Alexander Trubowitz

Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics
Nuffield College, University of Oxford

Welcome! I am Alexander (Sander) Trubowitz and I am a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, where I work on comparative and historical political economy.

My research focuses on the political consequences of labor market change in Western Europe. In my book project, I draw on archival research in the United Kingdom and Germany to examine how unions and governments responded to the labor market risks created by technological change in manufacturing during the second half of the twentieth century.

Some of my work is published or forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior, and Socio-Economic Review.

I completed my Ph.D. in Political Science at Yale University in 2025. Before Yale, I graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University in Classics and Political Science. During the 2021-2022 academic year, I was a visiting researcher at the University of Konstanz. In the fall of 2023, I was a visiting researcher at the University of Bonn's Chair of Political Economy.

Publications

• “Electoral Rules, Programmatic Competition, and Redistribution: Evidence from Interwar France” (with Isabela Mares). Forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies. Winner, 2024 CQ Press Award for Best Paper in Legislative Studies; 2024 Best Paper Award by APSA's European Politics and Society section. PDF
• “Preferences under Pressure: Financial Strain and Support for Progressive Taxation” (with Sam Zacher). Socio-Economic Review (2025). PDF
• “The Insurance Value of Abortion and Support for Reproductive Rights” (with Natalie Hernandez and Sam Zacher). Political Behavior (2025). PDF

Working Papers

• “Exclusionary Backlash to Job Loss: Evidence from Germany.” Revise and resubmit, Journal of Politics. PDF
• “Informational Barriers to Compensatory Bargains: Why Workers Defend Obsolete Jobs.” Under review. PDF

Works in Progress

• “The Limits of Compensation: Trade Unions and the Challenge of Technological Displacement” (book manuscript).
• “Protection versus Compensation: The Class Divide in Advanced Democracies.”
• “American Welfare State Exceptionalism: Theories and Evidence.”
• “Postwar Wage-Setting in Britain, Sweden, and West Germany: The Irrelevance of Corporatist Institutions” (contribution to volume Building Corporatist Europe).

Teaching

• Tutor, Comparative Government (Oxford MSc, Fall 2025-Spring 2026)
• Lecturer, Comparative Political Economy (Oxford undergraduate, Spring 2026)
• Teaching Fellow, Capitalism and Crisis (Yale undergraduate, Spring 2021, Spring 2023, with I. Mares)
• Teaching Fellow, Nuclear Politics (Yale undergraduate, Spring 2025, with A. Debs).
• Teaching Fellow, Comparative Politics (Yale undergraduate, Fall 2020, with S. Khan).
• Teaching Assistant, Western Political Thought (Tufts undergraduate, Fall 2017-Spring 2018, with I. Evrigenis and R. Devigne).

CV

Download my CV

Contact

Email: sander.trubowitz@nuffield.ox.ac.uk