork, and ongoing research visit my website: http://tiffanydbarnes.weebly.com/

 

Research Interests:
Comparative Politics
Gender and Politics
Latin American Politics
Selected Publications:

In addition to my book, Gendering Legislative Behavior (CUP 2016), have published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Here are a few of my recent publications. Please see my website for a full list and (ungated) links to all of my publications.

  • Brenna Armstrong, Tiffany D. Barnes, Diana Z. O'Brien, and Michelle Taylor-Robinson. "Corruption, Accountability, and Women's Access to Power." Forthcoming. Journal of Politics.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D. and Mirya R. Holman. 2020. “The Effect of Gender Quotas on Legislative Diversity.” Journal of Politics
  • Barnes, Tiffany D. and Gregory W. Saxton. 2019. “Working-Class Legislators and Perceptions of Representation in Latin America.” Political Research Quarterly 72(4):910-928.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D. and Emily Beaulieu. 2019. “Women Politicians, Institutions, and Perceptions of Corruption.” Comparative Political Studies 52(1): 134-167.
  • Cassese, Erin and Tiffany D. Barnes. Forthcoming. “Reconciling Sexism and Women’s Support for Republican Candidates: A Look at Gender, Class, and Whiteness in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Races.” Political Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9468-2.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., and Mirya R. Holman. Forthcoming. “Taking Diverse Backgrounds into Account in Studies of Political Ambition and Representation.” Politics, Groups, and Identities.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., Emily Beaulieu, and Gregory W. Saxton. Forthcoming. “Sex and Corruption: How Ideology Shapes Voters’ Responses to Scandals.” Politics Groups and Identities.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., Tomas Ciocci, and Debora Loporeite. Forthcoming. “Evaluando la Presencia de Mujeres en Gabinetes Sub-nacionales de Argentina (1992- 2016).” Revista de Ciencia Politica        
  • Cassese, Erin, and Tiffany D. Barnes. Forthcoming. “Intersectional Motherhood: Investigating Public Support for Child Care Subsidies.” Politics Groups and Identities.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., and Diana O’Brien. 2018. “Defending the Realm: The Appointment of Female Defense Ministers Worldwide.” American Journal of Political Science 62(2), 355-368.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., and Gabriela Rangel. 2018. “Subnational Patterns of Participation: Compulsory Voting and the Conditional Impact of Institutional Design.” Political Research Quarterly 71(4): 826–841.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., Emily Beaulieu, and Gregory W. Saxton. 2018. “Restoring Trust in the Police: Can Female Officers Reduce Suspicions of Corruption?” Governance 31(1): 143-161.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D. 2018. “Strategies for Improving Gender Diversity the Methods Community: Insights from Political Methodologists and Social Science Research” PS: Political Science & Politics 51(3): 580-587.
  • Branton, Regina P., Ashley English, Samantha Pettey, and Tiffany D. Barnes. 2018. “The Impact of Gender, Quality Opposition, and Partisanship on the Relative Assessment of Candidate Competency.” Electoral Studies 54 (8): 35-43.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D. 2018. “La colaboración legislativa de las mujeres y las restricciones institucionales: variaciones entre las provincias argentinas.” Revista SAAP 12(1): 11-44.
    • This article was adapted from my 2016 book: Gendering Legislative Behavior.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., Carolina Tchintian, and Santiago Alles. 2017. “Assessing Ballot Structure and Split Ticket Voting: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment.” Journal of Politics 79(2): 439-456.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., and Erin C. Cassese. 2017. “American Party Women: A Look at the Gender Gap within Parties.” Political Research Quarterly 70(1): 127-141.Barnes, Tiffany D., and Emily Beaulieu. 2017. “Engaging Women: Addressing the Gender Gap in Women’s Networking and Productivity.” PS: Political Science & Politics 52(2): 461-466.
  • Barnes, Tiffany D., Regina Branton, and Erin C. Cassese. 2017. “A Re-Examination of Women’s Electoral Success in Open Seat Elections: the Conditioning Effect of Electoral Competition.” Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy 38(3): 298-317.Barnes,
  • Tiffany D., and Abby Córdova. 2016. “Making Space for Women: Explaining Citizen Support for Legislative Gender Quotas in Latin America.” Journal of Politics 78 (3): 670-686.