About

Katherine Sawyer is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University. She holds a PhD in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland. Her research interests include civil conflict and rebellion, biopsychological predictors of political violence, and spatial and computational models of conflict. Dr. Sawyer's work investigates the interplay between genetic and environmental effects on political behavior, with a focus on the Basque country of Spain. She also plans to conduct fieldwork in the United States on individual and network responses to police violence, as well as experiments to assess the conditions under which aggressive responses are triggered by exposure to repressive environments. Her research on conflict and political violence has been published in several academic journals, including Behavioral and Brain Sciences, International Organization, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Economics
• Development economics
• Political economy
• Management
• Public relations
• Demographic economics
• Gender studies
• Public administration
• Criminology
• Medicine

Selected publications

• System justification and the American alt-right

  Politics Groups and Identities · 2025-01-08 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Conflict Resolution

  2025-12-16

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Sexual Violence Against Men in Civil Conflict

  Political Research Quarterly · 2024-03-31 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Sexual violence against men in conflict settings is neither a rare nor recent phenomenon, yet its absence in academic scholarship and humanitarian initiatives remains glaring. Despite the advances in our understanding of the determinants of wartime sexual violence against women, surprisingly little empirical research exists on sexual violence against men in conflict. Acts of sexual violence are commonly enacted against men in war, yet because they do not fit more narrow definitions of rape, accounts of these experiences are often misclassified as “torture.” Moreover, in many countries experiencing pervasive conflict-related sexual violence, there exist restrictive laws regarding sodomy and homosexuality, reducing the chances that males will report their experiences. Using originally coded data on sexual and gender identity laws and reported incidents of sexual violence in civil conflict, I find that laws that outline the protection of sexual and gender identity expression including the decriminalization of same-sex activity are significantly associated with reports of acts of sexual violence against men. The results speak to the gap in the literature on male sexual violence with tangible consequences for the distribution of humanitarian aid, availability of medical and psychological services for victims, and aims of peacekeeping missions.

  PublisherDOI

• The genetic essentialism of the alt-right

  Research & Politics · 2024-04-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The belief among white nationalist, alt-right supporters that white people are being systematically replaced by non-white groups in society (i.e., the conspiracy theory of “great replacement”) is grounded in their broader beliefs in “race realism”—that is, the idea that racial categories are biologically determined. Here, we probe the common psychological biases that may contribute to the alt-right’s racist ideology. Surveying a national sample of Americans ( N = 1500), we find that alt-right supporters are significantly more likely to support essentialist beliefs—the notion that biology forms the core of who people are—than other Americans. Moreover, results from a two-wave experiment suggest that the alt-right interprets media narratives around behavioral science research in a way that reinforces belief in fundamental genetic differences between social groups. Consistent with expectations, narratives that emphasize deterministic genetic explanations for behavior lead all participants (regardless of alt-right support) to express increased essentialist beliefs. However, for alt-right supporters, socioenvironmental explanations for human behavior also lead to an increase in essentialist beliefs. Moreover, alt-right supporters are more likely to mistakenly interpret socioenvironmental narratives as direct evidence for the genetic basis of behavior. We suggest that essentialist thinking may provide a cognitive gateway to alt-right ideology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Scientific supremacy: How do genetic narratives relate to racism?

  Politics and the Life Sciences · 2023-10-12 · 6 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Recent research suggests that contemporary American society is marked by heightened hostile racial rhetoric, alongside increasing salience of White nationalists who justify an ideology of racial hierarchy with claims of biological superiority. Media coverage of such genetics research has often emphasized a deterministic (or causal) narrative by suggesting that specific genes directly increase negative outcomes and highlighting reported genetic differences between racial groups. Across two experimental studies, we examine the effect of the media's portrayal of scientific findings linking genes with negative health and behavioral outcomes on measures of racism. We find that deterministic genetic attributions for health and behavioral outcomes can lead to more negative racial out-group attitudes. Importantly, we also investigate potential interventions in the presentation of genetic science research. Our research has implications for understanding racial attitudes and racialized ideology in contemporary American politics, as well as for framing scientific communication in intergroup contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• Biophysiological Risk-Factors for Political Violence

  Journal of Conflict Resolution · 2022-09-07

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Why do individuals engage in violence against the state? This research investigates the biological and environmental determinants of individual-level participation in political violence through the use of a Candidate Gene Association, gene-environment interaction, study. Existing research has demonstrated that variation in a specific gene (called MAO-A) is associated with aggression. However, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to the interaction with the environment; specifically, the ways in which repressive political environments differentially incite acts of violence. Using original genetic, survey and experimental data collected on participants and non-participants of political violence, I find that under conditions of political repression, individuals with the low MAO-A genetic variant are significantly more likely to engage in acts of political violence. By examining both the genetic and environmental factors influencing political violence, the results make a significant contribution to our understanding of how genetic variation may lead to violence.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding anti-Asian sentiment and political behavior in the wake of COVID-19

  Politics Groups and Identities · 2022 · 14 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Given media reports of racism and hate crimes against Asians since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine whether explicit attitudes toward Asians in the United States changed more generally following the start of the pandemic. We compare two national samples of Americans before and after the onset of the pandemic, as well as replicating our findings in a panel dataset that spans the onset of the pandemic. We find that Americans’ feelings toward Asian Americans – but not toward other racially minoritized groups – became more negative after the onset of the pandemic. This heightened negative sentiment toward Asians is observed regardless of political ideology. Moreover, we find that the degree of exposure to the coronavirus is associated with anti-Asian attitudes, suggesting that the circumstances of the pandemic are related to increased anti-Asian attitudes. Finally, across model specifications, anti-Asian attitudes robustly increase the probability of voting for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Democrats with highly anti-Asian attitudes are nearly as likely as Republicans to vote for Trump, weakening the effect of partisanship on vote choice. This research suggests that the pandemic is exacerbating social inequalities in the U.S. in part through shifting racial attitudes – and with political consequences.

  PublisherDOI

• Voting for Militants: Rebel Elections in Civil War

  Sage Journals Data · 2020-01-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Rebel actors engage in a number of behaviors beyond violent conflict, including social service provision, diplomacy, and establishing local governance. This article centers on an oft-overlooked aspect of rebel behavior and governance: rebel groups conducting popular elections in wartime. We argue that rebel elections are a means through which rebels can strengthen both local and international legitimacy, but that there are risks to employing elections (such as logistical failures or publicized disconnect from civilians). We hypothesize that rebels that are pursuing legitimacy (local and international) in other ways are likely to set up rebel elections and that rebel groups with greater organizational capacity are more likely to introduce elections because they are well placed to manage the risks elections entail. Using a global data set of rebel use of elections where local civilians vote to elect rebel representatives at various levels of organizational hierarchy, we find empirical support for these propositions.

  PublisherDOI

• Rebel Leader Ascension and Wartime Sexual Violence

  The Journal of Politics · 2020 · 25 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Criminology
  • Social psychology

  A number of explanations have been advanced for why soldiers commit acts of sexual violence in wartime, yet we have little understanding of why some rebels refrain from sexual violence. We examine the systematic absence of sexual violence by certain rebel groups, using original data on rebel leader selection practices coupled with data on sexual violence from the Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict project. We find strong quantitative support for our claim that leader selection processes hold significant consequences for engagement in sexual violence: rebels who choose leaders via an electoral process are less likely to engage in sexual violence in wartime. Moreover, we find that the degree of electoral inclusiveness significantly affects whether rebels commit sexual violence. Rebel groups that hold elections with civilian participation are significantly less likely to use sexual violence than groups whose leader elections occur only among group members or top-level rebel officials.

  PublisherDOI

• Rebel recruitment and retention in civil conflict

  International Interactions · 2020-11-01 · 10 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  While the conflict literature has examined the use of forced recruitment in conflict, the question remains why groups would choose to do so when forced recruits require expensive coercion and time intensive socialization processes. The prevailing wisdom in the literature is that forced recruitment is a tactic of the weak; yet empirically, we often observe relatively strong rebel groups employing forced recruitment. In this paper, we argue that credible threats of punishment for desertion are a prerequisite to successful coercive recruitment. Thus, stronger rebels, those that are able to credibly threaten punishment, are more likely to engage in forced recruitment than are weaker rebels. Forced recruitment is not a tactic of last resort but a human rights abuse frequently exploited by already advantaged rebel groups. We find strong support for our argument quantitatively and qualitatively using cross-national data on rebel recruitment practices and case illustrations of the contras in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. The results speak to the growing literature emphasizing the importance of integrating individual and group level processes both theoretically and empirically.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham

  University of Maryland, College Park

  13 shared

• Kanisha D. Bond

  Binghamton University

  4 shared

• H. Hannah Nam

  3 shared

• Reyko Huang

  2 shared

• Talbot M. Andrews

  University of Connecticut

  2 shared

• Susanne A. Denham

  George Mason University

  1 shared

• Hillary Style

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  1 shared

• Elizabeth K. DeMulder

  George Mason University

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Maryland