Topic: "The Advantage of Disadvantage: Legislative Behavior following Costly Protest.”
LaGina Gause’s research interests are in American politics with a focus on the participation and representation of low income and racial and ethnic minority communities. Her current book project explores legislative behavior in response to protesters in their congressional districts. She demonstrates that legislators are more likely to support protesting groups with lower resource capacity. In other work, she examines how resources and incentives constrain the strategic choices made by candidates running for office, interest groups lobbying the federal government, and legislators responding to the participation and public opinion of constituents of disparate races, ethnicity, and income levels.
Before joining the department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego as an assistant professor, she was a Democracy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the University of Michigan, her M.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and her B.A. in Political Science from Howard University.
