Chagai M. Weiss

Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University
cmweiss@stanford.edu

Welcome! I am a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University affiliated with the Conflict and Polarization Initiative and the Polarization and Social Change Lab. I defended my dissertation at the Political Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in summer 2022, after spending two years as a Middle East Initiative predoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

My research focuses on the political effects and institutional remedies of conflict and polarization, centering around three main themes: institutions and intergroup relations, political behavior in the shadow of conflict, and experimental methodology. In my ongoing book project, titled "Prejudice Reduction at Scale: How Institutional Inclusion Reduces Social Exclusion" (under advance contract with Princeton University Press, Studies in Political Behavior Series), I explain why reducing prejudice in conflict-ridden societies is challenging and how minority institutional inclusion can reduce social exclusion. My work is regionally focused on Israel-Palestine but is comparative in nature, and I am continuously working on various studies based on data from across the Middle East, the United States, and Europe. My research has been published with Cambridge University Press, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and received multiple awards from the American and Midwest Political Science Associations.

I am on the 2024-2025 academic job market!

Books

  1. Prejudice Reduction at Scale: How Institutional Inclusion Reduces Social Exclusion. Under advance contract with Princeton University Press, Studies in Political Behavior Series.
    [Overview]
  2. Abstraction in Experimental Design: Testing the Tradeoffs. (with Ryan Brutger, Joshua Kertzer and Jonathan Renshon). Cambridge University Press, Elements in Experimental Political Science series. 2022.
    [Overview]  

Publications

  1. The Generalizability of IR Experiments Beyond the U.S. Accepted at the American Political Science Review, (with Lotem Bassan-Nygate, Jonathan Renshon, and Jessica Weeks).
  2. Group Gender Composition and Perceptions of Legitimacy. (With Kristen Kao, Ellen Lust, and Marwa Shalaby). Forthcoming, American Political Science Review.
    [Pre-analysis Plan] [Replication Files]
  3. Educating for Inclusion: Diversity Education Programs can Reduce Prejudice towards Outgroups in Israel. 2023. (with Eran Halperin and Shira Ran). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    [Pre-analysis Plan I] [Pre-analysis Plan II] [Pre-Print] [Replication Files] [Israeli National TV (כאן) Newstory] [Israeli National Radio (כאן) Feature]
  4. Beliefs about Minority Representation in Policing and Support for Diversification. 2022. (with Kyle Peyton and Paige Vaughn). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    [Pre-print] [Replication Files]
  5. How Threats of Exclusion Mobilize Palestinian Political Participation. 2023. (with Alexandra Siegel and David Romney). American Journal of Political Science.
    [Pre-analysis Plan] [Pre-print] [Replication Files]
  6. Abstraction and Detail in Experimental Design. 2023. (with Ryan Brutger, Joshua Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon, and Dustin Tingley). American Journal of Political Science.
    [Pre-print] [Replication Files]
  7. War Time Military Service Can Affect Partisan Preferences. 2022. (with Anna Getmansky). Comparative Political Studies.
    [Pre-print] [Replication Files]
  8. Atypical Violence and Conflict Dynamics: Evidence from Jerusalem. Forthcoming. (with Eugene Finkel, Yon Lupu, Dan Miodownik, and Neal Tsur). Political Science Research and Methods.
    [Replication Files]
  9. Interstate Conflict Can Reduce Support for Incumbents: Evidence from the Israeli Electorate and the Yom Kippur War. 2023. (with Anna Getmansky). Journal of Conflict Resolution.
    [Replication Files]
  10. Diversity in Health Care Institutions Reduces Israeli Patients’ Prejudice toward Arabs. 2021. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    [Pre-analysis Plan] [Replication Files]
  11. Party Competition and Cooperation Shape Affective Polarization: Evidence from Natural and Survey Experiments in Israel. 2020. (with Lotem Bassan-Nygate) Comparative Political Studies.
    [Pre-print] [Pre-analysis Plan] [Replication Files] [Scope Conditions Podcast] [Monkey Cage Blog] [בלוג המכון לחירות ואחריות]
  12. Bureaucratic Politics and the Translation of Movement Agendas. 2019. (with Sharon Gilad and Saar) Governance.
  13. Geographies of violence in Jerusalem: The spatial logic of urban intergroup conflict. 2018. (with Jonathan Rock and Dan Miodownik). Political Geography.
    [Replication Files]

Working papers

  1. Financial Market Exposure Increases Generalized Trust, Particularly Among the Politically Polarized. Conditional Accept at The Journal of Public Economics. (with Saumitra Jha and Moses Shayo).
    Stanford GSB Working Paper No 4083.
    [Review at Stanford GSB Insights]
  2. Outgroup Avoidance. R&R at The Journal of Politics. (with Alexandra Scacco and Alexandra Siegel).
  3. Compulsory Military Service Reduces Affective Polarization: Evidence from Conscription Reforms in Europe.

In Progress

  1. Can Politicians' Bipartisan Statements Depolarize Americans? Evidence from a Media Field Experiment. (with Robb Willer and Donald Green).
  2. Who Selects into Prejudice Reduction Interventions? A Descriptive Study With Implication For Participatory Research.
  3. The Politics of Implementation: Why Scaling Experiments is Hard But Necessary for Creating Generalizable Knowledge.
  4. Building Support for Climate Mitigation Policies: A Field Experiment in Financial Markets. (with Saumitra Jha, Michele Hanlon, Namrata Kala, and Nemit Shroff).
    [AEA RCT Registry]