MAGGIE SHUM
I received my PhD in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, specializing in comparative politics with a regional focus in Latin America and Brazil. I am specifically interested in participatory policies, policy diffusion, political party organizations, social movement.
My dissertation “The Politics of Policy Diffusion: Party Organization Versus Individual Motivations in the Diffusion of Participatory Budgeting in Brazil” focuses how participatory budgeting (PB) – a program that is heavily associated with the Workers’ Party (PT) and the leftist values it embraces – managed to spread across Brazil, and adopted by politicians from both the left and the right. I constitute a theory of diffusion that takes into account the various pathways in which diffusion can occur with the Brazilian experience of PB. I depart from the policy diffusion literature that predominately focuses on individual-driven motivations to explain diffusion. Instead, I emphasize the role of institutional settings, in particular party organizations, in conditioning the type and scope of policy diffusion.
My dissertation “The Politics of Policy Diffusion: Party Organization Versus Individual Motivations in the Diffusion of Participatory Budgeting in Brazil” focuses how participatory budgeting (PB) – a program that is heavily associated with the Workers’ Party (PT) and the leftist values it embraces – managed to spread across Brazil, and adopted by politicians from both the left and the right. I constitute a theory of diffusion that takes into account the various pathways in which diffusion can occur with the Brazilian experience of PB. I depart from the policy diffusion literature that predominately focuses on individual-driven motivations to explain diffusion. Instead, I emphasize the role of institutional settings, in particular party organizations, in conditioning the type and scope of policy diffusion.
Although my dissertation focuses on policy diffusion and party organization, I am equally interested in contentious politics and party system. I am collaborating with a colleague at Notre Dame on a project that examines the relationship between protests and party system institutionalization (PSI) in Latin America. Moreover, drawing from my upbringing in and knowledge of Hong Kong, I am initiating a new project exploring relationship between the “stunted” party system development and the cycle of contentious politics especially in recent years, as well as contentious politics under hybrid regimes. In addition, I explore how traditional female gender roles are exploited by the state to deter involvement in protests.
I earned my B.A. in Political Science and Communication at Michigan State University (MSU) in 2008. I then worked as a research intern at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) from 2008 to 2009. I continued my academic career at New York University (NYU) and obtained my M.A in Politics in 2011. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, I interned at Freedom House and worked on several reports which include: Freedom in the World (Hong Kong, China and Tibet), Freedom in the Net (China), and the China Media Bulletin.
I earned my B.A. in Political Science and Communication at Michigan State University (MSU) in 2008. I then worked as a research intern at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) from 2008 to 2009. I continued my academic career at New York University (NYU) and obtained my M.A in Politics in 2011. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, I interned at Freedom House and worked on several reports which include: Freedom in the World (Hong Kong, China and Tibet), Freedom in the Net (China), and the China Media Bulletin.