About

Cameron Ballard-Rosa is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he also serves as the Director of Placement for the department. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science and an M.A. in Economics from Yale University. His research interests encompass political economy, international relations, comparative politics, and formal theory. His work has been published or is forthcoming in prominent journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and The Journal of Politics. His book, 'Democracy, Dictatorship and Default,' published by Cambridge University Press, investigates the political logic behind international sovereign debt default, emphasizing how urban-rural conflicts and sensitive food subsidies vary across different regime types. His research employs formal theory, large-n statistical analysis, and close case study reading, including primary archival research across several countries, to provide substantive evidence for hypotheses explaining sovereign default behaviors in autocracies and democracies. Broader research interests include the intersection of international and comparative political economy, focusing on political responses to fiscal crises and the impact of economic change on authoritarian values and demands for redistribution.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Economics
• Law
• Political economy
• Development economics
• Psychology
• Market economy
• International economics
• Business
• Monetary economics
• Financial system
• Finance
• History
• Social psychology
• Demography

Selected publications

• Inequality, information, and income tax policy preferences in Austria and Germany

  UNC Libraries · 2025-09-25

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Inequality has increased over recent decades in many advanced industrial democracies, but taxes have rarely become more progressive. One possible explanation for the lack of a policy response is that, despite rising inequality, voters support higher taxes on incomes weakly, if at all. Using original representative surveys in Austria and Germany, we elicit voters’ preferences over the progressivity of income tax policy and examine whether exposing them to accurate information about inequality affects those preferences. Voters, we find first, express an abstract preference for progressivity but concretely support tax plans that are only somewhat more progressive than the status quo in Austria and less progressive than the status quo in Germany. Second, we find evidence that certain kinds of information about inequality moderately increase progressive tax preferences in Germany; however, we find no equivalent effects in Austria. While information on inequality does seem able to affect tax policy views in certain contexts, it seems unlikely that lack of this information can fully account for the lack of rising redistribution through the income tax system in the face of increasing inequality.

  PublisherDOI

• Inequality, information, and income tax policy preferences in Austria and Germany

  Political Science Research and Methods · 2025-09-12 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Inequality has increased over recent decades in many advanced industrial democracies, but taxes have rarely become more progressive. One possible explanation for the lack of a policy response is that, despite rising inequality, voters support higher taxes on incomes weakly, if at all. Using original representative surveys in Austria and Germany, we elicit voters’ preferences over the progressivity of income tax policy and examine whether exposing them to accurate information about inequality affects those preferences. Voters, we find first, express an abstract preference for progressivity but concretely support tax plans that are only somewhat more progressive than the status quo in Austria and less progressive than the status quo in Germany. Second, we find evidence that certain kinds of information about inequality moderately increase progressive tax preferences in Germany; however, we find no equivalent effects in Austria. While information on inequality does seem able to affect tax policy views in certain contexts, it seems unlikely that lack of this information can fully account for the lack of rising redistribution through the income tax system in the face of increasing inequality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trade as Villain: Belief in the American Dream and Declining Support for Globalization

  UNC Libraries · 2025-04-02

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Why has US commercial policy become increasingly politicized in the twenty-first century?We argue that this politicization reflects an interaction between elite rhetoric on unfair trade practices and American meritocratic values. As the twenty-first century progressed, elites increasingly argued that economic malaise was a result of predatory practices by US trading partners. This “trade is unfair” rhetoric resonated most strongly with meritocratic Americans: individuals who believed in principles of market fairness but also worried about future economic prospects. To evaluate the argument that trade policy frames resonate differently among Americans, we draw on data from several survey experiments as well as a large, original panel data set with repeat observations of the same individuals. Individuals who are most tied to the myth of the classic American Dream are the most likely to respond to a frame blaming unfair trade for America’s economic problems, and this contributes to rising antiglobalization sentiment.

  PublisherDOI

• Trade as Villain: Belief in the American Dream and Declining Support for Globalization

  The Journal of Politics · 2023 · 8 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Why has US commercial policy become increasingly politicized in the twenty-first century? We argue that this politicization reflects an interaction between elite rhetoric on unfair trade practices and American meritocratic values. As the twenty-first century progressed, elites increasingly argued that economic malaise was a result of predatory practices by US trading partners. This “trade is unfair” rhetoric resonated most strongly with meritocratic Americans: individuals who believed in principles of market fairness but also worried about future economic prospects. To evaluate the argument that trade policy frames resonate differently among Americans, we draw on data from several survey experiments as well as a large, original panel data set with repeat observations of the same individuals. Individuals who are most tied to the myth of the classic American Dream are the most likely to respond to a frame blaming unfair trade for America’s economic problems, and this contributes to rising antiglobalization sentiment.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: The Geography of Democratic Discontent

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-07-19

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This provides the replication data and do file for all output in Ballard-Rosa, Carnegie & Schonfeld (2022) "The Geography of Democratic Discontent"

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: Trade as Villain: Belief in the American Dream and Declining Support for Globalization

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-09-28

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This provides replication data and code for all analyses presented in the main text and online appendix.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: The Geography of Democratic Discontent

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-05-20

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This provides replication data and do files for all results presented in the main text and online appendix for Ballard-Rosa, Carnegie & Schonfeld, "The Geography of Democratic Discontent"

  PublisherDOI

• The Geography of Democratic Discontent

  British Journal of Political Science · 2022-08-09 · 12 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Understanding the determinants of support for democracy remains at the heart of many puzzles in international and comparative political economy. A central but still unresolved topic in this literature is the conditions under which such support dissipates. To answer this question, this article focuses on distributional politics: since democratic leaders possess limited budgets but need to win elections, they often skew resources toward one politically influential sector, leading to more negative attitudes toward democracy among electorally ignored populations. In particular, we argue that governments often face a key political trade-off: whether to direct resources to the agricultural sector or to encourage urban development. After developing this argument in a formal model, we detail historical accounts that substantiate the mechanisms identified in the model. Finally, we provide cross-national quantitative evidence that discontent with democracy increases among geographic populations when governments disproportionately distribute resources toward other sectors.

  PublisherDOI

• Economic Decline, Social Identity, and Authoritarian Values in the United States

  Yale University Library · 2022-03-09

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Why does the contemporary backlash against globalization in the United States have such a substantial authoritarian character? We argue that sustained economic decline has a negative effect on the social identity of historically dominant groups. These losses lead individuals to be more likely to want to enforce social norm conformity—that is, adopt more authoritarian values—as a way to preserve social status and this effect is greater the larger the size of other groups in the population. Central to our account is the expectation of an interactive effect of local economic and demographic conditions in forging value responses to economic decline. The article evaluates this argument using an original 2017 representative survey in the United States. We find that individuals living in relatively diverse regions facing more intense competition from Chinese imports have more authoritarian values. We further find that the greater effect of globalization-induced labor market decline in more diverse areas is also evident for vote choice in the 2016 Presidential election.

  PublisherDOI

• The Economic Origins of Authoritarian Values: Evidence From Local Trade Shocks in the United Kingdom

  London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · 2021-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  What explains the backlash against the liberal international order? Are its causes economic or cultural? We argue that while cultural values are central to understanding the backlash, those values are, in part, endogenous and shaped by long-run economic change. Using an original survey of the British population, we show that individuals living in regions where the local labor market was more substantially affected by imports from China have significantly more authoritarian values and that this relationship is driven by the effect of economic change on authoritarian aggression. This result is consistent with a frustration-aggression mechanism by which large economic shocks hinder individuals’ expected attainment of their goals. This study provides a theoretical mechanism that helps to account for the opinions and behaviors of Leave voters in the 2016 UK referendum who in seeking the authoritarian values of order and conformity desired to reduce immigration and “take back control” of policymaking.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Judith L. Goldstein

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  9 shared

• Nita Rudra

  Georgetown University

  9 shared

• Layna Mosley

  The Ohio State University

  8 shared

• Rachel L. Wellhausen

  The University of Texas at Austin

  6 shared

• Kenneth F. Scheve

  5 shared

• Stephanie J. Rickard

  London School of Economics and Political Science

  3 shared

• Allison Carnegie

  Columbia University

  3 shared

• Mashail Malik

  3 shared