Hello! I am a political and historical sociologist who uses quantitative and computational methods to study elite political action.
My dissertation examines the relationship between state formation and the emergence of the first political parties in New York State between 1777 and 1820. I am particularly interested in the processes that tied political elites into the emerging party system, focusing on the role of social networks and political careers. This research is supported by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. Other work analyzes the career paths that led into elite administrative positions in the American state between 1850 and 2000, the structure of political careers in China from 1978 to 2012, and the structure of political discourse in Renaissance Florence. You can read more about my work here.
Drawing on several novel datasets, my dissertation examines the emergence and structure of the first party system in the state of New York.
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Padgett, John F., Katalin Prajda, Benjamin Rohr, and Jonathan Schoots. 2020. “Political Discussion and Debate in Narrative Time: The Florentine Consulte e Pratiche, 1376-1378.” Poetics 78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.101377.
Schoots, Jonathan, Benjamin Rohr, Katalin Prajda, and John F. Padgett. 2020. “Political Conflict and Revolt in Generational Time: The Florentine Consulte e Pratiche and Ciompi Revolt, 1376-1378.” Poetics 78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.101386.
Rohr, Benjamin and John Levi Martin. 2021. “How (Not) to Control for Population Size in Ecological Analyses.” Sociological Methods and Research. Online First: https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124120986188.
You can contact me at brohr@uchicago.edu.