Episode 117 - Anthony Fowler: "Every academic faces a lot of rejection."

Professor Anthony Fowler, from the Harris School of Public Policy, researches econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science, with particular emphasis on elections and political representation. In this episode, he describes how he switched from being a biology student to being fascinated by the political world. He also talks about the importance as an academic to disagree, challenge, and question opinions and research so to build a stronger political science research community.  Professor Fowler talks about his career path and how he became a University of Chicago professor.

Transcript

Lee 00:01
Hello, and welcome to The Course. I'm your host today, Lee, and I'm speaking with Professor Anthony Fowler from the Harris School of Public Policy. His research applies econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science with particular emphasis on elections and race political representation. Professor Fowler's interests include unequal political participation, electoral selection and incentives, political polarization, and the credibility of empirical research.

Professor Fowler is here to talk to us about his career path and how he became a University of Chicago professor. Welcome to The Course, Professor Anthony Fowler. It is a pleasure to have you with us today.

Anthony Fowler 00:46
It's great to talk to you.

Lee 00:47
So, let's get started with an overview of your career. Anthony, start me off with your undergraduate years, and then take me all the way up to your current role at the University of Chicago.

Anthony Fowler 00:59
I was an undergraduate at MIT. I was initially interested, I majored in biology actually, and I was really interested in genetics research. I was working in genetics labs and thought I might pursue a career in that field. And being the kind of narrow-minded science nerd that I was at the time, I thought, you know, I really want to take as many scientific classes as I could, but MIT forced me to take 8 courses in humanities, arts or social sciences.

And so, I tried to pick social sciences courses that I thought were more scientifically rigorous or, you know, closer to what I, what I was hoping I would achieve in my scientific career. So I took, you know, I took classes on econometrics and game theory and public finance and science ethics and philosophy of biology and so forth.

And I found that I actually really love those classes, and I particularly like my social science classes in political science and economics, where I was using a lot of the same scientific tools that I was using in other classes and in the lab. But I was answering really interesting, challenging, pressing questions, and I also like the fact that you could kind of, you could use a lot of creativity, you know, for a lot of social science questions. You couldn't just go to the lab and design a simple experiment with Petri dishes, you had to come up with a really creative way of analyzing observational data and some creative way of trying to tease out, you know, cause and effect and so forth.

And so I thought that was a fun challenge and MIT turned out to be probably the best place for me to study social science, because there were great faculty members, but not a lot of other undergraduates competing for their time and attention. So there were lots of professors who were willing to meet with me, spend time with me, do research projects with me, invite me to seminars, and they kind of started treating me like I was a graduate student, even while I was still an undergraduate.

So that was that was actually a fantastic experience. And I kind of got converted to social science while I was an undergraduate. And I ended up applying to graduate programs in political science. I went to Harvard. I still kind of was part of that same Harvard MIT, you know, community going to seminars at both places and so forth.

And I ended up doing lots of research, mostly on American politics and elect, you know, democracies and advanced, you know, in kind of advanced countries. And trying to study, you know, I wrote a dissertation mostly on voter turnout, trying to understand, both why is there such unequal turnout? Why do, why does it look like rich, you know, privileged people vote at much higher rates?And what are the consequences of that? What would happen if everybody voted? How different would policy outcomes be? 

So I was studying questions like that, but also really interested in questions about our institutions. What's going on in Congress? How well are people being represented? And I was, it was a great experience. So I enjoyed that a lot. I learned a lot as an undergraduate and in graduate school and I applied for, you know, I applied for academic jobs all over the country, all over the world. And I was really, really fortunate to end up at a place like Chicago and I've been here for just over 10 years now.

Lee 03:48
Wonderful. So, Anthony, can you tell me a little bit about what your research interests are today?

Anthony Fowler 03:54
Sure. I haven't changed too much from what I just described, but I'm mostly study elections and I mostly study elections using quantitative data analysis. I'm trying to, yeah, look at usually historical data. Not always. Sometimes I'm doing my own surveys or my own experiments and so forth. But often looking at historical data, often election data or, you know, different kinds of data and trying to trying to answer interesting political questions like, why does the system work in the way that it does? Why do so many incumbents get re-elected? And is that a good thing or a bad thing? What would be the effects of different kinds of reforms? Why is there so much extremism and polarization among our elected officials? And are there reforms that could reduce that level of polarization and extremism.

So I'm, you know, my interests are somewhat broad. I'm interested in studying the political system writ large. I'm also really interested in quantitative data analysis itself. And so one of my side interests, but an important side interest is just understanding the extent to which quantitative evidence.

We, you know, when is it more credible? When is it less credible? When are we prone to getting false positives and so forth? And so that's something I'm deeply interested in as well. And I wrote a book with Ethan Bueno de Mesquita called Thinking Clearly With Data. And I teach classes on quantitative analysis that aren't, those classes aren't necessarily specific to political science. I'm interested more broadly on how quantitative data can be used to, do a good job and do a bad job of answering important questions.

Lee 05:16
Yeah, what do you think it is about elections specifically that you're interested in? Like, why elections?

Anthony Fowler 05:24
You know, I'm actually not a political junkie in my private life. I'm not, you know, I'm not particularly partisan. I've never worked on campaigns or anything like that. And I actually think that serves me well, as a political scientist, because it allows me to study things a little bit more objectively and I kind of think of myself as an outside objective researcher, rather than somebody who really feel strongly about partisan politics and about elections and campaigns.

Of course, I have my views. Of course, I, you know, I have some candidates I like more than others and so forth, but I've never really been a political junkie in that way. And I think that serves me well. 

Of course, I've always been interested in elections. I've, you know, I've, you know, from a young age, I remember paying close attention to elections and being interested in what was going on.

And I was, I think I was 13 years old in 2000, when there was the virtual tie and the huge uncertainty about who was going to be president when, you know, when Gore and Bush were, were facing off and lots of recounts at a Supreme Court case in Florida and so forth. So that was very interesting and probably very formative for me because I was at an impressionable age, and it made me really interested in elections and it made me think about how elections really matter and the way we run elections really matters.

But I've never been, you know, I've never been a partisan junkie in that way. I've always been more interested in elections, kind of studying them and thinking about their importance for society and for public policy and so forth.

Lee 06:43
Yeah, I want to dive in a little bit more to what you were like when you were younger and specifically what you thought you wanted to be when you grew up.

Anthony Fowler 06:52
I've had pretty broad interests. I didn't know much about the academic world. My parents are not academics and not involved in that world in any way. And I've always had pretty broad interests. I like sports. I think there were times when I wanted to be a professional basketball player that obviously didn't pan out.

And I knew pretty at a pretty early age that wasn't going to pan out. I was a competitive golfer and still am to some extent. And so I, there were times when I thought I wanted to be on the PGA tour, and obviously that didn't pan out either probably for good reason. 

I, you know, of course, yeah, at various points, thought about being an engineer or an architect or a doctor even a game show host at one point. So I always had somewhat broad interests. I like music. I thought about being a, you know, if I could be a rock star, wouldn't that be great? 

And one formative moment for me was when I was in high school. I had a great biology teacher in high school, and I liked my biology class. And he took the class, I grew up in San Diego, and he took the class to the Salk Institute. For biological research, and we got to meet a bunch of professors, a bunch of scientists who they said they work in their labs on interesting scientific questions.

And I honestly, I have to admit, I didn't even know that was a profession. I didn't even know that you could just be a scientist and work on interesting problems without any obvious, you know, it's not like you're a scientist working for Pfizer, trying to develop a drug. You're just working on an interesting problem, and they pay you to just work on hard problems.

I didn't even know that was an option and I just thought that was really cool. I thought, I learned about some of the research that was happening there. I thought it was really interesting and inspiring. And from that point on, I think I kind of wanted to be an academic, because I thought, how cool is that, that you could, somebody will pay you to work on interesting, challenging problems, and of course, you're hoping that you're going to make the world a better place as a result of your research. But the actual scientific process itself is really what excited me and made me think I might want to be an academic.

Lee 08:39
And then who supported you throughout your PhD process and all of the hoops that one has to jump through in order to get a career in academia.

Anthony Fowler 08:51
Sure. I've had, yeah, I've had tremendous support in a number of different ways. I mean, I think I mean, of course, my parents supported me in many important ways. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here if not for them and for their support and for their encouragement. They always kind of encouraged the academic side of me and saw that I had potential and pushed me in that direction.

So that was really nice. I wouldn't be here if not for those, I mentioned some of those great professors I had as an undergraduate at MIT who really took me in and gave me the benefit of the doubt. And even when I was a biology major who didn't know much about political science or economics, they took me in.

They started research, doing research with me. They brought me to their seminars. So those, you know, those people include Gabriel Lenz, Steven Salvaire, James Snyder. In fact, the three of them all ended up being on my dissertation committee when I was in graduate school. But they were very formative for me in just getting me into this field and getting me excited about the field to begin with.

And even since I came to Chicago, I don't know if this is true for everybody, but I feel like my education continued, if not accelerated, after I became a professor. And I have fantastic colleagues, including Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, my co-author on the book I mentioned earlier, who's actually now our interim dean at the Harris School.

Scott Ashworth, Chris Berry, Will Howell. Those four in particular, but many, you know, many colleagues here at the Harris School changed the way that I think and made me a better academic. And I've continued to learn from them, and I continue to learn from them to this day. So for me, the educational process and the mentoring process never really ended.

I continue to get better and continue to feel supported, and I'm very fortunate for that.

Lee 10:21
And were there any challenges, obstacles, barriers that you encountered along your journey?

Anthony Fowler 10:28
Of course, I mean, every, I think every academic faces a lot of rejection and I think there's no, yeah, there's no, there's no way of avoiding that. And sometimes this is a conversation I have to have with prospective academics, with say, prospective graduate students, because for a lot of academics, they've been overachievers their whole lives.

You know, they got straight A's, they got really good test scores. They, maybe they got into every college that they applied to, and maybe they even got into every, if not most of the graduate programs they applied to. But at some point, you're going to face a lot of rejection in this field. You're going to get rejections from journals.

The way the academic job market works, it's just so competitive that, you know, you often apply for 100 jobs and you're really fortunate if you get one offer. And so most academics, I think, are used to facing some kind of rejection and some kind of challenges throughout. And I've had my fair share. But I've also been really supported throughout that process, like, although, you know, the people I mentioned earlier have supported me tremendously throughout that process and in some sense, it's just part of the business as part of the way things work and you try not to take things personally.

In some cases, you even learn from it. You get better. I've certainly had journal rejections that gave me good feedback on my papers and made my papers better. And so you kind of have to embrace that as all part of the process.

One big challenge is, of course, you have scholarly disagreement as well. You'll have other scholars who take issue with your work, and vice versa. And I've had my fair share of that as well. And I think that's fun, actually, in some ways. It's an interesting part of the process. That's why, one of the reasons why I love being an academic is we can rigorously debate things, and we can disagree with each other. And it's okay to challenge authority. You know, it's okay for me, you know, even say as a first-year assistant professor. I can write a paper and the famous tenured professor at, you know, maybe even a better or pure institution, they have to take me seriously and they have to engage with my arguments and they might agree or disagree, and we might have a back and forth, but that's kind of a fun part of this process.

But of course, when you do things like that, you can make enemies, you can upset people, and that is challenging and you have to figure out how to navigate that. But in some ways, that's also one of the great parts of being an academic is that in principle, you know, your ideas and your arguments and the evidence that's more important than who you are and what your rank is.

And so there's, there's a little conflict that comes with that but also that's one of the great things about the academic process.

Lee 12:52
So, why did you ultimately decide that academia was the correct path for you, as opposed to, I don't know, you know, working on someone's campaign or doing something else with the interest that you have in the political process?

Anthony Fowler 13:07
I think a lot of it was I genuinely love doing research. I really, you know, I'm not motivated to go work on people's campaigns. I mean, of course, there are, you know, there are some campaigns that I'd be more interested in working on than others. And I have in the process of my research, I've partnered with campaigns before to potentially get data from them or work with them in some capacity.

But I really love doing the research, that's my primary motivation. And so I, so I think in some ways this was a great career option for me. It's not for everybody, but it turned out to be a great option for me because what I really love doing is sitting in my office, thinking about hard problems, trying to make progress, talking to other academics about that.

And of course, we're also hoping that we have some policy impact. And some, you know, some impact on the broader world, but I really love trying to just generate new knowledge and solve problems and figure things out. And so, in some ways, this was, yeah, this is the best career path for me because I just happen to happen to love doing the research itself.

Lee 14:04
And Anthony, what would you say is the most fun part of being a professor and on

Anthony Fowler 14:10
It's a funny, it's a funny question because my day to day life, I wouldn't, nobody would describe it as fun. I mean, I spent a lot of time. Of course, you know, revising papers, responding to emails, teaching classes, grading, you know, grading assignments, things like that. You know.

I'm an editor of a journal, and so that takes up a lot of my time. And so the day to day moments of my professional life aren't very fun per se, but when you put it all together, I do think of it as kind of fun. So I think of the whole process of trying to educate students and generate new knowledge and, you know, and improve the quality of research in my field. I think of that as a kind of a fun endeavor, even though moment to moment, there might not be a lot of fun, but of course, there are, you know, fun moments mixed in as well. 

I genuinely enjoy rigorous academic debate, and I think of that as a fun thing. I enjoy teaching students as well, especially when, you know, especially when the students are excited about the material, and they're really engaging with me, even if they're disagreeing with me, I really enjoy that part of it as well.

And I also really enjoy hearing from my students after the fact. Sometimes they might not have liked my class initially, and then I hear from them two or three years later, and they say, you know what, I actually learned a lot from that class, and it's really helping me now. It's helping me in my current job, or it's helping me think through a problem.

And so that's really rewarding. even if in the moment when, you know, that student was struggling in my class, it wasn't fun for either of us, but it's kind of, it's kind of a fun, rewarding experience overall.

Lee 15:38
And then what are your goals for yourself beyond where you currently are?

Anthony Fowler 15:42
Professionally, I really like what I'm doing and I just want to do more of what I'm doing. I'd like to continue getting better at what I'm doing. I think, you know, I'd like to hope that I'm not at the, you know, that I'm not at the peak of my career in terms of the quality of the research I'm doing and the quality of teaching I'm doing and so forth.

So I love what I'm doing. I actually don't have any grand aspirations to do something differently. I'd like to continue doing what I'm doing, but get better at it.

Lee 16:06
Where do you find the inspiration that you need to, you know, dive down another rabbit hole or to write a paper or to get excited about your job every day. Like, where does that inspiration for you come from?

Anthony Fowler 16:21
Yeah, it comes from different sources. I mean, on the teaching side, I do have to really remind myself about the success stories about the students, you know, even when students are struggling and they might be mad at me. I have to really remind myself about the success stories and think about the potential benefits that are going to come down the road for those students and for me. And so, you know, so there are different ways in which, depending on what I'm doing, I have to motivate myself in different ways. 

When it comes to research. it comes from different sources. Sometimes something happens in the world. That's, you know, a new thing and we say to ourselves, Oh, my gosh, this seems like something has changed in Washington and nobody's studying that, and we should really understand what's going on. Often it comes from within academia. I, it might even just be, I'm at a conference and I hear somebody say something that I think is crazy. And I say, that can't be right. And then I asked them, why do you think that? And they'll say, oh, you should look at this whole literature where 50 academics all think the same thing and then I say, okay, I should study that because that doesn't seem right to me. And maybe I'll find that they are right. And more often than not, I'll find that I don't agree with them. And I want to push back on that, and that's kind of fun.

So I really enjoy that process as well of just finding things within academia, things that things that it might even be kind of accepted wisdom in academia that might be wrong and coming up with new ways of studying it to see whether or not it really is right or wrong.

Lee 17:41
And do you think that this is a particularly interesting or exciting moment to be studying the political process as we see, you know, a lot of turmoil change, a lot happening, not only in the political process here in the United States, but also abroad as well.

Anthony Fowler 17:58
I'll give a two-part answer to that question. The first part is, yes, there are some really interesting things about the current moment that mean that we should, you know, there are new questions that we should be answering. So, you know, I mean, even just understanding of the kind of current realignment in American politics.

Why has the Democratic Party really become the party of educated people who live in cities? And all of a sudden the Republican Party is becoming more the party of kind of working class, non college educated people who live in the Midwest. That's a big change that that wasn't even that wasn't true 10 years ago.

And it seems like there's been this big shift in a relatively short period of time. Why is that happening? What's going on? What's motivating it? And so I think there are lots of things like that. Of course. I mean, that's just one example. There are lots of things like that big shifts over the last decade or so in the political world, both in the US and elsewhere. That should be really exciting and motivating for political scientists because we have a whole new set of puzzles, phenomena, to explain, answer, so forth 

The second part of my answer is gonna be, this is a terrible time to be doing political science, because things are so much more politicized than they ever were before. And that's a really bad and dangerous thing for a scientific field. There have been academics, prominent academics, who have come out and said, you know, our job is no longer to be doing rigorous, serious, objective research. Our job is to make sure Donald Trump doesn't get elected again, or, you know, whatever it is that, you know, they'll name some kind of political goal.

And I reject that notion so strongly because I think it’s a huge threat to the credibility of our field. It's a huge threat to just the whole idea of doing objective science. And so I find that very frustrating. And in some ways, that's actually a huge challenge for the current era of certainly political science and probably other academic fields as well.

And I've, you know, I'm working to push back against that as best as I can by doing by doing objective research in the way that I, in the way that I edit the quarterly journal, Political Science, in the way that I train students, but in some ways, this is a terrible time to be doing political science because things are so politicized and there are a bunch of people in the field who don't actually believe in doing objective science, and they're so worked up about the issues of the day that they're not committed to what I think of as the enterprise that we're all in, which is trying to learn more about the world, generate new knowledge, and evaluate politics in an objective way.

Lee 20:22
I appreciate that reflection. So, Anthony, that said, what advice would you have for a young person who is interested in political science and potentially interested in pursuing a career in academia in political science?

Anthony Fowler 20:38
I might tell them not to do it, actually, given, you know, given the issues that we just discussed. I mean, it is, I mean, I'm hopeful that things are going to get better on that front, but it's a particularly challenging moment for lots of scientific fields for the reasons that I just discussed.

I mean, another thing I would say is it's not for everybody. You really do. You have to be the kind of person who's willing to sit in your office for long hours, mostly by yourself. Mostly thinking about hard problems, staring at a chalkboard or a computer screen and that's not for everybody.

But for some people, if you really love the process of doing research itself, it's fantastic. It's there's no better career. If you actually, if you like working on hard problems and there's somebody who's willing to pay you to do that. It's pretty, in some ways, it's pretty remarkable. And I feel so fortunate to be able to do it.

So, it would depend a lot on the person that the particular advice I would give them. It's a great career if that's the kind of thing that you want to do if you really love working on these hard problems, which again, it's not for everybody, but it's such a neat opportunity that I have.

Lee 21:34
So, what would you say then Anthony is the most gratifying or fulfilling part of the work that you do?

Anthony Fowler 21:43
Well, I mentioned, yeah, I mentioned hearing from students. I mean, that's, that's incredibly gratifying when, when you feel like you're, you're actually helping people and, and educating them and impacting their careers and their thinking. I mentioned editing the quarterly journal, Political Science, which is something I've been doing now for just over just over a year.

And that's also very gratifying. It's not, you know, day to day, not a lot of fun because we're reading lots of submissions and we're, you know, we're doing a bunch of paperwork and we're, sometimes making very difficult decisions. We just, I mean, just yesterday I had to make 2 very difficult decisions.

And you know, one of them, I'm sure the authors are going to be really mad at us and so, you know, it's in some ways the day to day job is very difficult and challenging, but it's gratifying and rewarding in that I'm proud to be associated with that journal. And I'm glad to have the opportunity to try to shape the, you know, the quality of research is being done in our field.

You know, we're trying to publish the best quantitatively rigorous and formal theoretically rigorous work in political science. We get fantastic submissions we're publishing great papers in my opinion and we're, I hope having a positive effect on the whole field of political science.

So, that's a really, that's a real, it's an honor and a privilege, and it's really rewarding and gratifying, and the University of Chicago has maintained a genuine commitment to doing serious academic research to supporting free expression and free inquiry. That's something that not most, most other universities haven't done that, in fact. 

And of course, on campus, I have lots of disagreements with individual colleagues and students and so forth and that's all part of the fun. That's all part of the academic enterprise, and that's part of the spirit of being at the University of Chicago is we're disagreeing and we're fighting and we're arguing and we're debating all the time. And I love that.

But I genuinely do love the, the institution here at the university. I love the principles that guide us. And I'm so fortunate to be here and part of this academic community.

Lee 23:37
Thank you, Professor Anthony Fowler, for your time today. And Course Takers, if you enjoyed listening to today's interview, please check out the other ones. Leave us a comment, subscribe, follow and share this episode with your friends and family. 

You can find out more about the University of Chicago through uchicago.edu or the university's campus in Hong Kong through uchicago.hk. Stay tuned for more, and thanks for listening.