About

Scott Ashworth is an associate professor and the director of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Ph.D. program. His research uses game-theoretic models to study a variety of issues in political science, with a special emphasis on campaigns and elections. Ashworth’s recent research has examined the welfare economics of campaign finance, the sources of the incumbency advantage, the media’s influence on policy choice, and some methodological pitfalls in the study of suicide terrorism. His current research has two main foci: the first uses nonstandard models of beliefs to study issues including optimal delegation and targeting in electoral campaigns; the second applies canonical ideas from the theory of contracts to study the impact of domestic politics on international conflict. Before joining Chicago Harris, Ashworth was an assistant professor in the department of government at Harvard University and in the department of politics at Princeton University. He received his B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Economics
• Macroeconomics
• Mathematics
• Demographic economics
• Law
• Social psychology
• Econometrics
• Philosophy
• Statistics
• Epistemology
• Management science
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Explanation, formal models, and rational choice

  Journal of Theoretical Politics · 2024-08-28 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Formal theorists use a unified collection of models to generate intentional and causal explanations of political behavior. I explicate this claim and argue that disagreements about the role of unification and intentionality are at the root of persistent friction between theorists and empiricists. A debate around pathologies of rational choice theory is used to illustrate the argument.

  PublisherDOI

• Modeling Theories of Women's Underrepresentation in Elections

  American Journal of Political Science · 2023 · 22 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Demographic economics
  • Social psychology

  Abstract Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: Women (i) are underrepresented among candidates, (ii) are underrepresented among office holders, (iii) perform better in office, and (iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: Women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self‐perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willingness to run predicts the first three facts but not the fourth. Voter discrimination at the ballot box predicts the first three facts and creates competing effects with respect to the fourth. Thus, the major stylized facts cannot be explained without voter discrimination, whether overt or more subtle. We explore whether a close‐election regression discontinuity distinguishes the mechanisms; surprisingly, it does not.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Replication Files for: Modeling Theories of Women's Underrepresentation in Elections

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-12-14

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: women are under-represented among i) candidates and ii) office holders, iii) perform better in office, and iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self-perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willingness to run predicts the first three facts but not the fourth. Voter discrimination at the ballot box predicts the first three facts and creates competing effects with respect to the fourth. Thus, the major stylized facts cannot be explained without voter discrimination, whether overt or more subtle. We explore whether a close-election regression discontinuity distinguishes the mechanisms; surprisingly, it doesn't.

  PublisherDOI

• The accountability of politicians in international crises and the nature of audience cost

  Political Science Research and Methods · 2022-09-07 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  Abstract We study the problem of how citizens should punish or reward a leader's choices during international crises. Audiences should impose costs rooted in citizens’ preferences over policy outcomes, but that need not mean that these costs directly reflect the citizens’ preferences over actions. Instead, rewards and punishments are valued for their equilibrium consequences. To understand how citizens’ policy preferences shape electoral accountability, we characterize the retention strategies that maximize citizen welfare. In the optimal strategy, citizens always punish leaders who initiate crises and then back down. This is a robust finding, and true even though the citizens have no intrinsic preferences for policy consistency. Whether they punish leaders for backing down rather than going to war, on the other hand, depends on the status quo and on the costs of war. Importantly, these strategies of rewarding and punishing leaders need not have any immediate connection to voter's ex ante preferences over war and peace, even if preferences over policy outcomes ultimately motivate citizen behavior. This has important implications for interpreting empirical and experimental results related to audience costs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• From the Editors in Chief: A Farewell Message

  Quarterly Journal of Political Science · 2022-10-25

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 3 All Else Equal

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-08-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Distinguishing

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-07-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter talks about identifying and evaluating implications that are not common implications of the alternatives on offer called distinguishing implication. Many mechanisms are at work in most real-world targets and it is important not to overinterpret a claim about distinguishing. It points out that distinguishing is rarely about arguing for one mechanism and against others, but it is about increasing what is known about whether a particular mechanism is at work. The chapter explains that distinguishing is essentially about the question on how convincing is the case that the mechanism plays a role in explaining what is going on in the target. It recounts Dell's (2015) work on the Mexican drug war that shows an association between PAN election victories and increases in drug-related violence.

  PublisherDOI

• Models

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-07-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter looks at models used in social scientific theorizing that are simplifications representing only a small piece of a larger phenomenon. Models leave almost everything out and at first glance, such models look like poor support for a bridge to the world or to empirics. The chapter also examines a discussion to resonate with the intuitions of many theorists, facilitating making models that are valuable for empirical social scientists. It discusses the reassurance on empiricists about what their model-building colleagues are up to as empiricists constantly confront the messiness of the world that generates their data. It also addresses how simplifications could provide understanding of such a messy and complicated reality.

  PublisherDOI

• 6 Reinterpreting

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-08-06

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Framework

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2021-07-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter looks at the connection between theory and empirics from thirty thousand feet, providing a conceptual framework for thinking about how the entire enterprise fits together. It explains how theoretical models and empirical research designs relate to the world and to each other and what kinds of scientific claims are being learned, comparing a theoretical implication to an empirical finding. It also cites an extended example, drawn from the literature on women's underrepresentation in electoral politics. The chapter discusses how viewing the dialogue between theory and empirics through the lens can change the thinking about various kinds of theoretical and empirical contributions and can highlight opportunities for new research. It compares and contrasts the framework to two other prominent approaches to linking theory and empirics, namely structural modeling and causal mediation analysis.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

  University of Chicago

  46 shared

• Christopher R. Berry

  University of Chicago

  29 shared

• Joshua D. Clinton

  Vanderbilt University

  12 shared

• Kenneth W. Shotts

  3 shared

• Kristopher W. Ramsay

  Princeton University

  2 shared

• Amanda Friedenberg

  2 shared

• Adam Meirowitz

  2 shared

• Anthony Fowler

  1 shared

Labs

• Harris School of Public PolicyPI

Education

• B.S., Economics

  University of Pennsylvania

• Ph.D., Economics

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Awards & honors

• NIHCM Foundation Research Award (2018)