I work at the nexus of comparative public
policy, women and politics, and political
theory. Theoretically, my work explores the
role of social movements, bureaucracies and
elected officials in representing
historically disadvantaged constituencies in
democratic policy processes. Empirically, I
focus on the effect of these modes of
political representation on public policy
outcomes, especially policies of importance
to advancing gender, race and class
equality. I have special expertise in
policies addressing violence against women
and in living wage policies and other
policies affecting working poor people in
the United States. I have examined the
relationship between social movements,
public bureaucracies and public policies at
a local, state, national and even
international level.  My work is
distinguished by my use of both qualitative
and quantitative methods.  I use both
large-scale, cross-national comparisons,
using statistical methods as well as more
qualitative field research methods employing
intensive analysis of primary documents and
artifacts and interviewing. I am currently
working on two books, one which is just
about complete, entitled Social Movements,
Representation and Public Policy and another
(with Mala Htun), tentatively entitled When
and Why do Governments Promote Women s
Rights? which is in progress. This
co-authored book is a global comparative
study of women s rights. I am also beginning
a new project entitled Inequality,
Difference and Solidarity that examines the
ways that race, class and gender combine in
processes of social policy formation.  The
project examines cross-national variation in
welfare states, looking at the patterns of
variation  in social policies that are
chiefly distributive in nature (income
assistance, old-age pensions) and comparing
them to cross-national patterns of variation
for those that are non-distributive, focused
more on physical security, legal rights
and/or societal recognition (violence
against women, multi-culturalism).