Marcus Johnson Department of Politics 130 Corwin Hall Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 (410) 292-3349 marcusj@princeton.edu EDUCATION Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Expected May 2017 PhD candidate in Politics with a joint degree in Social Policy Research focuses: Latin American politics; electoral politics of identity; racial formation; and experimental and survey methodologies Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 2011-2013 Masters of Arts in Comparative Politics, Latin American Politics concentration Thesis: Social Identity and Immigrant Transnational Activity University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD 2007-2011 BA in Government and Politics and Spanish, summa cum laude Honors Thesis: A Comparative Study of Immigration Policy in the U.S., Canada and Australia DISSERTATION Racial-ized Democracy: the electoral politics of race in Panama Synopsis: I develop an original theory in the dissertation to explain the mismatch between the relevance of race to the social wellbeing of afro-descendants in Latin America and the seeming irrelevance of race to electoral politics for this same population. In particular, I argue that political parties engage in a discriminatory form of race politics that simultaneously avoids programmatic appeals to black ethnicity, while using voters phenotype to mobilize the electoral support of this same population. The dissertation brings together novel quantitative and qualitative data on Afro Latin Politics that I gathered over 12 months of field research in Panama to provide one of the most thorough studies of Afro Latin political incorporation. Committee: Deborah Yashar (chair), Amaney Jamal (advisor), Ali Valenzuela (advisor) Manuscripts in Preparation Political Discrimination: the relationship between skin color and vote buying Synopsis: This paper proposes an electoral mechanism for the marginalization of the black population in the region, which I call political discrimination. I define political discrimination in the context of electoral politics as the unequal terms of mobilization of constituents for the same electoral productivity. Using the 2010 wave of the AmericasBarometer survey and a conjoint experiment in Panama I
find that dark-skinned voters are as much as 81% more likely to report a vote buy offer than light-skinned voters. 1 Group consciousness and the Panamanian Voter Synopsis: The pervasive myth of Latin American racial harmony and fluid racial categories combined with the stigma associated with black ethnicity have been assumed to reduce the racial consciousness necessary for collective action to combat discrimination. The paper challenges this assumption utilizing qualitative and survey evidence from Panama. Despite the fact that Panama s racial relations mirror the Latin American paradigm of racial democracy, Afro-Panamanians express critical components of group consciousness. 2 TEACHING Instructor, Politics and Identities 2016-2017 Originally designed course taught through the Princeton Writing Center Teaching Assistant, Making Government Work in Hard Places Spring 2015 Massive Online Open Course taught by Professor Jennifer Widner (Princeton University) Teaching Assistant, Politics of Development (POL 351) Fall 2014 Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Comparative Politics (POL 230) Spring 2014 Instructor, Intro to College Composition 2013-2015 Course taught through the Princeton Prison Teaching Initiative at Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility ONGOING RESEARCH Inactive black electoral identity Synopsis: The paper situates inactive electoral identity, the absence of explicit ethnic campaign appeals, as an important form of ethnic politics. First the paper reviews three historical moments in Panama s history to show that the state has actively engaged in racial projects that have kept black ethnicity politically inactive. The paper then uses campaign materials from Panama s 2009 and 2014 presidential elections, to situate inactive black electoral identity as a continuity of state projects to preempt the politicization of racial cleavages. 3 1 Chapter 4 of the dissertation 2 Chapter 2 of the dissertation 3 Chapter 3 of the dissertation
Political Discrimination Synopsis: The paper develops the concept of political discrimination, the unequal terms of incorporation of citizens for the same productivity based on racial factors. As democracies consolidate in the region, we know very little about how elections and electoral institutions serve this marginal population. To this end, I conceptualize political discrimination in three venues of electoral politics: 1) electoral rules, 2) campaign strategies, 3) and candidate selection. I demonstrate the operationalization of political discrimination in these venues with evidence from Panama. Activated electoral identities and political cooperation The project uses campaign literature from the 2009 and 2014 presidential elections in Panama and publicly available survey data to consider the effects of explicit electoral appeals to social identities on the ability of different social identity groups to coordinate their policy and partisan preferences. The puzzle of Afro Latin underrepresentation The project uses nationally representative data from the 2010, 2012, and 2016 rounds of the Americas Barometer survey to investigate the strength of the association between objective and subjective racial classification and partisanship, forms of voter mobilization, and perceptions of political efficacy in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Panama. AWARDS, HONORS, AND GRANTS Quin Morton Teaching Fellow, Princeton University 2016-2017 Honorable Mention Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship 2016-2017 Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Dissertation Writing Grant, Princeton University 2016-2017 Fulbright U.S. Research Grant Fellow, Panama 2015-2016 George Kateb prize for Best Preceptor in Politics, Princeton University 2015 Politics Research in Experimental Social Science Grant, Princeton University 2015 Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Research Grant, Princeton University 2014-2015 Teagle Teaching Fellowship, Princeton University 2014-2015 Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Grant, Princeton University 2012, 2014
Program in Latin American Studies Grant, Princeton University 2012, 2014 Phi Beta Kappa, University of Maryland College Park 2010 Banneker-Key Scholarship, University of Maryland College Park 2007-2011 CONFERENCES and PRESENTATIONS Conversatorio de Política Electoral, Electoral Tribunal, Panamá Aug 2016 Democracia Racial: la Política Electoral Etno-racial en Panamá (in Spanish) Political Communication, Universidad Católica Santa María, Panamá Jul 2016 Las similitudes y diferencias entre la política electoral de Panamá y los Estados Unidos (in Spanish) Latin American Studies Association Conference, New York, NY May 2016 Group Consciousness and Latin America s Latent Black Constituency Aage Sørensen Memorial Conference, University of Stockholm April 2016 Group Consciousness and Latin America s Latent Black Constituency Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Chicago, IL April 2015 Political Discrimination: the relationship between skin color and vote buying Graduate Student Conference on Latin America, College Park, MD 2013 Afro-Latinos and the Puzzle of Underrepresentation New Developments in Immigration and Immigration Reform, Princeton, NJ 2012 Uncovering the Effects of Emigration on Political Development FIELD RESEARCH Panama 2015-2016 Mexico 2012 ADDITIONAL TRAINING Institute on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, Syracuse, NY 2015 COMMUNITY SERVICE Academic Coordinator, Princeton Prison Teaching Initiative 2015-2016
PreCollege Mentor, Bridge to Life Community Development Corp. 2012-2013 Teaching Assistant, UMD Academic Achievement Program 2008-2011