Biography

Julia Payson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford in 2017. Julia studies representation, political institutions, and public policy in state and local governments in the U.S. Her research has been published in outlets such as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and Political Science Research and Methods. Her book When Cities Lobby (Oxford University Press, 2022) documents how local officials use lobbyists to compete for power in a political environment characterized by intense urban-rural polarization and growing hostility between cities and state legislatures. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation.