Doctoral Student
(2015)
MA, Sociology, Univeristy of Chicago
MA, Sociology, University of Mannheim
BA, Sociology, University of Leipzig
BA, Philosophy, University of Leipzig
Master's Title:
Nestling Into Pieces of Social Structure: Organization and Mobilization in the Case of the Tea Party
My research investigates forms of political mobilization, focusing in particular on the relationship between relations and rhetorics: between social structure (understood and operationalized as social networks) and ideas (understood and operationalized as semantic networks).
I am currently exploring this larger interest in three different projects. The first project looks at the formation of the first political parties in America in the late 18th century. It first develops a phenomenological account of the political actors at the time and then situates them in their multiple networks in order to understand the forces that pulled and pushed them in the incipient political field of politics after the Constitutional Convention. A second, collaborative project with John Padgett and Jonathan Schoots explores the structure of political rhetoric in speeches from the Consulte e Pratiche, an advisory council in Renaissance Florence, and connects it to the speakers' social networks. The third project looks at the spatial distribution of mobilization in the case of the Tea Party movement. In a county-level analysis I study the local conditions that were conducive for the creation of both Tea Party events and local Tea Party chapters.
