Research Interests

My research focuses on American politics, public policy, race and politics, state and local politics, and political inequality. More specifically, it examines the relationship between public policies and the American political dynamic. I am particularly interested in how policies structure and influence popular understandings of government and beliefs related to social and political inequalities. This work is broadly interdisciplinary, drawing on relevant insights from political science, sociology, history, political psychology and other social science fields. Within my home discipline, my interests in public policy and political inequality have led me to place special priority on bridging the divide between behavioral and institutional political science. Similarly, I strive in my research to make use of various methodological approaches, tailored to the research question at hand. My recent studies, for example, have drawn extensively on ethnographic research, in-depth interviews, survey research, and event history analysis. Seeking insights from a wide range of scholarly and methodological approaches, I aim to clarify how public policies may create, perpetuate, or help to overcome political relations that run counter to the normative ideals of a just and democratic society. 

Publications

Rosenthal, Aaron and Christina Farhart. Forthcoming. “Timing Matters: How Adolescent Police Contact Shapes Political Lives.” Political Behavior.

Rosenthal, Aaron. 2021. “Submerged for Some? Government Visibility, Race, and American Political Trust.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (4): 1098-1114.

Rosenthal, Aaron. 2021. “Conflicting Messages: Multiple Policy Experiences and Political Participation.” Policy Studies Journal 49 (2): 616-639.

Rosenthal, Aaron. 2020. "Investment and Invisibility: Racially Divergent Consequences of Political Distrust." Du Bois Review 16 (2): 511-533.

Bruch, Sarah K., Aaron Rosenthal, and Joe Soss. 2019. “Unequal Positions: A Relational Approach to Racial Inequality Trends in the U.S. States, 1940-2010.” Social Science History 43 (1): 159-184.

Karch, Andrew and Aaron Rosenthal. 2017. “Framing, Engagement and Policy Change: Lessons for the ACA.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 42 (2): 341-362.

Karch, Andrew and Aaron Rosenthal. 2016. “Vertical Diffusion and the Shifting Politics of Electronic Commerce.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 16 (1): 22-43.

Chen, P. G., Appleby, J., Borgida, E., Callaghan, T. H., Ekstrom, P., Farhart, C. E., Housholder, E., Kim, H., Ksiazkiewicz, A., Lavine, H., Luttig, M. D., Mohanty, R., Rosenthal, A., Sheagley, G., Smith, B. A., Vitriol, J. A. and Williams, A. 2014. “The Minnesota Multi-Investigator 2012 Presidential Election Panel Study.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy 14 (1): 78-104.

Manuscripts in Preparation and Under Review

Under Review

Rosenthal, Aaron, Christina Farhart, and Matt Motta. “Beyond Tuskegee, To Middlesboro: How Perspectives of Policing Shape Vaccine Attitudes for Black Americans.” Under review.

Rosenthal, Aaron, and Saher Selod. “Surveillance and Voting: Connecting Government Monitoring to American Muslim Electoral Participation.” Under review.

Selod, Saher and Aaron Rosenthal. “Driving while Black or flying while Muslim?: Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the United States.” Under review.

In preparation

Bruch, Sarah, Aaron Rosenthal, and Joe Soss. “Marginalization Matters: Rethinking Race in the Analysis of State Politics and Policy.”

Elovitz, Maude* and Aaron Rosenthal. “Diffusing Legalization: Explaining Recreational Marijuana Policy in the US States.”

Rosenthal, Aaron, Sarah K. Bruch, and Jennifer Daniels. “Subjective and Objective: Racial Attitudes, Inequality, and Public Policy.”

Rosenthal, Aaron, and Will von Geldern. “Felony Re-enfranchisement: State Policy Choices from 1996-2019.”

Brower, Charlie, Aaron Rosenthal, and Will von Geldern. “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Re-Entry Courts.”

*Undergraduate co-author.