Vanderbilt University Political Science Ph.D.s and Ph.D. Candidates on the market during 2008-2009 are:

Rodelio C. Manacsa, Ph.D. (Vanderbilt, August 2007)

E-Mail: rodelio.d.manacsa@vanderbilt.edu    Curriculum Vitae  

Research Interests: Comparative Judicial Politics and International Relations

Rodelio (Rae) Manacsa is serving as Lecturer in Political Science at Vanderbilt during 2007-2008

Rodelio (Rae) is a Ph.D. Candidate specializing on comparative judicial politics, international conflict, and civil wars. He was a Fulbright Scholar in American History and Law at Boston College in 2000 and a European Union Scholar in International and European Relations at the Amsterdam School of International Relations in 1998. He studied quantitative political analysis in the 2005 summer program of the Interuniversity Consortium for Political Research (ICPSR) and the Empiricial Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) in the 2006 EITM workshop held at Washington University in St. Louis. Before coming to Vanderbilt in 2003, he was a tenured faculty member of the Department of Political Science at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.

Sonalini Kaur Sapra


Expected Date of Completion: Spring 2009

E-Mail: sonalini.k.sapra@vanderbilt.edu    Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests: Feminist Political Ecology, Environmental Politics, Gender, Feminist Theory and Methodology



Dissertation Title: "Feminist Environmentalism and Neo-Liberal Globalization: Activist Initiatives for Environmental Justice”
Dissertation Advisor: Brooke Ackerly

Dissertation Abstract:
I build on existing knowledge about strategies of women-led environmental initiatives and specifically address the often neglected issue of how neo-liberal policies impact on the work they do. The key question this dissertation asks is - What are the critical analyses and strategies that women’s environmental groups have used to examine neo-liberal policies and their impact on the environment and how can these analyses contribute to strengthening the broader theoretical frameworks of feminist environmentalisms? I situate my research at the nexus of literatures in feminist political ecology, post-colonial theory and feminist theory. I argue that social justice movement’s and particularly women’s movements can help us see the disjunctures and contradictions in neoliberalism’s discourse and practice. I suggest however, that even as these groups practice resisting neoliberal spaces their activism also finds itself embroiled in some of those very same neoliberal strategies of governing thus hindering them from an effective “post-social politics.”

Jenna E. Lukasik


Expected Date of Completion: December 2008

E-Mail: jenna.e.lukasik@vanderbilt.edu   Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests: American judicial politics, public law, separation of powers, state politics, comparative judicial politics, quantitative methods.


Dissertation Title: “The Inter-Branch Struggle over Tort Reform: Testing a Separation of Powers Model in the State Context”

Dissertation Committee: C. Neal Tate (Co-Chair), Stefanie A. Lindquist (Co-Chair), Brett V. Benson, Pamela C. Corley, and Christian R. Grose.

Dissertation Abstract:
How does a separation of powers system affect elite decision making? More specifically, how does the interaction of institutional structure, political environment, and preference distribution of elite actors affect state public policy? This dissertation analyzes the strategic interaction between state actors using a formal game theoretic model that accounts for the preferences of the actors involved and the institutional structures that channel those preferences to produce certain policy outcomes. Hypotheses derived from the formal model are tested in the context of state tort reform and evaluated through quantitative analysis. I explain both legislative decisions to enact tort reform statutes and judicial review of tort reform statutes using data from all fifty states from 1975-2004. I define the relationship between state courts and legislators, finding that a state legislature is only constrained by a state supreme court when certain institutional and environmental factors are present.

Carrie Archie Russell, JD

Expected Date of Completion: Spring 2009

E-mail:  carrie.russell@vanderbilt.edu    Curriculum Vitae 

Research Interests: American Politics, Race and Politics, Southern Politics and Constitutional Law

Dissertation Title: Waiting for Justice: Antebellum Foundations and Modern Manifestations of Property Rights and the Rule of Law in Tennessee

Dissertation Committee: Carol Swain, Political Science, Chair; Richard Blackett, History; James Booth, Political Science; Christian Grose, Political Science; Stefanie Lindquist, University of Texas School of Law

Dissertation Abstract:
Using the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the principles that undergird the Rule of Law in constitutional democracies, this project examines how a legacy of unacknowledged historical injustice influences the legitimacy of democratic institutions. Through systematic analysis of census data, newspaper archives and property records, using Tennessee as a case study, I offer evidence in support of the proposition that past intentional and negligent refusal of local, state and federal institutions to provide due process or the equal protection of law to black Americans remains a critical obstacle for present day governmental legitimacy among many localities throughout the United States. By examining other communal efforts to overcome this obstacle, I find the best policies reflect the specific needs of the communities where wrong-doing took place. I conclude with public policy proposals that could pragmatically further these efforts in Tennessee.

Jeremiah Garretson

E-mail:  jeremiah.j.garretson@Vanderbilt.Edu

Jeremiah joined the political science program in 2004 after graduating with a BA degree from Case Western Reserve University in Political Science with extensive coursework in Physics and Mathematics. His interests span Quantitative Methodology and American Politics with particular substantive emphases on public opinion change, sexuality and politics, campaigns and
elections, and legislative studies and methodological emphases on ideal point estimation and Bayesian analysis. Jeremiah's dissertation project focuses on determining why social attitudes towards minority groups, particularly gays and lesbians, have changed so rapidly in the last thirty years while public opinion on most matters is marked by stability. He has presented his work at meetings of the Southern Political Science Association, Midwest Political Science Association, and the Summer Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology.

Recent Conference Presentations:

- "Does Changing Media Change Minds?: TV and Public Opinion Towards Gays." April 2008. Paper Presented at the 2008 Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.
- "Estimating Legislator Ideal Points with a Paucity of Roll Calls: A Cosponsorship-Roll Call Hybrid Ideal Point Model of Support for Gay Civil Rights in the U.S. House." July 2008. Poster Presented at the 2008 Summer Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology.

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