Paul A. Atwell

Researching the psychology and politics of accountability in developing democracies

           Post-doctoral Researcher at the Juan March Inst. 

Universidad Carlos III - Madrid

PhD Public Policy & Political Science (Univ. of Michigan)

My work research uses insights from social psychology to understand how internalized group identities help unaccountable parties sustain a voter base in developing democracies. 

I am a post doctoral researcher at the Juan March Institute since Fall 2023. 

In my work I am passionate about joining methods and insights from across disciplines to answer thorny, but important questions about how state and party organizations interact with social institutions to shape individual thinking and behavior around political and economic decisions. My work on these topics has been published in the American Economic Review and the American Journal of Political Science.

My broader interests include development policy, collective action dynamics, political geography, social network analysis, and more. 

I previously completed a B.S. in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked as a Research Assistant at the Navarra Center for International Development (University of Navarra, Spain).