American Sociology Association’s (ASA) 117th Annual Meeting; Los Angeles, CA

Title of Presentation: “Public Service Responsiveness in Authoritarian Regimes: how do aspirational peers and protests shape the exercise of bureaucratic discretion?”

Conference:  American Sociology Association’s (ASA) 117th Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA
August 6-9, 2022

Conference Report:

In August, I presented my research on the conditions that facilitate a responsive public service environment in authoritarian regimes at ASA’s 2022 Annual Meeting. Attending ASA allowed me to present alongside, listen to, and have conversations with several scholars whose works have been influential on my research interests. I presented my paper in the same session as Diane Vaughan, who is among the most influential scholars in organizational sociology. I connected with her after my presentation and talked to her about my research and future plans. In other sessions, I had the opportunity to meet Francesca Polletta and Paul Lichterman in person, after meeting them at previous Zoom events. I was especially excited to meet Dr. Polletta whose work on storytelling and social movements is directly relevant to my dissertation project. During our conversation, she communicated interest in reading my current work and I happily shared my dissertation proposal with her. I also met some scholars –such as Jessica Taft– who had not been on my radar but who work on topics closely relevant to my dissertation. I have been familiarizing myself with Dr. Taft’s work since ASA.

Besides the satisfaction of successfully presenting my work and meeting influential scholars, attending ASA also provided me the opportunity to reconnect with my professors –including my advisor Ann Mische– and fellow graduate students from Notre Dame. At the time of the conference, I had been away from South Bend for several months and I had been deeply immersed in fieldwork. Taking a break from data collection and getting away briefly enabled me to return to my field with renewed motivation and focus.

I had many strongly positive experiences at ASA and I am grateful for Kellogg Institute’s conference presentation grant that made it possible for me to attend this conference. I want to underline that I was doing fieldwork in Turkey at the time and without Kellogg’s generous support international travel costs would have been prohibitive.