Laura Brisbane

Why is inequality so pronounced in the United States? My dissertation offers one in-road to this multifaceted question by unpacking the psychology of scarcity in American political life. I chose to focus on the politics of scarcity in my doctoral studies, in part, due to my undergraduate focus on the study of human rights, which I pursued as an entry point for envisioning a world where everyone’s needs are met. Prior to college, I wrote my first research paper as a high school student on the Eugenics movement in the United States. These threads of my early education — regarding human rights, on the one hand, and social Darwinism, on the other — instilled a growing appreciation for the contradictions at play between a rights-based framework of social welfare provision and a cultural milieu in which scarcity is naturalized as an inevitable source of competition and hierarchy. These contradictions motivated my research agenda, inspiring my inquiry into the social construction of scarcity and its impact on inequality within the context of American discourse, policy, and public opinion. Beyond my dissertation, I also research the politics of gender across race and party, with applications to an array of contemporary flashpoints in American society, ranging from reproductive rights to the instability of American democracy. 

• BA Univ Southern California, 5/2016