Welcome!

I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College. Previously I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Justitia Center for Advanced Study at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam.  I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago.   My interests range widely in the history of political thought, contemporary democratic theory, American political thought, global justice, and normative perspectives on political economy. My book manuscript project, tentatively entitled Oligarchs among Us, provides a historically informed theorization and critique of oligarchic power in contemporary democracies. I also have ongoing research projects in areas such as the ethics of tax policy and tax enforcement and the normative dimensions of philanthropy. My work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Political Theory, Ethics and International Affairs, European Journal of Political Theory, Polity, Inquiry, and Moral Philosophy and Politics.

Publications:

1. “Liberal Plebeianism: J.S. Mill on Democracy, Oligarchy, and Working-Class Mobilization” American Political Science Review (2022)

2. “Getting Real about Taxes: Tax Sheltering and Realism’s Ethic of Resposnibility” (with Carlo Burelli) Ethics and International Affairs (2022)

3. “Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement After the Panama Papers” Political Theory (2022)

4. “Must Realists Be Pessimists About Democracy: Responding to Oligarchic and Epistemic Challenges” (with Enzo Rossi) Moral Philosophy and Politics (2020)

5. "Aristotle and the Problem of Oligarchic Harm: Insights for Democracy,"  European Journal of Political Theory (2019) (Click here to access article.) 

6. "Is This What Democracy Looks Like? (Never Mind Epistocracy),” Inquiry (2018) (with Enzo Rossi)

7. "Cold War Prophecy and the Burdens of Comparative Thought: A Case for Revisiting Louis Hartz,"  Polity (2017)

 From 2010-2013 I served as a founding editor of the "Art of Theory," an online political theory journal, whose archives are available here http://www.artoftheory.com/

My essay, "Charlie Trotter as Philosopher," was published in Issue 8 of The Point Magazine (2014) http://thepointmag.com/2014/examined-life/charlie-trotter