2026 Annual Conference: July 27-29

CAPE Annual Conference
About Us

What is CAPE?

The annual CAPE research conference is a forum for APE-oriented scholars to present work in progress and receive feedback from the broader APE community. The conference includes theme panels, and papers sessions focused on works in progress.

The 6th annual research conference will take place via zoom on July 27-29. Scroll down to see the full conference schedule!
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The 6th Annual APE Research Conference Program

VIRTUAL: July 27 - 29, 2026 at Noon ET
REGISTER for 2025

Day 1: Monday, July 27

12:00-1:50 PM
Discussion: New Frontiers for APE Scholarship
‍Margaret Levi (Stanford)
Steven Teles (Johns Hopkins)
Jessica Bulman-Pozen (Columbia)
Abraham Newman (Georgetown)
Dara Strolovitch (Yale)
Chair: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (Columbia)
(10-Minute Break)
2:00-3:30
Paper Panels (Breakout rooms)
‍
Panel: Identity and Symbolic Politics
"Explaining the Rise of Symbolic Issues on the American Political Agenda", Daniel Hopkins (Penn);"The "Great Awokening" Had a Strong Upper-Class Accent", Marco Avina (Harvard);"The Red-Green Policy Feedback: How Policy Implementation and Elite Framing Shape the Green Transition", Giulia Leila Travaglini (Columbia).

‍Panel: Climate
‍"Asset Specificity in Climate Politics: How Polluting Firms Become Climate Policy Supporters", Jonas Fischer (Oxford);"From Monopoly to Monopsony: When States Make and Enforce Climate Policy by Contract", Uma Ilavarasan (Harvard);"Lobbying, Influence, and the Limits of Blue State Greening: Two Cases", J. Timmons Roberts (Brown).

Day 2: Tuesday, July 28

12:00-1:20 PM
Roundtable: The Political Economy of Justice in America
Joe Soss (University of Minnesota)
Joshua Page (University of Minnesota)
Jamila D. Michener (Cornell)
Mallory SoRelle (Duke)
Marie Gottschalk (Penn)
Chair: Kathleen Thelen (MIT)
(10-Minute Break)
1:30-3:00
Paper Panels (Breakout rooms)
‍
Panel: The PE of Race, Social Justice and Corruption
"The Electoral Effects of U.S. Prison Construction", Nicholas Ottone (Yale);"Racial Disparities in Public Corruption Prosecutions and Sentencing", Mariella Rubenson (Columbia);"The Appearance of Corruption: Americans’ Perceptions of Political Corruption and Its Harmful Consequences", Hwayong Shin (Washington University in St. Louis).

‍Panel: Business and the State
"City Chambers of Commerce: Political Activity and Policy Positions from 1960 to 1990", Sarah Anzia (UC Berkeley);"Loud or Loyal? Business response to Populism in Power", Ritika Goel (Harvard);"Private Immigration Detention & Punitive Attitudes", Anna Gunderson (UT Austin).

Day 3: Wednesday, July 29

12:00-1:20 PM
Roundtable: Democracy at Times of Unprecedented Inequality
Lane Kenworthy (UC San Diego)
Torben Iversen (Harvard)
Quinn Slobodian (BU)
Brooke Harrington (Dartmouth)
Chair: Paul Pierson (UC Berkeley)
(10-Minute Break)
1:30-3:00
Paper Panels (Breakout rooms)

‍Panel: Risk and Insurance
"Beyond Insurance: Healthcare Financialization and the Politics of Managed Care Conglomerates", Victor Roy (Penn);"The Health Politics and Missed Opportunities of ERISA Reform", Miranda Yaver (University of Pittsburgh);"Resisting Segmentation: Climate risk and the politics of insurance", Preston Johnston (MIT).

‍Panel: Subnational Administrative Capacity
"National Networks, State Mandates, and Local Elections: The Impact of Property Tax Disclaimers on School Bonds", Melissa Arnold Lyon (University at Albany);"Administrative Deserts and the Political Economy of State Capacity: An Examination of Geographic Inequality in DMV Performance", Meredith Dost & Sebastian Jilke (Georgetown);"(In)Capacity, Violence, and the Local Roots of Mass Incarceration", Rebekah Jones (UC Berkeley).

The 6th Annual APE Research Conference Program

VIRTUAL: July 27 - 29, 2026 at Noon ET

‍Day 1: Monday, July 27

‍

12:00-1:50 PM - Discussion: New Frontiers for APE Scholarship
Margaret Levi (Stanford)
Steve Teles (Johns Hopkins)
Jessica Bulman-Pozen (Columbia)
Abraham Newman (Georgetown)
Dara Strolovitch (Yale)

Chair: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (Columbia)

‍

(10-Minute Break)

‍

2:00-3:30 - Paper Panels (Breakout rooms)

Panel: Identity and Symbolic Politics
"Explaining the Rise of Symbolic Issues on the American Political Agenda", Daniel Hopkins (Penn);"The "Great Awokening" Had a Strong Upper-Class Accent", Marco Avina (Harvard);"The Red-Green Policy Feedback: How Policy Implementation and Elite Framing Shape the Green Transition", Giulia Leila Travaglini (Columbia).

Panel: Climate
‍"Asset Specificity in Climate Politics: How Polluting Firms Become Climate Policy Supporters", Jonas Fischer (Oxford);"From Monopoly to Monopsony: When States Make and Enforce Climate Policy by Contract", Uma Ilavarasan (Harvard);"Lobbying, Influence, and the Limits of Blue State Greening: Two Cases", J. Timmons Roberts (Brown).

‍

Day 2: Tuesday, July 28

‍

12:00-1:20 PM - Roundtable: The Political Economy of Justice in America

Joe Soss (University of Minnesota)
Joshua Page (University of Minnesota)
Jamila D. Michener (Cornell)
Mallory SoRelle (Duke)
Marie Gottschalk (Penn)

Chair: Kathleen Thelen (MIT)

‍

(10-Minute Break)

‍

1:30-3:00 - Paper Panels (Breakout rooms)

Panel: The PE of Race, Social Justice and Corruption
"The Electoral Effects of U.S. Prison Construction", Nicholas Ottone (Yale);"Racial Disparities in Public Corruption Prosecutions and Sentencing", Mariella Rubenson (Columbia);"The Appearance of Corruption: Americans’ Perceptions of Political Corruption and Its Harmful Consequences", Hwayong Shin (Washington University in St. Louis).

Panel: Business and the State
"City Chambers of Commerce: Political Activity and Policy Positions from 1960 to 1990", Sarah Anzia (UC Berkeley);"Loud or Loyal? Business response to Populism in Power", Ritika Goel (Harvard);"Private Immigration Detention & Punitive Attitudes", Anna Gunderson (UT Austin).

‍

Day 3: Wednesday, July 29

‍

12:00-1:20 PM - Roundtable: Democracy at Times of Unprecedented Inequality
Lane Kenworthy (UC San Diego)
Torben Iversen (Harvard)
Quinn Slobodian (BU)
Brooke Harrington (Dartmouth)

Chair: Paul Pierson(UC Berkeley)

‍

(10-Minute Break)

‍

1:30-3:00 - Paper Panels (Breakout rooms)

Panel: Risk and Insurance
"Beyond Insurance: Healthcare Financialization and the Politics of Managed Care Conglomerates", Victor Roy (Penn);"The Health Politics and Missed Opportunities of ERISA Reform", Miranda Yaver (University of Pittsburgh);"Resisting Segmentation: Climate risk and the politics of insurance", Preston Johnston (MIT).

‍

Panel: Subnational Administrative Capacity
"National Networks, State Mandates, and Local Elections: The Impact of Property Tax Disclaimers on School Bonds", Melissa Arnold Lyon (University at Albany);"Administrative Deserts and the Political Economy of State Capacity: An Examination of Geographic Inequality in DMV Performance", Meredith Dost & Sebastian Jilke (Georgetown);"(In)Capacity, Violence, and the Local Roots of Mass Incarceration", Rebekah Jones (UC Berkeley).

Call for Papers:





‍

VIRTUAL: July 28 - 30, 2025, Noon to 2:30 PM ET

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REGISTER for 2025

‍Day 1: Monday, July 28

12:00-1:10
Big Beautiful Roundtable
Andrea Campbell (MIT)
‍Patrick Sullivan (Yale)
‍Vanessa Williamson (Brookings)
Nolan McCarty (Princeton)
Chair: Jacob Hacker (Yale)
(10-Minute Break)
1:20-2:30
Climate Politics
‍"Transitioning through uncertainty: Assessing politicalreactions to clean-energy investment in rural Michigan", Parrish Bergquist (Penn) and Michael Shepherd (University of Michigan);
"The Forgotten Bipartisanship of State-Level Renewable Energy Policymaking: How the Nationalization of Climate Politics Polarized the Issue in the States", Joshua Basseches (Tulane);
"Red State, Green State: Depolarizing Legacies of Renewable Energy in Texas", Ari Benkler (UC Berkeley);
"Varieties of Decarbonizing Capitalism: How National Economic Models Shape Fiscal Climate Policies", Nils Kupzok (Columbia)
Chair: Paul Pierson

Day 2: Tuesday, July 29 

12:00-1:10
Plutocracy Roundtable
Adam Bonica (Stanford )
Kristin Goss (Duke)
Reilly Steel (Columbia)
Chair: Alex Hertel-Fernandez (Columbia)
(10-Minute Break)
1:20-2:30

Day 3: Wednesday, July 30 

12:00-1:10
APE in a Globalized Perspective Roundtable
Henry Farrell (Johns Hopkins)
‍Benjamin Braun (LSE)
‍Aditi Sahasrabuddhe (Brown)
‍Mark Schwartz (UVA)
‍Chair: Kathleen Thelen (MIT)
(10-Minute Break)
1:20-2:30
Political Consequences of Economic Experiences
"Not All Young Men: The Political Gender Gap among Young People across Advanced Political Economies", Amelia Malpas (Harvard);
"Low-wage work and political participation in the American labor market", Jack Garigliano (Northwestern); 
"DIVIDING LINES: What do Democrats Want from their Party?", Elizabeth Rigby (George Washington University);
"The Nature and Origins of Place-Based Identification", Lucas Kreuzer (Yale) with Jacob Hacker & Eric Scheuch
Chair: Sophie Jacobson
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Annual Conference Archives

Browse our highlights from past Conferences.
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021

The 2025 conference had over 110 participants, and featured the following panels:

Theme Panel:

Climate Politics

Presenters: Parrish Bergquist, Penn and Michael Shepherd, University of Michigan; Joshua Basseches, Tulane; Ari Benkler, UC Berkeley; Nils Kupzok, Columbia

Chair: Paul Pierson, UC Berkeley
Theme Panel:

Business & Civil Society

Presenters: Jane L. Sumner, University of Minnesota and Andrew Kerner, Michigan State; Daniel Roberts, Harvard; Alan Yan, UC Berkeley; Jae Yeon Kim, Johns Hopkins 

Chair: Itay Machtei, Yale
Theme Panel:

Political Consequences of Economic Experiences

Presenters: Amelia Malpas, Harvard; Jack Garigliano, Northwestern; Elizabeth Rigby, George Washington University; Lucas Kreuzer, Yale

‍Chair: Sohpie Jacobson, Columbia
Roundtable:

Big Beautiful Roundtable

Andrea Campbell, MIT; Patrick Sullivan, Yale;  Nolan McCarty, Princeton

Chair: Jacob Hacker, Yale
Roundtable:

Plutocracy

Adam Bonica, Stanford; Kristin Goss, Duke; Reilly Steel, Columbia
‍
Chair: Alex Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia
Roundtable:

APE in a Globalized Perspective

Henry Farrell, Johns Hopkins;  Benjamin Braun, LSE;  Aditi Sahasrabuddhe, Brown; Mark Schwartz, UVA

Chair: Kathleen Thelen, MIT

The 2024 conference had over 140 participants, and featured the following panels:

Theme Panel:

Behavioral Dimensions of American Political Economy

Presenters: Kiara Hernandez, Harvard; Jae Yeon Kim, Johns Hopkins; Paul Marx, University of Bonn; Shakked Noy, MIT; Aakaash Rao, Harvard
Theme Panel:

The Spatial Political Economy of Public Policy

Presenters: Elizabeth G. Pfeffer, Dartmouth; Brian Highsmith, Harvard; Liz Thom, Harvard
Roundtable:

Power Struggles at Work: The Rebirth of Strikes

Alex Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia; Mimi Lyon, University at Albany SUNY;
Alan Yan, UC Berkeley

‍Chair: Jake Rosenfeld, Washington University in St. Louis
Roundtable:

Democrats as a Center-Left Party in the Knowledge Economy

Jane Gingrich, Oxford; Jacob Hacker, Yale; Paul Pierson, UC Berkeley; Suresh Naidu, Columbia; Ilyana Kuziemko, Princeton; Stephanie Ternullo, Harvard
Roundtable:

The Shifting Politics ofthe Care Economy

Michelle J. Budig, UMass Amherst; Rachel M. Cohen, Vox; Joy Kim, Rutgers; Pauline Kohlhase, Max Planck Institute; Ann Orloff, Northwestern
‍
Chair: Chloe Thurston, Northwestern
Roundtable:

Labor and Workers in the American Political Economy

Trevor Brown, Cornell; Theda Skocpol, Harvard; Warren Snead, Swarthmore

Chair: Alex Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia
Book Panel:

Unhealthy Democracy: How Partisan Politics is Killing Rural America

Author: Michael Shepherd, UT Austin

‍Commenter: Kathy Cramer, University of Wisconsin
Theme Panel:

Courts and the Restructuring of the American Political Economy

Presenters: Brian Highsmith ,Harvard; Maya Sen, Harvard; Kathleen Thelen, MIT; Warren Snead, Northwestern; Sarah Staszak, Princeton; Calvin TerBeek, Trinity College
‍
Commenter: Emily Zackin, Johns Hopkins
Theme Panel:

Gendered Inequality in the American Political Economy

Presenters: Sophie Jacobson, Harvard; Ann Shola Orloff, Northwestern; Dara Strolovitch, Yale

Commenter: Dawn Teele, Johns Hopkins
Theme Panel:

Local Economic Governance

Presenters: Christopher Elmendorf, UC Davis; Clayton Nall, UC Santa Barbara; Stan Oklobdzija, Tulane; David Foster, LSE; Joseph Warren, University of Alaska; Brian Highsmith, Harvard; Robert Manduca, Michigan; Jacob Waggoner, Yale

Commenter: Katherine Einstein, Boston University
Theme Panel:

Race, Inequality, and the American Political Economy

Presenters: Jared Clemons, Temple; Sidney Milkis, University of Virginia; Katherine Rader, Christopher Newport University; Haley Stiles, University of Virginia; Tess Wise, Wake Forest

Commenter: Chloe Thurston, Northwestern
Theme Panel:

Politics of the Clean Energy Transition

Presenters: Jacob Alder, Indiana University; Sam Trachtman, UC Berkeley; Nicolas Jabko, Johns Hopkins; Nils Kupzok, Johns Hopkins; Jared Finnegan, UCL; Jonas Meckling, UC Berkeley

Commenter: Amanda Kennard, Stanford
Roundtable:

Policy Leadership by APE Scholars

Alex Hertel-Fernandez, Columbia & US Department of Labor; Sabeel Rahman, Brooklyn Law & Office of Management and Budget; Leah Stokes, UC Santa Barbara & Inflation Reduction Act

Commenter: Jacob Hacker, Yale

The 2022 conference had over 70 participants, and featured the following panels:

Theme Panel:

The Local Political Economy of Housing

Presenters: Katherine Einstein, Boston University; Michael Hankinson, George Washington University; Alexander Sahn, Princeton University
Theme Panel:

The Politics of Personal Debt

Presenters: Patricia Posey, University of Chicago; Chloe Thurston, Northwestern University; Andreas Wiedemann, Princeton University; Emily Zackin, Johns Hopkins University
Theme Panel:

The Federal Reserve in the American Political Economy

Presenters: Benjamin Braun, Max Planck Institute; Sarah Binder, George Washington University; Neil Fligstein, UC Berkeley; Alexander Reisenbichler, University of Toronto
Book Panel:

The Political Economy of Decarbonization

Alexander Gard-Murray, Brown University; Jonas Meckling, UC Berkeley; Leah Stokes, UC Santa Barbara; Sam Trachtman, UC Berkeley
Book Panel:

Governance, Parties, and Organized Interests

Sarah Anzia, UC Berkeley; Jesse Crosson, Trinity University; Alexander Furnas, Kellogg School of Management; Geoffrey Lorenz, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The inaugural August 2021 conference had over 70 participants, and featured the following panels:

Theme Panel:

Race, Power, and the American Political Economy

Presenters: Jacob Grumbach, University of Washington; Jamila Michener, Cornell; Joe Soss, University of Minnesota; Vesla Weaver, Johns Hopkins
Theme Panel:

The “New Territoriality” in APE

Presenters: Clayton Nall, U.C. Santa Barbara; Tom Ogorzalek, Chicago Democracy Project; Jonathan Rodden, Stanford; Jessica Trounstine, U.C. Merced
Theme Panel:

Parties, Groups, Governance

Presenters: Sarah Anzia, U.C. Berkeley; Daniel Galvin, Northwestern; Jane Gingrich, Oxford; David Karol, University of Maryland
Book Panel:

Hijacking the Agenda: Economic Power and Political Influence

Presenters: Christopher Witko, Penn State; Jana Morgan, Nathan J. Kelly, University of Tennessee; Peter K. Enns, Cornell
Book Panel:

The Judicial Tug of War: How Lawyers, Politicians, and Ideological Incentives Shape the American Judiciary

Presenters: Adam Bonica, Stanford; Maya Sen, Harvard
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