We are pleased to announce that Collin Schumock (’17) has been awarded the 2017 Best Thesis Award for his thesis “Intraparty Factions and Interparty Polarization.”
In his senior thesis Collin studied the equilibrium outcomes of different political games where parties are made up of factions. “I argue that these equilibria can be used to capture polarization and by manipulating the factions we can see how they affect levels of polarization,” says Collin. While his thesis doesn’t contain empirical results, formal modeling only, there are next steps that could be taken to collect data and see if the results hold up.
In addition to his participating in the Political Science Honors Program, Collin was an active member of the Illinois community. He was part of the Department of Political Science Student Advisory Board and served the greater campus community as the Student Trustee for the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, as well .
Beginning this fall, Collin will be continuing his political science education by pursuing a PhD at Yale University where he will focus on political economy and American politics.
Join us in congratulating Collin Schumock on his excellent academic work and community contributions while at the University of Illinois!
Read Collin’s full thesis here.