Ariel White, Associate Professor of Political Science, MIT
Abstract: With co-authors Allison Harris and Hannah Walker, I'm working on a book project that will bring together some of what we've learned from several years of qualitative interviews, analysis of administrative data, and field experiments about the political participation of people with previous criminal convictions. These "returning citizens" constitute a large group of eligible voters but have very low rates of voter registration and turnout, though light-touch interventions have shown promise in helping them return to civic life. We focus on the role of close social relationships in helping people re-enter political life, showing both observationally and experimentally how family members and other close ties can help people navigate the process of registration and voting. We then consider how the lessons learned among this population might generalize to other unlikely voters.
Ariel White is Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. She studies voting and voting rights, race, the criminal legal system, and bureaucratic behavior. Her research uses large datasets to measure individual-level experiences, and to shed light on people's everyday interactions with government. Her recent work investigates how potential voters react to experiences with punitive government policies, such as incarceration and immigration enforcement, and how people can make their way back into political life after these experiences. In other projects, she and her co-authors have examined how local election officials treat constituents of different ethnicities, how media shapes public conversations, and whether parties face electoral penalties when nominating minority candidates. Her research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Science, and elsewhere.
LOCATION:Allison Dining Room STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20250407T160000Z DTEND:20250407T171500Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR