Carolyn Steinle
Biography
My research examines how familial social network structures shape the expression of ethnic politics in Africa. To proxy variation in co-ethnic network structures, I leverage kinship and age-based cultural norms that organize groups’ social relations. In particular, my dissertation compares ethnic groups bound together via extended kinship networks with ethnic groups that structure social relations along hierarchical age based sets, which anthropologists describe as distinctive and often incompatible forms of social organization. This comparison enables me to study the extent to which extended kinship comprises the network material that increases the political salience of ethnicity in African politics, and examine the political interplay between ethnicity and other intersecting identities, such as youth politics. Outside the scope of my dissertation, my other projects examine how rumor networks enable locals to accurately forecast the likelihood of future attacks during conflict, and how inter-ethnic marriage networks respond to and predict shifts in ethnic group political power.
Research Interests
Comparative Politics, Political Methodology, Minor in Sociology
Graduate Advisors
Dan Posner, Cesi Cruz, Graeme Blair, Barbara Geddes
