About Me
I am a PhD Candidate in Government at Harvard University, where I am affiliated with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. I work in the fields of comparative politics and public policy, with a substantive focus on social policy, bureaucratic politics, and state-society relations, and a regional focus on Latin America.
In my dissertation book project I investigate when, why, and how subnational policymakers implement social policy reforms through a mixed-methods study of the implementation of an education reform in Mexican states. My research is forthcoming in a book chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Social Policies in the Global South. I also have two R&Rs at leading journals (Comparative Politics and World Development) and two additional working papers at an advanced stage. I have published articles in Latin American Perspectives and PS: Political Science & Politics.
I earned a BA in Latin American Studies and Educational Studies from Macalester College (St. Paul, MN, located on the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Waȟpékhute band of Dakhóta Oyáte, the Dakota nation) and an MSc in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (Mexico City, located on the Mexica lands of Tizapán). I am a former Fulbright IIE scholar and Princeton in Latin America fellow. I have spent significant time in Mexico City and Mérida, Mexico, Lima, Peru, Managua, Nicaragua, and São Paulo, Brazil.
I am passionate about teaching and mentoring. I have designed and taught original courses in the political economy of education, economic development, and teaching social sciences. I have also served as a teaching fellow for courses in comparative and Latin American politics and have advised six undergraduate theses. I am the recipient of the Sidney Verba Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the Harvard Government Department Peer Mentorship Award, and the Derek C. Bok Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.
Outside of academia, I enjoy reading fiction with friends (most recently, Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr) and cooking Mexican food (chiles en nogada, pictured below, are my specialty)
Contact Me
You can contact me at julia_coyoli@g.harvard.edu
Research Interests
My research in comparative politics and public policy explores the political origins of uneven poli-cy implementation, with a substantive focus on Latin American social policy. My work seeks to understand the gaps between policy passage and outcomes, such as student learning or the infant mortality rate, which are vast and important consequences for human welfare in much of the world.
My research turns our attention away from which policies are passed and onto how governments translate those policies into action on the ground. I find that full implementation is rare, not for technical reasons, but rather because the individuals who need to comply frequently resist doing so. Yet, under certain conditions, some policies are implemented as designed. My work focuses on understanding those conditions.
In my dissertation book project I use a mixed methods study of the case of teachers and educational policy in Mexico to understand when policies are implemented. Specifically, I show that teachers and their unions were pivotal actors for the success of new policies. Specifically, I argue that new education policies were effectively implemented when governments and unions cooperated. I show that teachers’ unions tend to agree to cooperation when they only oppose the material costs of imple-mentation (while agreeing with its goals). The local government, who is tasked with taking action to implement a policy they did not design, will have an incentive to pursue cooperation when they face a united union that can resist their attempts to impose the reform. Thus, I find that, while im-plementation is not the optimal strategy for the local government or the teachers’ union, there are conditions under which it is in both their interests.
In other work, co-authored with Candelaria Garay (R&R at World Development), I explore how subnational regime dynamics shape the decisions that local governments make regarding healthcare provision and quality. Using evidence from Argentina, we find that less democratic regimes have higher infant mortality rates. Our results show that this effect is driven by provinces where governors are eligible for indefinite reelection. We also find that regime type has no impact on the provision of health services. However, protest, regardless of the subnational regime, has a positive impact on health service provision. In another project, co-authored with Emmerich Davies, Leslie Finger, and Jonathan Phillips (currently in the data collection phase), I study the factors that shape the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that public sector frontline providers hold. Through a regression discontinuity design coupled with an original survey of teachers in Brazil, we seek to understand both whether public sector employees differ in their beliefs from those who almost became public sector employees, as well as what aspect of this experience explains these different beliefs.
I am also interested in research about innovations in teaching and learning political science. In addition to my work as the Pedagogy Fellow for the Government Department, Paul Dosh and I have published in PS: Political Science & Politics about collaborating with undergraduates to produce political science research that involves significant fieldwork and results in a peer reviewed article.
Peer Reviewed Publications
Work in Progress
- “How Organizations Drive Implementation: Educational Quality, Teachers’ Unions, and Subnational Politics in Mexico” (Job Market Paper). Latest Version .
- “Bureaucratic Selection and Politics: Evidence from Teachers in Brazil” (with Emmerich Davies, Leslie Finger, and Jonathan Phillips).
- "Labor and Gender Representation: Teachers’ Unions in Comparative Perspective" (with Christopher Chambers-Ju and Candelaria Garay).
Teaching
My experience teaching courses in comparative politics, political economy, and pedagogy, combined with my focus on using political science concepts and approaches to teach students the skills they need to be informed and engaged participants in the world, have prepared me for a position as an Assistant Professor, delivering an outstanding education to undergraduate and graduate students, while also maintaining a high level of scholarly productivity.
As a teacher, advisor, and mentor, I guide all my students towards becoming more informed and engaged participants in the broader world. To do so, my instruction focuses on using political science concepts and approaches to teach students the tools they need to communicate complex ideas, analyze theoretical arguments, and use empirical evidence. To ensure that every student, regardless of their background, achieves these goals, I prioritize meaningful relationships with my students and their active engagement in my courses.
I have honed my approach across a range of courses in comparative politics, political economy, and pedagogy. My approach has been fruitful; not only have I seen my students succeed, but I have also won awards for my teaching and advising, including the Government Department’s Sid Verba Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (granted by the department chair to one instructor annually) and Peer Mentorship Award (granted by the Graduate Student Association to one student annually). In course evaluations, 70% of the 143 students who completed evaluations for my courses (whether as a teaching fellow or lead instructor) selected the highest possible rating to describe their experience. You can see more information the courses I have taught and my evaluaitons Here .
I am enthusiastic about teaching courses that expose students to realities they may not have experienced and that help them understand how politics and policy can be harnessed to improve human wellbeing. I am prepared to teach courses in comparative politics, Latin American politics, politics of the Global South, the political economy of development, comparative public policy, global politics of education, labor politics, and research methods (both qualitative and quantitative) and design. I have experience teaching in both English and Spanish and am prepared to offer courses (or course assignments) in either language.
As Lead Instructor
As Head Teaching Fellow (Equivalent to Head Teaching Assitant)
- Introduction to Comparative Politics (Fall 2020)
- Comparative Politics in Latin America (Spring 2019)
As Teaching Fellow (Equivalent to Teaching Assistant)
- Senior Year Tutorial (Fall 2019; Spring 2020)
- Introduction to Comparative Politics (Fall 2018)
I have served as both the Pedagogy Fellow and Writing Fellow for Harvard’s Government Department. I have also advised six undergraduate theses in Government, on topics in Latin American politics, public health, urban politics, education policy, and authoritarian strategy. With Jessie Trudeau and Nara Dillon, I designed and led workshops on gender and fieldwork in political science, for both graduate and undergraduate students.
I have taught in many non-traditional spaces. In both St. Paul, Minnesota and Boston, I taught English to non-native speakers. I have taught both Spanish and human rights through afterschool programming to elementary school students. As a Princeton in Latin America fellow, I taught leadership seminars for teenagers and local leaders in Lima’s informal settlements.
Publications & C.V.
Peer Reviewed Publications
Work in Progress
- “How Organizations Drive Implementation: Educational Quality, Teachers’ Unions, and Subnational Politics in Mexico” (Job Market Paper). Latest Version .
- “Bureaucratic Selection and Politics: Evidence from Teachers in Brazil” (with Emmerich Davies, Leslie Finger, and Jonathan Phillips).
- "Labor and Gender Representation: Teachers’ Unions in Comparative Perspective" (with Christopher Chambers-Ju and Candelaria Garay).
Curriculum Vitae
You can consult my C.V. here.
