Alex Garlick, PhD
Political Scientist
About Me
I'm an assistant professor at the University of Vermont. I am faculty in the Political Science Department and the Health and Society Program. Previously, I was an assistant professor at The College of New Jersey, a 2016-17 American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, received a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. at Middlebury College. I went to Needham High School (MA), where I was elected as the youngest town meeting member on record.
My research specializes on Congress, interest group lobbying, state politics and health policy. Here is a copy of my CV [.pdf].
Academic Publications
9. "The legacy of lobbying on the Affordable Care Act"
A Garlick (2023)Interest Groups & Advocacy [html | ungated]Books reviewed: Stealth Lobbying by Amy McKay, Ten Year War by Jonathan Cohn, The Committee by Bryan Marshall and Bruce Wolpe8. "Interest group lobbying and partisan polarization in the United States: 1999–2016"A Garlick (2022)Political Science Research and Methods 10 (3), 488-506[html | dataverse | appendix | ungated]
7. "The Battle Over Health Care"A Garlick (2022)In Under the Iron Dome, edited by Herrnson, P; Campbell, C.; Dulio, D.[html | ungated]
6. "Interest groups and the evolution of gun and racial politics in the USA"A Garlick (2021)Interest Groups & Advocacy 10 (1), 91-94[html | ungated]Books reviewed: The Gun Gap by Mark Joslyn, Warped Narratives by Melissa Merry
5. "Automated estimates of state interest group lobbying populations"A Garlick, J Cluverius (2020)Interest Groups & Advocacy 9 (3), 396-409[html | dataverse | ungated with appendix]
4. "A new wave of pluralism in the study of environmental policy in the USA"A Garlick (2020)Interest Groups & Advocacy 9 (2), 244-247[html | ungated]Books reviewed: Short Circuiting Policy by Leah Stokes, Falter by Bill McKibben, California Greenin' by David Vogel
3. "Mercy and Malice: An Inside View of the Push to Repeal and Replace Obamacare"A Garlick (2018)PS: Political Science & Politics 51 (2), 491-493[html | ungated]
2. "National Policies, Agendas, and Polarization in American State Legislatures: 2011 to 2014"A Garlick (2017)American Politics Research 45 (6), 939 - 979[html | ungated]
1. "'The Letter after Your Name' Party Labels on Virginia Ballots"A Garlick (2015)State Politics & Policy Quarterly 15 (2), 147-170[html | dataverse | ungated | appendix]
Dissertation: "Interest groups, lobbying and polarization in the United States"A Garlick (2016)UPenn Dissertation Repository[html | ungated]
Working papers
Pre-Existing Conditions: How Lobbying Makes American Health Care More Expensive: This monograph uses interview evidence and quantitative data from all 50 states to show how the health care industry defeats, diminishes and discouraging cost containment legislation, resulting in higher health care costs.
Legislative Capacity, Term Limits, and Group Involvement: This paper investigates how a reduction in staff changed how interest groups helped California legislators write bills in 1990 (with Mary Kroeger, UNC-Chapel Hill and Paige Pellaton, U.California-Davis).
Bicameralism Hinges on Legislative Professionalism: This paper introduces a dataset with the legislative history of more than 180,000 bills in the states to show how a legislature's professionalism affects the enactment rates of bills that have passed one chamber (with Adam Brown, BYU).
Measuring American State Legislative Policy Agendas Using Machine Learning: This paper uses a machine learning method to code the universe of state legislation since about 2009 by policy area (with Ethan Dee, U. Illinois).
Interest Groups Matter: This review explores a renaissance in the study of interest groups over the past decade (with Heath Brown, CUNY-John Jay and Wiebke Junk, U. Copenhagen).
Commentary
9. "The end of Roe v. Wade moves abortion to the states"
London School of Economics American Politics and Policy Blog (2022)
8. "Impeachment puts presidential power on trial."
Mischiefs of Faction (2021)
7. "How the pandemic has changed the value of lobbying."
3 Streams blog (2020, with Trevor Mulhall)
6. "Ambitious state legislators are pushing abortion bans to please interest groups who sense an end to Roe v. Wade."
London School of Economics American Politics and Policy Blog (2019)
5. Missing party labels could matter in the Mississippi Senate special election"
Vox.com (2018)
4. "In considering Judge Gorsuch’s nomination, the Senate should take the long view."
London School of Economics American Politics and Policy Blog (2017)
3. "Gridlock Won: Republican obstruction paid off big time in 2016, with lasting consequences."
US News and World Report (2016)
2. "Including party labels on ballots increases voting in local elections, especially among minorities."
London School of Economics American Politics and Policy Blog (2015)
1. "A Method to the Gridlock Madness: The GOP uses obstruction tactics because they work."
US News and World Report (2014)
Media Appearances
Analysis of the midterm elections in Vermont (2022):
Interview with The 74: "Change From the Bottom Up: Political Science Research Suggests That More CRT Bills Could Come to Washington Next Year" (2022)
Quoted in Bloomberg Law: "ACLU Bombards Religious Preference Proceeding With Form Letters" (2019)
Teaching
At UVM I teach:
Health Politics and Policy
Congress
The American Political Process
At TCNJ I taught:
American Government
Congress and the Presidency
Political Communication
American Political Economy
Data Science and the Study of State Politics
Please contact me if you'd like a syllabus from one of these courses.
