ALEXANDER SAHN
PhD Candidate in Political Science
UC Berkeley
My research seeks to understand and reduce inequalities in American political economy. My work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Political Behavior, and Political Analysis.
My dissertation provides new explanations for the origins and maintenance of land use policies responsible for the housing affordability crisis in the United States.
RESEARCH
RACE AND REPRESENTATION IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE 2020. American Political Science Review (WITH JAKE GRUMBACH)
Campaign finance is more racially unequal than voter turnout or Congressional representation, but the nomination of candidates of color can close this gap.
GENDER, RACE, AND INTERSECTIONALITY IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE 2020. Political Behavior (WITH JAKE GRUMBACH AND SARAH STASZAK)
Co-ethnic contributing behavior dominates co-gendered contributing with no evidence of intersectionality.
A large portion of observational studies would not meet statistical significance without undisclosed covariate adjustment.
Backlash to the Great Migration caused cities to adopt exclusionary zoning; today, the median large city allows apartments on only 12% of residential land.
FAUX-RESPONSIVENESS AND ELECTION CYCLES IN THE PERMITTING OF HOUSING
Cities permit less housing before elections when mayors are running for re-election, especially when homeowners dominate.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF LOBBYING IN PUBLIC MEETINGS: EVIDENCE FROM SAN FRANCISCO
Attendees of public meetings (older, whiter, homeowners) get the outcomes they want (slowing and blocking affordable housing).
SCOPE CONDITIONS, NUMERACY, AND THE EVALUATION OF POLICY (WITH AMY LERMAN AND LAURA STOKER)
Gain-loss framing has little effect on problems and policy solutions, which have bipartisan support.
RACE AND REPRESENTATION IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE 2020. American Political Science Review (with Jake Grumbach)
Campaign finance is more racially unequal than voter turnout or Congressional representation, but the nomination of candidates of color can close this gap.
GENDER, RACE, AND INTERSECTIONALITY IN CAMPAIGN FINANCE 2020. Political Behavior
(with Jake Grumbach and Sarah Staszak)
Co-ethnic contributing behavior dominates co-gendered contributing with no evidence of intersectionality.
A large portion of observational studies would not meet statistical significance without undisclosed covariate adjustment.
Backlash to the Great Migration caused cities to adopt exclusionary zoning; today, the median large city allows apartments on only 12% of residential land.
FAUX-RESPONSIVENESS AND ELECTION CYCLES IN THE PERMITTING OF HOUSING
Cities permit less housing before elections when mayors are running for re-election, especially when homeowners dominate.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF LOBBYING IN PUBLIC MEETINGS: EVIDENCE FROM SAN FRANCISCO
Attendees of public meetings (older, whiter, homeowners) get the outcomes they want (slowing and blocking affordable housing).
SCOPE CONDITIONS, NUMERACY, AND THE EVALUATION OF POLICY (with Amy and Lerman and Laura Stoker)
Gain-loss framing has little effect on problems and policy solutions, which have bipartisan support.
CONSTRUCTING INTERVAL VARIABLES VIA FACETED RASCH MEASUREMENT AND MULTITASK DEEP LEARNING: A HATE SPEECH APPLICATION
(with Chris Kennedy, Geoff Bacon, and Claudia von Vacano)
Application of IRT to crowdsourced labelled data combined with deep learning vastly improves detection of hate speech on social media
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
TEACHING
PS1: Introduction to Political Science: Graduate Student Instructor for Paul Pierson (Spring 2017)
PS1: Introduction to Political Science: Graduate Student Instructor for Rob van Houweling (Fall 2017)
Applied methods workshops on R, data visualization, Qualtrics
MENTORSHIP
Berkeley D-Lab: Senior Fellow (2018-)
Student Mentoring and Research Teams: Mentor (2017)
Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program: Mentor (2017)
TUTORING
Political Science Graduate Methods Tutor (2016-)
Berkeley D-Lab Research Consultant (2017-)
CONTACT
210 Barrows Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720