Peer-Reviewed Publications

McDaniel, Eric L., Maraam A. Dwidar, and Hadill A. Calderon. 2018. "The Faith of Black Politics: The Relationship Between Black Religious and Political Beliefs." Journal of Black Studies. 49(3):256-283.

Book Chapters

Russell, Annelise, Maraam A. Dwidar, and Bryan D. Jones. 2016. "The Mass Media and the Policy Process.'' In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Working Papers

Dwidar, Maraam A. "Is It My Turn? Coalitional Advocacy and the Representation of Intersectionally Marginalized Groups in Rulemaking." (Under Review)

Dwidar, Maraam A. "(Not So) Strange Bedfellows? Policy Success and Diversity in Lobbying Coalitions." (Under Review)

Dwidar, Maraam A. and Eric L. McDaniel. "Hearing Our Voices: The Presence of Minority Interest Groups in Congressional Hearings."

Lewallen, Jonathan, JoBeth S. Shafran, and Maraam A. Dwidar. "When the Lines Go Down: Agency Priorities Under Stopgap Budgeting."

Strolovitch, Dara Z., Chaya Crowder, Maraam A. Dwidar, Ashley English, and Mary A. Kroeger. "Intersectional Advocacy and Activism in Time"

Dissertation

My dissertation considers the value of coalitional lobbying for interest groups representing minority populations (those marginalized by race, gender, class, and sexual orientation). I argue that coalitional lobbying attracts the attention of core government actors and lends increased (wo)manpower to the lobbying efforts of these groups, which advance their lobbying goals. Moreover, I argue that diversity in coalition makeup (resource, organizational, and partisan) lends reputability and social desirability to coalitions and their policy proposals, offering similarly improved lobbying outcomes.

​I test these claims using an original, large-N dataset identifying coalitions of minority interest groups through signatures on public comments (over 15,000) submitted on proposed federal agency rules. I operationalize the "lobbying effectiveness" of public comments by using plagiarism detection software to compare the text of each comment to that of its corresponding final rule and produce a measure of textual similarity between each comment-final rule pair. Each observation (comment) is coded for its coalitional nature and policy content, and links to data on accompanying proposed and final rules and characteristics of coalition members. To assess my claims, I model the relationship between lobbying effectiveness and the use and diversity of coalitions and report preliminary results that strongly support the hypotheses posed. As such, my core contribution is an enhanced understanding of the strategies that can contribute to representative public policymaking.