Department Colloquium: Mackenzie Israel-Trummel

Israel-Trummel is an assistant professor in the Political Science Department and an affiliate faculty member of the Women's and Gender Studies Department and the Latinx Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma. 

Recent studies provide conflicting accounts of whether indirect contact with the American carceral state mobilizes. Using two cases, I examine how social connections to people targeted by carceral state institutions affects political participation. First, I use a large national survey of Black Americans that includes a novel measure of social connections to people with felony convictions to examine spillover dynamics. Second, I use data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), which surveyed citizens and non-citizens in five languages, to test how perceptions of deportation threat to one’s social network and the self affect political participation. Both analyses suggest that those with loved ones affected by carceral state institutions often engage in surrogate political participation.