Photo of Tafolar, Mine

Mine Tafolar

Graduate Student

Political Science

About

  • Subfields/areas of study: Comparative Politics, American Politics
  • Research Interests: Mandate Theory of Democracy, Campaign Pledges, Politics of Representation, Quality of Democracy
  • Research question: Do parties make pledges that promise to favor or disadvantage certain groups of voters? Do such pledges exacerbate cleavages among voters based on their ascriptive characteristics? Once in power, do governing parties fulfill constituency-specific pledges at higher rates than more general pledges? Does the type of pledge parties make influence voters’ reaction to broken promises?
  • Awards:
Dean's Scholar Fellowship Award, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2020–2021

Award for Graduate Research (AGR), University of Illinois at Chicago, 2019

Milton Rakove Memorial Award for Best Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2019

Northwestern University, Dissertation Proposal Development Program, 2018

Milton Rakove Memorial Award for Best Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2017

Graduate Student Council Travel Award, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2017

Graduate College Travel Award, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2017

Milton Rakove Memorial Award for Best Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2016

Doris Graber Fellowship, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015–2016

Junior Science Award (scholarship for writing master’s thesis), Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), 2006–2008

Selected Publications

Filindra, Alexandra, Beyza Buyuker, and Mine Tafolar. 2021. “National Migration Governance: Admissions & Immigration Control.” in Jeannette Money and Sarah P. Lockhart (eds). Introduction to International Migration: Population Movements in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge.

 

Tafolar, Mine, and Alexandra Filindra. 2020. “Color Blindness.” in Stephen M. Caliendo and Charlton D. McIlwain (eds). The Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Education

Ph.D., Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, (Expected) 2021
MA, Government Department, University of Texas at Austin, 2015
Thesis Title: “Buying Support without Brokers: Conditional Cash Transfers in Turkey and Argentina”
MA, Department of Modern Turkish History, Bogazici University, 2008
Thesis Title: “Neoliberal Populism and the ‘Ozal Decade’: Its Implications for the Democratic Process”
BA, Political Science and International Relations & History, Bogazici University, 2006

Research Currently in Progress

Mine is currently working on a survey experiment designed to provide causal evidence of a relationship between types of pledges, their fulfillment or nonfulfillment, and a partisan’s future electoral decision to support or vote against an incumbent. Her work will be funded by Award for Graduate Research from the Graduate College.