Faculty Affiliate Rebecca Thorpe is an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Her research focuses on national political institutions and power relations, with a particular emphasis on how institutional structures influence policymaking and regime development. Before joining the Political Science Department in Fall 2010, she was a Research Fellow at The Brookings Institution from 2008-2009 where she completed research for her dissertation project, “The Welfare-Warfare State: Perpetuating the U.S. Military Economy.” During the 2009-2010 academic year she worked on Capitol Hill as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow.

Major Research Projects:

• "Your Revolving Door or Mine? Military Privatization in the United States & Syria" (working paper with S. Marshall)
• "A Socioeconomic Assessment of Judicial Decision-Making: Examining Amicus Participation Across U.S. Supreme Court Cases, 1953-2008" (NSF-funded project with M. Evans).
• "How Economic Mobility & Political Expediency Shape the Court's Due Process Rights Discourse" (working paper)

Sample Publications:

• "The Role of Economic Reliance in Defense Procurement Contracting," American Politics Research, July 2010.
• "Defining National Defense Needs: Economic Motivations for Congressional Defense Spending," Under Review.
• "The Political Geography of Candidate Emergence: The Distinctive Origins of Statewide Candidates" (with Frances Lee & Jim Gimpel), Under Review.

Contact Information:

Rebecca Thorpe
Email: bthorpe@u.washington.edu
Homepage: http://www.polisci.washington.edu/directory/faculty/Faculty/faculty_thorpe.html
Rebecca Thorpe's CV [ PDF ]