Research Projects

My dissertation examines the foundations and effects of democratic support in the mass public. More specifically, in my dissertation I:

• Conduct meta-analyses to investigate the impact of sex and electoral winner status on satisfaction with democracy. 
• Propose a novel expressive dimension of democratic support which critically reexamines how people form democratic connections.
  • Develop measurement items to evaluate expressive connections to democracy
• Field a survey experiment to evaluate the effects of elite decision-making on democratic legitimacy, including differences across partisan identification and racial groups.
  • Working chapter: "The Partisan and Racialized Relationship Between Unilateral Decisions and Democratic Legitimacy"

Published Work

• Neil S. Williams and Alexandra Snipes. 2024. "Public Responses to Engineering Equality: Gender Quotas and Satisfaction with Democracy". European Journal of Political Research.
• Neil S. Williams. 2023. "Gender and Institutions Moderate the Relationship Between Conditional Cash Transfers and Political Participation".  Forthcoming. Social Science Quarterly. 104(7), 1343-1359.
• Shane P. Singh and Neil S. Williams. 2021. “What Type of Democracy Do Chileans Want?” Research & Politics. 8(3): 1-8
  • ​Harvard Dataverse Replication
• Neil S. Williams, Alexandra Snipes, & Shane P. Singh. 2021. “Gender Differences in the Impact of Winning on Satisfaction with Democracy”. Electoral Studies 69(1): 102205.
  • Harvard Dataverse Replication
• Shane P. Singh & Neil S. Williams. 2021. “Compulsory Voting: The View from Canada and the United States”. In Matteo Bonotti & Paul Strangio (Eds.), A Century of Compulsory Voting in Australia: Genesis, Impact and Future (Chapter 10). Palgrave Macmillan, 235-258

Working Projects (Under Review)

• "From Plantation Sugar to a Bittersweet Democracy: Black Democratic Attitudes in the English-Speaking Caribbean". Revise and Resubmit
• ​​"Citizen Preferences for their Legislative Body", with Aaron Hitefield and Karlee Taylor 

​Working Projects (In Progress)

• "Representation in US State Legislatures and Satisfaction with Democracy", with Elise Blasingame​
• "Discrimination and Support for Black Lives Matter", with Karlee Taylor and Aaron Hitefield

Political Behavior

Public Opinion and Democracy

Race, Gender, and Inequality