Anand E. Sokhey

CU Political Science Professor and Mentor Wins Prestigious Academic Award

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 21:55:44 +0000

CU Political Science Professor and Mentor Wins Prestigious Academic Award Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/08/2023 - 14:55

As a college student at Denison University some years ago, Associate Professor Anand Sokhey decided on a whim to dabble in political science research for a summer. Little did he know at the time that this was the beginning of a remarkable academic career. Since completing that degree at Denison and arriving at CU in 2009, Sokhey has published three books and over 30 peer-reviewed articles—many of them award-winning. Most prestigiously, he recently won the emerging scholar award from the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association, an incredibly high and well-deserved honor.

As an undergraduate student at the liberal arts school of Denison in Granville, Ohio, Sokhey opened his email one day to find an invitation from Professor Paul Djupe. The email asked if he would stick around for the summer to conduct some research. “Well, that sounds

kind of interesting,” Sokhey recalls thinking. “Sure, I’ll try it.” Sokhey began working with Djupe to conduct research on religion and politics in the US, and it turned out to be a highly productive and long-lasting professional relationship. Their initial efforts resulted in multiple publications in professional journals—some while Sokhey was still a young undergraduate student. Moreover, the two still work together on projects to this day. In fact, they recently published a book together, and they have another one on the way!

Working so frequently and persistently with his undergraduate mentor has given Sokhey a valuable perspective on his own role as a mentor: “It’s a reminder to pass things on to the scholars who are coming up behind me. I benefitted from a lot of great mentoring opportunities, and a lot of important collaborative and mentoring networks. So that drives me to be mindful of those things for graduate students and junior scholars who will be coming into these positions in the years to come.” As the current director of CU’s American Politics Research Lab, Sokhey leads a team of graduate and undergraduate students to produce the Colorado Political Climate Survey. This annual fall survey of a representative sample of Colorado adults describes where the state’s voters stand on political issues and on the coming elections, so it receives a lot of media attention. It carries the added benefit of giving CU’s political science students an opportunity to help create and analyze political data.

Based on these and his many other scholarly efforts, Sokhey won the emerging scholar award. Literally thousands of professional political scientists study elections, public opinion, and voting behavior in either the US or in other countries. So in winning this award Sokhey has established himself as one of this generation’s best scholars of how common citizens act and behave in the political realm. “I was blown away when I heard about this, and I still feel humbled by it all. It helped me realize that I’ve been able to establish connections in my field, that other people are reading and engaging with my research, and that hopefully I have made some meaningful contributions to the work of other people.”

With his next project, Sokhey hopes to find ways to stem a rising tide of antisemitism and antisemitic rhetoric in the US: “We’ve been seeing an uptick in celebrities, politicians, and millionaires either saying antisemitic things or promoting conspiracy theories—Kanye, athletes, and others. It’s definitely a time to be focusing on this problem.” To do so, Sokhey has received funding from the Anti-Defamation League to study scientifically how antisemitic attitudes form in the first place. With that knowledge, he hopes to unveil techniques for disarming antisemitism at its roots.

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Congratulations Professor Anand Sokhey!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 15:31:04 +0000

Congratulations Professor Anand Sokhey! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/10/2020 - 09:31

Professor Sokhey was featured in CU Boulder Today in an article as the co-author of the book Politics on Display: Yard Signs and the Politicization of Social Spaces. The Political Science department would like to congratulate him and encourage you to read the full article here.

Don't forget to check out his work! Congratulations Professor Sokhey!

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Professor Anand Sokhey talks about polarization in the United States on eTown's PurpleState podcast

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 20:11:26 +0000

Professor Anand Sokhey talks about polarization in the United States on eTown's PurpleState podcast Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/09/2018 - 14:11

Dr. Anand Sokhey sat down with Nick Forster and Jean Dubofsky for the eTown's PurpleState podcast. Listen to it here.

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Anand Sokhey in "Roger Stone Says There Could be an 'Insurrection'"

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 22:16:43 +0000

Anand Sokhey in "Roger Stone Says There Could be an 'Insurrection'" Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/18/2017 - 16:16

Research at CU

One of our associate professors, Anand Sokhey, contributed to an article published last week in the Washington Post. Sokhey, along with several other political science professors, argue through their reseach against Roger Stone's claim that a real threat to impeach President Trump would spark revolts. In anaylyzing serveral surveys, the researchers found that those who opposed the Trump administration were more likely to engage in political action than those who supported him. To read more about Anand Sokhey and others' research and conclusions, read the article: "Roger Stone says there will be an 'insurrection' if Trump were impeached. Is he right?"

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Meet Anand Sokhey

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 17:07:10 +0000

Meet Anand Sokhey Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/12/2017 - 11:07

Jeffrey Nonnemacher , Madeline Chandler

Associate Professor

Starting from a young age, Dr. Anand Edward Sokhey was surrounded by politics. “I came from a family that talks politics all the time,” he said, reflecting on his upbringing.

This immersion in politics only continued during his years as an undergraduate in Ohio. Sokhey “started doing research in the summers with a professor” where he became interested “in using data to examine questions about social and behavioral science.”

With this experience, it was only natural that this interest in politics stuck with him. “I decided early on in undergraduate that I wanted to go to grad school.” Sokhey said.

Fast-forward to today: a big part of what Sokhey does is conduct “research as it intersects with teaching and mentoring.”

One class that Sokhey enjoys teaching is the PSCI 1101 Intro to American Politics lecture in MATH 100. “I like doing the big intro class because it is fun to meet that many people, it is almost like a performance every Tuesday and Thursday.”

Sokhey concentrates on American politics because he finds “the American system very interesting, with a lot to study within it.”

“I love teaching at the undergraduate level, but I also really enjoy conducting research with graduate students,” Sokhey said.

“My research is about social influence - how our friends, neighbors, and acquaintances structure the information we get and the decisions we make,” he said.

“I got interested in the social nature of political life about the time that social networking and social media was becoming big in broader society,” he noted.

Another aspect of Sokhey’s research focuses on religion and is the incoming director of the LeRoy Keller Center for the study of the First Amendment.

“You get this historical experiment in the United States of people trying and finding different religions - I am interested in how religion provides a context for interaction, mobilization, and learning.”

In his free time, Sokhey paints and draws; his paintings have appeared on the covers of a couple of academic books. Anand majored in Studio Art as an undergraduate (he was a double major with Political Science), but went to Grad School for Political Science. Thus, he “is a big fan of people who have different major combinations.”

For Anand, “one of the things that’s important about learning and living in a college environment is being intellectually curious” and taking advantage of the opportunity to “do and try a lot of different things.”

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Personality, Interpersonal Disagreement, and Electoral Information.

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 21:55:36 +0000

Personality, Interpersonal Disagreement, and Electoral Information. Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/19/2017 - 15:55

Lyons J, Sokhey AE, McClurg SD, Seib D. JOURNAL OF POLITICS. 78 (3) (July 01, 2016): 806-821.

Abstract:
Interpersonal disagreement has been linked to a variety of democratic outcomes, and classic theories of social influence place it at the heart of opinion formation. We examine the relationship between exposure to disagreement and information seeking during elections, while developing and testing a theory of heterogeneous effects based on recent work on personality and discussion (e.g., Gerber et al. 2012). Using a simulated campaign experiment (Lau and Redlawsk 2006) and data from the 2008–9 ANES panel study, we find consistent evidence that personality conditions responses to disagreement in expected ways—it enhances effects for those with certain traits, while suppressing it for those with others. We close by reflecting on this pattern of results, discussing broader implications while moving toward a more general theory of social influence.

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The Political Consequences of Gender in Social Networks.

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 21:51:25 +0000

The Political Consequences of Gender in Social Networks. Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/19/2017 - 15:51

Djupe P, Mcclurg S, Sokhey AE. British Journal of Political Science (2016): 1-22.

Abstract:
Scholars of behavior remain focused on the citizenry’s ability to acquire high quality information that can enable political action and choice. One of the primary concerns to emerge from sociallydriven investigations into this is whether networks yield similar effects for all people. We extend this discussion to explore a source of variance widely ignored in social network studies – gender. While there is near universal agreement that men and women should experience different kinds and degrees of social influence, an extensive literature review generates conflicting expectations about exactly how such dynamics should manifest. Thus, as a critical first step, we revisit prominent, network-based explanations of political participation to determine whether established findings hold across sex differences. We find that they do not. Our results point to the existence of distinct “social logics” for men and women that change how we think about the efficacy of discussion and disagreement in a democratic society.

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The Dynamics of Partisan Identification When Party Brands Change: The Case of the Workers Party in Brazil.

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 21:22:21 +0000

The Dynamics of Partisan Identification When Party Brands Change: The Case of the Workers Party in Brazil. Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/19/2017 - 15:22

Baker A, Ames B, Sokhey AE, Renno LR. JOURNAL OF POLITICS. 78 (1) (January 01, 2016): 197-213.

Abstract:
What happens to partisanship when a party undergoes rapid and visible elite-led changes that dilute its traditional brand? We address scholarly debates on the stability of mass partisanship by analyzing the consequences of the major brand change (marked by policy moderation and scandal) experienced by the leftist Brazilian Workers Party (PT) between 2002 and 2006. Analyzing a survey panel with interviews spanning this period, we find that many Brazilian citizens alternated between petismo and independence but rarely crossed party lines. They switched, we demonstrate, in response to political events. While the PT’s brand dilution drove away some traditional petistas, we observe two other dynamics: the rise of a new brand associated with the successful incumbent president (Lula) attracted new adherents, and amid this instability, a core of petistas stood by their party. Our findings suggest that scholarship on partisanship has established a false dichotomy between stability and instability.

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"The Political Consequences of Gender in Social Networks."

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 19:39:11 +0000

"The Political Consequences of Gender in Social Networks." Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/18/2016 - 13:39

Paul Djupe, Scott McClurg and Anand E. Sokhey. (forthcoming). “The Political Consequences of Gender in Social Networks." British Journal of Political Science. Scholars of behavior remain focused on the citizenry's ability to acquire high quality information that can enable political action and choice. One of the primary concerns to emerge from socially- driven investigations into this is whether networks yield similar effects for all people. Sokhey and coauthors extend this discussion to explore a source of variance widely ignored in social network studies - gender. While there is near universal agreement that men and women should experience different kinds and degrees of social in influence, an extensive literature review generates conflicting expectations about exactly how such dynamics should manifest.

Thus, as a critical first step, Sokhey et al. revisit prominent, network-based explanations of political participation to determine whether established findings hold across sex differences. They find that they do not. Their results point to the existence of distinct “social logics" for men and women that change how we think about the efficacy of discussion and disagreement in a democratic society.

Paul Djupe, Scott McClurg and Anand E. Sokhey. (forthcoming). “The Political Consequences of Gender in Social Networks." British Journal of Political Science. Scholars of behavior remain focused on the citizenry's ability to acquire high quality information that can enable political action and choice.

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