Kaitlin Alper

Kaitlin Alper is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., she received an M.Sc. in Politics and Public Policy from Trinity College Dublin and a B.A. in Political Science and English at the University of Connecticut. In addition, she was a visiting researcher at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) in the summer of 2019.

Research interests

Inequality, poverty and comparative social policy; Comparative welfare state politics; Comparative political economy and the political economy of gender; Political economy of multilevel governance and decentralization.

Research project pursued at the CEE

During my visit at the CEE, I will be conducting qualitative research for my dissertation, which focuses on the inclination and ability of subnational governments to affect income inequality within their borders. First, I argue that regional left party incumbency is a significant predictor of inequality reduction at the subnational level; that regionally-determined transfer spending is also a significant predictor of inequality reduction within regions; and that spending on regionally-determined social transfers has a larger substantive effect on within-region inequality reduction than do nationally-determined social transfers. Second, I argue that the ability of subnational political actors to affect inequality outcomes via transfer spending is a function of both their de jure and their de facto bargaining power relative to the central government.

To know more

• alperk@live.unc.edu
• Link to personal webpage