ALLISON N. GROSSMAN

​Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tulane University. how international incentives shape how poor states in West Africa manage recurrent challenges: disasters, public health emergencies, and political violence. I explore how highly constrained actors assert agency in highly unequal political environments: poor states operating in a hierarchical international order and ordinary citizens seeking services in unequal societies. A related strand of work explores the ethics of field and experimental research in political science and develops new tools for scholars working internationally. My work has been published in the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Experimental Political Science, and PS: Political Science & Politics.

 

I earned my PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. My book project explores the conditions under which governments enable or prevent humanitarian aid from reaching its intended recipients in emergencies. I leverage cross-national data, original surveys, and in-depth interviews to trace the process through which governments decide to acknowledge an emergency exists, allow international organizations to provide aid, and impose restrictions on aid delivery.

 

My research has been supported by the French Fund for Innovation in Development, Global Innovation Fund, Wellspring, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Innovations for Poverty Action, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the West Africa Research Association. At Tulane, the Lavin Bernick fund, Committee on Research, and School of Liberal Arts support my research. At Stanford, the King Center on Global Development supported my research, and at Berkeley, I received support from the Center for African Studies, Institute for International Studies, and Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel.