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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/09/2025

I'll be presenting a poster on one of my job market papers at APSA in Vancouver today from 12:30-1 PM, as part of the Comparative Politics Section! Location is East Exhibit Level, East Exhibit Hall A. Come find me I'd love to discuss! Image of poster below, Working paper here: osf.io/preprints/so...

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 11/09/2025

@searchliaison.bsky.social decided the first day of APSA of all possible days that my website hosted *by them* is a phishing scam 😅 you can still bypass the @developer.chrome.com warning and reach my site. Resolving but in the meantime please email me at Danielroberts @ g.harvard.edu if you have qs!

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

To close with an analogy that I can't help but help myself to as a Japanese-American: by no means does everyone need to be a multi-way player. But most teams probably wouldn't be hurt by having one on their roster. I would appreciate the opportunity to make that case in person!　

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

I know: not typical to have 2 JMPs + prepped talks. I consider myself a political economist who crosses subfields, while being able to draw from and contribute to subfield-specific literatures. If you're a department who wants a collaborative colleague who bridges subfields, we could be a good fit!

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

1/2 JMPs I will have newly out for the poli sci market. Consider this a hard launch! Will have a second JMP too. This one asks why congress rolled back Dodd Frank, causing 3/4 largest bank failures in US history 2023. My answer: local dependency, not instrumental power. Working paper out ~week!

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

So: not a Gucci Protest after all! These are German-specific empirics but should have implications broadly, weighs in favor of boundary defense vs theories that unequal opportunity explained by elite prefs. Maybe way to address unequal opportunity is policy reducing marginal insiders' insecurity?

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Referendum supporters rewarded Scholz. The SPD won in a landslide in snap election triggered by collapse of Christian Democrat (CDU) + Greens coalition after their reform was blocked. Referendum voters defected from CDU to vote for Scholz/SPD shown in precinct and micro data.

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Qualitative record show electorally-motivated politicians responded. Hamburg's SPD chief & future Hamburg mayor, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz campaigned against reform, despite pressure from co-partisan elites, citing insecure voters' interests. See e.g. taz.de/Hamburgs-SPD-...

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Survey-weighted regressions from election study show parents of school-age kids without academic education themselves were more likely to vote for the referendum. Ideology suggestive explainer for other respondents, but this non-academic background for parents of school-age kids.

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Vote-WLS regressions show precincts in below median income areas vote more for referendum. Precincts in places with low academic sorting, high immigrant shares did on average too. But appendix shows this is from specific extreme precincts (e.g. in industrial area of Billbrook), not across support.

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Synthetic difference-in-differences using data across German states suggest that the reform causally reduced native-born German students sorting to academic schools. Very imprecisely (95% CI [-4.5%, +1.7%]) due to power issues, but appendix discusses why this CI is an overly pessimistic upper bound

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Trends show German families already didn't rely on intermediate schools in Hamburg vs rest of Germany pre-reform, which is why consolidation succeeded. But higher share sort to academic schools in Hamburg. Trends show reform lowered native-born students sorting to academic schools, raised immigrants

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

I argue this was boundary defense. Less well-off Germans rely on early sorting, it secures academic access vs immigrants. Used to rely on sorting between intermediate/basic tracks, but no longer in Hamburg pre-reform. This explains why these were consolidated, but early sorting reform failed

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

The movement didn't care that reformers consolidated non-academic schools, but did oppose delaying sorting & removing parents' choice. They got their referendum and won resoundingly: 58-42%. Maybe only the rich turned out? But referendum vote in Hamburg (left) doesn't quite match income (right).

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

I test this general theory on a specific 2010 referendum against a reform to early age sorting across unequal schools in Hamburg, Germany. In 2009, the "we want to learn" movement organized against this reform. German media called it a "Gucci Protest", casting them as upper-middle class elites

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

This hurts "marginal outsiders" who would otherwise be upwardly mobile from reform. Whether or marginal insiders' "boundary defense" succeeds depends on secure insiders' pro-reform preferences (efficiency benefits), marginal outsiders' representation, and specific size of the marginal insider group

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

I agree, and argue that "marginal insiders" defend policies that allow them to hoard opportunities against reform when they lack alternatives to secure uncertain status. Well-off "secure insiders" don't need to: they buy opportunity access, just like with private alternatives to social policy.

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

Previous literature argues that "elite domination" of politics explains inequality. Politicians listen to rich more than poor voters, so policy favors them. Work on opportunity specifically blames upper middle-class "dream hoarders". But Tilly said insecure groups like immigrants "opportunity hoard"

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

This is an example of a policy that reinforces what Charles Tilly calls "durable inequalities" -- persistent unequal opportunities between social groups. These pervade rich democracies, not just Germany. Aspirational voters' pressure should reform these (Iversen&Soskice 2019), but they're resilient.

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

"As early as age 9" children in Germany are sorted across stratified school tracks. Some to tracks where most go on to universities, others where most don't. Literature suggests this is bad for both equity (immigrant students) and efficiency (worse overall education outcomes). Yet it persists. Why?

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 02/09/2025

New Working Paper! Why do policies that reinforce unequal opportunities persist? Some blame elites. I argue less secure families defend these "boundaries" against reform and call this "boundary defense". I test this on a 2010 referendum against school reform in Hamburg. Link: osf.io/preprints/soc...

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 30/08/2025

Whether you are a new or old follower, hello! A quick announcement -- I'll post a new working paper by the end of the weekend on "Boundary Defense". Abstract below, SocArXiv link soon to come. 1 of 2 projects whose WP release coincides with being on the poli sci market. Consider this a soft-launch!

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 29/07/2025

I'll present on the politics of Dodd-Frank rollback today at @cape-team.bsky.social Annual Conference in a great panel on "Business and Civil Society" together with Jane Sumner & Andrew Kerner, @alanyan.bsky.social, and @jaeyeonkim.bsky.social. Hope to see you there, Working Paper out in ~ a month!

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 05/12/2024

Finally, as someone who loves how film can make politics visceral/ accessible, I'd recommend 12.12: The Day (Seoul Spring) on military coup of Chun Doo-hwan in 1979, and A Taxi-Driver depicting its consequences in anti-Chun 1980 Gwangju Uprising. This history deserves to be felt

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

So why esotericism of critique, embedded in allegory? For a Japanese audience familiar with allusions + history, interpretation should be clear. But media quietism on clear war-time references/interpretation, and Ghibli choice to hide all details before release are telling. 11/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Honest humanism against idealism is the thread. In Yoshino's rejection of martial greatness in namesake. In Miyazaki's protagonist's parallel rejection of bloodline imperial inheritance. In child's fantasy as political allegory itself, synthesizing best of Miyazaki+Takahata 10/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Did so too while rejecting Takahata's relentless aesthetic idealism. Embeds this in narrative too. So, film may be read as Miyazaki's resolution of long creative dialectic. Engaged but engaging, realist while hopeful, fantastical and critical, uncompromising but humane 9/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Miyazaki's previous on war themes, "The Wind Rises" was meant to be his last. It was romantic, limpid, and apologist. New film, released after Takahata's passing in 2018, offered Miyazaki a re-do, incorporating rival's realist critique while elevating own style to apotheosis 8/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Far from ruling out autobiographical reading though, I suggest this reinforces it. Mentor/rival/co-founder Takahata, known for war tragedy "Grave of the Fireflies" and other realist films, criticized Miyazaki's popular romantic escapism in past, urging more social engagement 7/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Detailed interpretation through film's acts in article (Spoilers!) Suffice to say, callous west-imitating grand uncle rules as figurehead delegating to avian-symbol militarists using power from beyond. Protagonist rejects imperial inheritance and world collapses at war's end 6/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Miyazaki now echoes the namesake. Once metaphors understood, film's fantasy world unfolds itself as allegory critical of Imperial Japan's (1868-1945) ideology in "children's" film. Along the way, takes on deep taboo in Japanese media politics: critiquing imperial system itself 5/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Title/Namesake give clue on why. Originally "How Will You Live?"（君たはどう生きるか), it alludes to a JP children's novel published just before WW2. Its pacifist, politically persecuted author used children's fiction as ideology critique. It resonated with young Miyazaki 4/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

This reading alone doesn't give justice to the film's apparently political theme. It features a gorgeous fantasy dreamscape familiar from his escapist past work, but its darkness is a departure and it's embedded in a war-time setting following on his previous "The Wind Rises". 3/

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Daniel T. Roberts @danieltroberts.com · 12/11/2024

Much commentary points to the film as allegory for Studio Ghibli founder's life. Besides echoes of his childhood, interviews/making of also suggest Miyazaki weaves his troubled relationship with co-founder Takahata into narrative, through protagonist's own with Grand Uncle. 2/

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