James H. Fowler

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James H. Fowler
Born February 18, 1970
Residence United States
Citizenship American
Fields Social network analysis
Cooperation
political participation
Institutions University of California, San Diego
University of California, Davis
Alma mater Harvard University (1992, 2001, 2003)
Yale University (1997)
Known for Obesity contagiousness
Colbert bump

James H. Fowler (born February 18, 1970) is an American political scientist specializing in social networks, cooperation, political participation, and genetic studies. He is currently Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.

Contents

[edit] Background

Fowler earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1992, a master's degree in International Relations from Yale University in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Government from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2003. He was also a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1992 to 1994.

[edit] Research

Fowler's research centers on social networks. He is best known for his studies of the social spread of obesity and smoking in the Framingham Heart Study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.[1][2] [3]

He has also studied the network of legislative cosponsorships in the U.S. Congress,[4][5] the network of U.S. Supreme Court precedents,[6][7] and the network of Ph.D. placements and citations in academia.

Fowler is also known for his work on egalitarianism[8][9] and the evolution of cooperation[10][11] which has appeared in Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with related work on altruism and political participation[12] appearing in the American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Sociology, and Journal of Politics.

Most recently, Fowler has become known for his work showing that voting and other forms of political participation have a partly genetic basis. Fowler used twin studies of voter turnout in Los Angeles and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to establish that the decision to vote in the United States has very strong heritability.[13] He has also identified two genes that are associated with voter turnout, specifically those regulating the serotonin system in the brain via the production of monoamine oxidase and 5HTT.[14]

On February 28, 2008, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed that summarized Fowler's research showing that Democratic candidates who come on The Colbert Report receive 44% more in campaign donations in the first 30 days after appearing on the show.[15][16] Colbert pointed out the op-ed on his March 3, 2008 show.

[edit] Selected Publications

  • "Genetic Variation in Political Participation" (in press). American Political Science Review. 
  • "Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout" (in press). Journal of Politics. 
  • "The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network" (22 May 2008). New England Journal of Medicine 358 (21): 2249-2258. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa0706154. 
  • "Heritability of Cooperative Behavior in the Trust Game" (11 March 2008). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (10): 3721-3726. doi:10.1073/pnas.0710069105. 
  • "The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network Over 32 Years" (26 July 2007). New England Journal of Medicine 357 (4): 370-379. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa066082. 
  • "Egalitarian Motives in Humans" (12 April 2007). Nature 446: 794-796. doi:10.1038/nature05651. 
  • "Beyond the Self: Altruism, Social Identity, and Political Participation" (August 2007). Journal of Politics 69 (3): 811-825. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00577.x. 
  • Fowler, James H.; Oleg Smirnov (2007). Mandates, Parties, and Voters: How Elections Shape the Future. Temple University Press. ISBN 1592135951. 
  • "Connecting the Congress: A Study of Cosponsorship Networks" (Fall 2006). Political Analysis 14 (4): 456-487. 
  • "Legislative Cosponsorship Networks in the U.S. House and Senate" (October 2006). Social Networks 28 (4): 454-465. 
  • "Altruism and Turnout" (August 2006). Journal of Politics 68 (3): 674-683. 
  • "Habitual Voting and Behavioral Turnout" (May 2006). Journal of Politics 68 (2): 335-344. 
  • "Elections and Markets: The Effect of Partisan Orientation, Policy Risk, and Mandates on the Economy" (February 2006). Journal of Politics 68 (1): 89-103. 
  • "Second Order Free Riding Problem Solved" (22 September 2005). Nature 437. doi:10.1038/nature04201. 
  • "Altruistic Punishment and the Origin of Cooperation" (10 May 2005). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (19): 7047-7049. 
  • "Dynamic Responsiveness in the US Senate" (April 2005). American Journal of Political Science 49 (2): 299-312. 
  • "Egalitarian Motive and Altruistic Punishment" (06 January 2005). Nature 433. doi:10.1038/nature03256. 
  • "Dynamic Parties and Social Turnout: An Agent-Based Model" (January 2005). American Journal of Sociology 110 (4): 1070-1094. 
  • Fowler, James H. (2005), “Turnout in a Small World”, in Zuckerman, Alan, Social Logic of Politics, Temple University Press, pp. 269-287 

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Are Friends And Family Making You Fat?", CBS Evening News, July 25, 2007. 
  2. ^ "Study Says Obesity Can Be Contagious", New York Times, July 25, 2007. 
  3. ^ "Study Finds Big Social Factor in Quitting Smoking", New York Times, May 22, 2008. 
  4. ^ "Inside the Beltway", Washington Times, April 13, 2005. 
  5. ^ "In Session: Congress", Washington Post, April 11, 2005. 
  6. ^ "Primary Sources", The Atlantic, December 2005. 
  7. ^ "Statistical Modeling: The Wisdom of Hercules", The Economist, Aug 25, 2005. 
  8. ^ "The Robin Hood impulse", The Daily Telegraph, 12 April 2007, p. 8. 
  9. ^ "Making the Paper: James Fowler" (12 April 2007). Nature (446,): xiii. 
  10. ^ "Why We Need Nosy Parkers", U.S. News and World Report, June 13, 2005. 
  11. ^ "Groups Unite in Dislike of Freeloaders", National Public Radio, April 6, 2006. 
  12. ^ "Political Scientists Convene to Probe and Predict U.S. Elections" (September 17, 2004). Chronicle of Higher Education. 
  13. ^ "The Genetics of Politics" (November 2007). Scientific American. 
  14. ^ "Are Politics Rooted in Your Genes?", CNN, February 11, 2008. 
  15. ^ Fowler, James H.. "Sharing the wealthiness", Los Angeles Times, February 28, 2008. 
  16. ^ Fowler, James H.. "The Colbert Bump in Campaign Donations: More Truthful than Truthy". PS: Political Science & Politics (41 (3):). 

[edit] External links