Welcome! This section about my in-progress work is in progress! Please check back in the coming weeks for a full update.
In the meantime, feel free to read my piece in The Conversation, browse my working papers, or check out my YouTube channel for education public goods.
Working Papers
Nazi Witnesses and the Exclusion of Women
Abstract: In 1934, Theodore Fred Abel, a sociologist at Columbia University, undertook one of the first studies of the Nazi Movement in Germany. He initiated an essay contest with a substantial cash prize for testimonials addressing the question, “Why are you a Nazi?” However, his analysis, “Why Hitler Came to Power,” did not include information from the forty-eight female-authored testimonials he received. This project supplements Abel’s work using two previously unused primary sources: twenty-three volumes of Abel’s diaries to contextualize his work and the forty-eight female-authored testimonials. The female-authored essays offer a window into the previously-unexplored perspective of Hitler supporters during the Nazi movement, including their socioeconomic conditions, religious motivations, antisemitism, and sense of national identity. The aim of this project is to update the modern understanding of the Hitler movement to include the female perspective.
Give a Man a Fish and He’ll Eat for a Day, But Will He Vote for You?: Explaining the Political Quiescence of Aid Beneficiaries in the United States
Voter participation is among the most widely studied components of political behavior. Despite its ubiquity, however, few scholars have tried to reconcile the established reality that aid-receiving voters turnout in relatively low numbers with dominant theories of voter behavior. I build on existing theories of attribution and voter behavior to model a novel theoretical explanation for the voting behavior of American welfare recipients. I empirically evaluate the implications of my model using data from the Maxwell Poll from 2004-2007. Using a novel measurement technique to classify aid-types, I find that entitlements are associated with an increase in self-reported turnout in elections while government subsidized loans are associated with a decrease in self-reported turnout. Importantly, the effect of means-tested aid on government turnout appears to be less straightforward than previous work suggests.
Other Publications
Warren, Sarah R; Nathan Stoltzfus; Daniel Maier-Katkin. 2020. “Why did women vote for Hitler? Long-forgotten essays hold some answers.” The Conversation.
Sarah R Warren 