Devin Caughey
Class of 1949 Professor of Political Science
Director of Graduate Studies
American political development; Southern politics; representation; political parties; Congress; state politics; latent-variable models; survey weighting; regression-discontinuity designs; permutation inference.
Biography
Devin Caughey is a professor of political science at MIT. He joined the department in 2012, having studied history at Yale and Cambridge and received a PhD in political science from UC Berkeley. Professor Caughey works primarily on American politics, focusing on American political development and on the representational linkages between citizens, government officials, and public policies. He has also published widely on methodological topics, including Bayesian measurement models, regression-discontinuity designs, survey weighting, and survey experiments, and has dabbled in comparative politics and international relations as well. His first book, The Unsolid South (Princeton UP, 2018), examined electoral competition and congressional representation in the one-party South during and after the New Deal. His second, Dynamic Democracy (with Christopher Warshaw; Chicago UP, 2022), analyzes the dynamic relationship between public opinion and state policymaking over the past eight decades. Professor Caughey's honors include awards for best book on political organizations and parties, best article on state politics and policy, best article published in the journal Political Analysis, and best dissertation in the field of politics and history. He teaches undergraduate courses on American politics and elections and graduate courses on American political institutions, research design and methodology, political economy, and American political development.
Research
Projects
“Elections and the Regression-Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942–2008”
“Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936–1945”
“Honor and War: Using Southern Presidents to Identify Reputational Effects in International Conflict”
“Defining, Mapping, and Measuring Bureaucratic Autonomy”
Dissertation
Congress, Public Opinion, and Representation in the One-Party South, 1930s–1960s
Recent Publications
"Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942–2008." Political Analysis 19(4): 385–408. 2011. (with Jasjeet S. Sekhon).
"Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936–1945." Studies in American Political Development 25(2): 162–189. 2011. (with Eric Schickler).
Teaching
| 17.263/4 | Electoral Politics |
News
Biography
Devin Caughey is a professor of political science at MIT. He joined the department in 2012, having studied history at Yale and Cambridge and received a PhD in political science from UC Berkeley. Professor Caughey works primarily on American politics, focusing on American political development and on the representational linkages between citizens, government officials, and public policies. He has also published widely on methodological topics, including Bayesian measurement models, regression-discontinuity designs, survey weighting, and survey experiments, and has dabbled in comparative politics and international relations as well. His first book, The Unsolid South (Princeton UP, 2018), examined electoral competition and congressional representation in the one-party South during and after the New Deal. His second, Dynamic Democracy (with Christopher Warshaw; Chicago UP, 2022), analyzes the dynamic relationship between public opinion and state policymaking over the past eight decades. Professor Caughey's honors include awards for best book on political organizations and parties, best article on state politics and policy, best article published in the journal Political Analysis, and best dissertation in the field of politics and history. He teaches undergraduate courses on American politics and elections and graduate courses on American political institutions, research design and methodology, political economy, and American political development.
Research
Projects
“Elections and the Regression-Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942–2008”
“Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936–1945”
“Honor and War: Using Southern Presidents to Identify Reputational Effects in International Conflict”
“Defining, Mapping, and Measuring Bureaucratic Autonomy”
Dissertation
Congress, Public Opinion, and Representation in the One-Party South, 1930s–1960s
Recent Publications
"Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942–2008." Political Analysis 19(4): 385–408. 2011. (with Jasjeet S. Sekhon).
"Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936–1945." Studies in American Political Development 25(2): 162–189. 2011. (with Eric Schickler).
Teaching
| 17.263/4 | Electoral Politics |