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. "Diverse Lobbying Coalitions and Influence in Notice-and-Comment Rulemaking" (Under Review)

Dwidar, Maraam A. "Coalitional Lobbying and Intersectional Representation in American Rulemaking." (Under Review)

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

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

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

Dissertation

In my dissertation, I consider the value of coalitional lobbying for interest groups representing minority populations. I argue that coalitional lobbying attracts attention from core government actors and lends increased (wo)manpower to the lobbying efforts of these groups, which advance their policy goals. Moreover, I argue that organizational and partisan diversity in coalition makeup yields stronger policy proposals and lends credibility, offering further improved lobbying outcomes.  

I test these claims by developing an original dataset and measurement approach relying on modern text analysis tools. To identify coalitions containing minority interest groups, I leverage co-signature patterns on all public comments submitted by a sample of interest groups on proposed federal agency rules between 2005 and 2015 (covering some 30,000 pages and 12,000 co-signatories contained in 2,400 comments). Since groups often use these public comments to suggest changes to proposed rules, I then use plagiarism detection software to operationalize ``lobbying effectiveness'' as the extent to which a comment's language overlaps with that of its corresponding final rule. As predicted, I find a strong and positive relationship between coalition diversity and lobbying effectiveness. This project contributes to scholarship on lobbying and representation by illuminating strategies that can enhance both lobbying success and the policy representation of marginalized groups.