Nicholas Weller Department of Political Science School of International Relations University of Southern California dornsife.usc.edu/weller nwweller@gmail.com (858) 736-5369 Employment and Affiliations Assistant Professor 2008 present Department of Political Science and School of International Relations University of Southern California Education Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, 2008, (Political Science) B.A. Rice University, 1999 (History and Policy Studies) Book Nicholas Weller and Jeb Barnes. 2014. Finding Pathways: Mixed-Method Research for Studying Causal Mechanisms. Cambridge University Press. Peer-Reviewed Publications [15] Weller, Nicholas and Jeb Barnes. 2014. Pathway Analysis and the Search for Causal Mechanisms. Sociological Methods and Research. Published online August 12, 2014. [14] Rogers, Melissa and Nicholas Weller. 2014. Income Taxation and the Validity of State Capacity Indicators. Journal of Public Policy. Vol. 34, Issue 1. Pp. 1-24 [13] Enemark, Daniel, Mathew D. McCubbins and Nicholas Weller. 2014. Knowledge and Networks: An experimental test of how network knowledge affects coordination. Social Networks. Volume 36. January, pages 122 133 [12] Tsai, Jason Hanh Thanh, Nicholas Weller and Milind Tambe. 2013. Game-Theoretic Target Selection in Contagion-based Domains. The Computer Journal. Published online September 20, 2013 [11] McCubbins, Mathew D., Mark Turner and Nicholas Weller. 2013. Testing the Foundations of Quantal Response Equilibrium. Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science. pp. 144-153 [10] Tsai, Jason, Nicholas Weller, and Milind Tambe. 2012. Analysis of Heuristic Techniques for Controlling Contagion Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fall Symposium on Social Networks and Social Contagion. pp. 69-75
[9] McCubbins, Mathew D. and Nicholas Weller. 2012. Effects of Network Structure on Costly Coordination. Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Technical Report FS-12-08, Social Networks and Social Contagion. pp. 37-43 [8] McCubbins, Mathew D., Mark Turner and Nicholas Weller. 2012. The Theory of Minds Within the Theory of Games. Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. [7] McCubbins, Mathew D., Mark Turner and Nicholas Weller. 2012. The Mythology of Game Theory. 2012. Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Eds. Shanchieh Jay Yang, Ariel Greenberg and Mica Endsley. [6] McCubbins, Mathew D., Mark Turner, and Nicholas Weller. 2012. The Challenge of Flexible Intelligence for Models of Human Behavior. Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Spring Symposium on Game Theory for Security, Sustainability and Health. AAI Technical Report. [5] Seljan, Ellen and Nicholas Weller. 2011. Diffusion in Direct Democracy: The Effect of Political Information on Proposals for Tax and Expenditure Limits in the U.S. States. State Politics and Policy Quarterly. Vol. 11, No. 3. pp. 348-368. [4] Enemark, Daniel, Mathew D. McCubbins, Ramamohan Paturi, and Nicholas Weller. 2011. Does more connectivity help groups to solve social problems? 2011. Proceedings of the ACM Conference of Electronic Commerce 2011. San Jose, CA. [3] Boudreau, Cheryl, Mathew D. McCubbins, Daniel Rodriguez and Nicholas Weller. 2010. Making Talk Cheap (and Problems Easy): How Political and Legal Institutions Can Facilitate Consensus, 2010. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Vol. 7, Issue 10. p. 868-885. [2] Weller, Nicholas. 2009. Trading Policy: Constituents and Party in U.S. Congressional Trade Voting. Public Choice. Volume 141, Issue 1, Pages 87-101 [1] McCubbins, Mathew D., Ramamohan Paturi and Nicholas Weller. Connected Coordination: Network Structure and Group Coordination. 2009. American Politics Research. Vol. 37, No. 5. Page 899-920. Other Publications [1] Rodriguez, Daniel, Mathew D. McCubbins and Nicholas Weller. 2013. Cheap, Easy or Connected: The Conditions for Creating Group Coordination" 2013. Southern California Law Review. Volume 86, Issue 3.
Working Manuscripts The Costs of Foreign Intervention and Audience Costs (with R. Joey Huddleston) The Impact of Group Collaboration on Social Capital Formation (with Scott Desposato) Mixed-Method Research and the Potential Outcomes Model of Causality (Book manuscript with Jeb Barnes; prospectus under review at Cambridge University Press) Grants and Awards Research grant from Center for International Studies, $2,500 Book workshop for Finding Pathways, Center for International Studies, $3,500, 2013 Advancing Scholarship in Humanities and Social Sciences, $15,000, 2009-2010 Southern California Innovation Project Grant, $50,000, Principal Investigator, 2008-09 Peggy Quon Prize for the UCSD Political Science graduate student most likely to contribute to scientific study of politics, 2008 Graduate Dissertation Fellowship, Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation, 2007 2008 UCSD Thurgood Marshall Graduate Fellowship, August 2003 June 2006 Invited Presentations 2015 Mixed-method research and causal mechanisms. Invited instructor at Institute for Qualitative and Multi-method Research. Syracuse University. June 2015 Mixed-Method Research. University of California, Santa Barbara, Spring 2015 2015 Institutions, Networks and Coordination. Political Institutions and Methods Working Group. Emory University. Spring 2015; UC Merced, Spring 2015 2014 Mixed-method research and causal mechanisms. Invited instructor at Institute for Qualitative and Multi-method Research. Syracuse University. June 2014 Gods vs. Bugs: Understanding the effects of network knowledge. West Coast Experiments Conference. May. 2014 The Organization of Non-State Actors: Varieties of Linkages between Structures and Agents. Special panel organized by One Earth Future at International Studies Association Meeting. Toronto, Canada. 2013 Cheap, Easy and Connected: Conditions for Collective Action. Claremont Graduate University 2013 Consistent Inconsistency, Institute for Mathematical and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Irvine. 2013 Network structure and collective action, Conference on Causal Inference in Political Networks. University of Chicago. May. 2012 Coordination and Cooperation in Networks. Crowds and Populations Workshop, Los Angeles, CA. 2010 Network Structure and Coordination. University of Houston. 2010 Network Structure and Coordination, Center for Law, Economics and Organization, USC Law School. 2009 Political Economy of Economic Reforms. Korea Development Institute, Seoul Korea, June. 2008 Opting In, Opting Out: Conditions for Network Consensus, presented at USC Center for Study of Law and Politics, September.
2008 Critical Review panel on public ignorance at American Political Science Association Conference, Boston, MA, August. 2008 Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits. University of Pennsylvania s American Politics Workshop, April. Conference Talks 2014 Effects of Network Knowledge on Dencetralized Coordination. Political Networks Conference. Montreal, Canada. May. 2013 Testing the foundations of quantal response equilibrium, International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction. April 2012 Effects of Network Structure on Costly Coordination. Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Fall Symposium. 2012 The Elements of Protest: Combining Coordination, Cooperation, and Communication in the Lab, paper prepared for presentation at American Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA 2012 The Theory of Minds Within the Theory of Games, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Las Vegas, NV. 2011 Trusting Your Beliefs: Understanding beliefs and behavior in a trust game. Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Northwestern University Law School. 2011 Coordinated Cooperation: The Effect of Network Structure on Coordination with Costly Actions. Political Networks Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. 2011 Does more connectivity help groups solve social problems? ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce. June. San Jose, CA. 2011 The Use of Knowledge in a Network: The importance of understanding actors information for network analysis. Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL. 2010 When do more connections help groups solve coordination problems? Workshop on Information in Networks, New York University, September, 2010. 2010 All Centrality is Local and Unintentional emobilization; American Political Science Association, September 2010. 2009 Moral Hazard in Campaigns: Do political candidates keep hiring their consultants, Conference on Empirical Legal Studies 2009 Network Structure and Coordination, Southern California Experiments in Political Science Conference, San Diego, California 2009 Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits (with Ellen Moule), State Politics and Policy Conference. May 2009. 2009 Good Edge, Bad Edge: Effect of Network Structure on Coordination (with Daniel Enemark, Mathew McCubbins and Ramamohan Paturi). Public Choice Conference, March 2009, International Network for Social Network Analysis, March 2009; and Midwest Political Science Association, April 2009 2008 Network structure and coordination (with Mathew McCubbins and Ramomohan Paturi) presented at the Networks in Political Science Conference, Harvard University. June. 2008 Predicting trust and trustworthiness in an experiment (with Mathew McCubbins) presented at UC Riverside conference on experiments in political science, May. 2008 Trading Policy: Constituents and Party in Trade Policy Voting presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association
2008 Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits (with Ellen Moule) presented at both the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association and the University of Southern California Law School. Teaching POIR 610 Introduction to Research Design POSC 435 Politics and The Economy POSC 311 Political Analysis POSC 500/IR 513 Research Methods IR 330 Politics of the World Economy IR 514 Multivariate Analysis for International Relations University and Professional Service Political Networks Section Executive Committee 2015-2016 Program Chair, Political Networks Section, MPSA Conference 2016 APSA Short Course on Comparative Elections, Instructor 2013 Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction, Program Committee 2013, 2014 AAAI Symposium on Social Networks and Social Contagion, Program Committee 2012 West Coast Experiments Conference, Organizer 2011 Center for International Studies, Advisory Committee 2009, 2010 Executive Committee, Department of Political Science 2008, 2010 Dissertation Committees James Pita, Computer Science Defended Fall 2012 Mariano Bertucci, Political Science and International Relations Defended Spring 2014 Jihyun Shin ABD status Joey Huddleston ABD status