Matt W. Loftis, Ph.D.

Contact
Information
Aarhus University
Dept. of Political Science and Govt.
Bartholins Alle 7
building 1341, room 123
8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
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US: (832) 706-3922
Denmark: +45 87 16 56 35
E-mail: mattwloftis@ps.au.dk
WWW: mattwloftis.com
Education Rice University, Houston, TX
Ph.D., Political Science, 17 May 2014
Dissertation: Strategic Obfuscation through Bureaucratic Delegation
Committee: Lanny Martin (chair), Randy Stevenson, Royce Carroll
Fields: Comparative politics, American politics
M.A., Comparative Politics, May 2010
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
M.A., Comparative Politics, June 2007
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
B.A., Journalism, Minor in French, May 2003
Peer-Reviewed
Publications
[1] Loftis, Matt W. 2014. Deliberate Indiscretion?: How political corruption
encourages discretionary policy making. forthcoming at Comparative
Political Studies.
[2] Loftis, Matt W. and Jaclyn Kettler. 2014. Lobbying from Inside the
System: Why local governments pay for representation. forthcoming at
Political Research Quarterly.
Research
Articles
Under Review
[3] Heinrich, Tobias and Matt Loftis. Democracy Aid and Electoral Account-
ability
Other
Publications
[4] Loftis, Matthew, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, and Robert M. Stein. 2011.
Report on the Eects of Houston-area Red Light Monitoring Cameras.
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University. August
16, 2011. http://bakerinstitute.org/publications/POL-pub-SteinRedLightCameras-
081511.pdf
[5] Cospanaru, Iulia, Matt Loftis, and Andreea Nastase. 2008. Transparency
International Global Corruption Report 2008 - Romania Country Report.
Bucharest, Romania.
[6] Cospanaru, Iulia, Matt Loftis, and Andreea Nastase. 2007. Transparency
International Romania National Corruption Report 2007. Bucharest, Ro-
mania.
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Research &
Professional
Experience
University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
Assistant Professor August 2014 - present
Researcher on the Causes and Policy Consequenses of Agenda Setting
(CAPCAS) project.
Universitat Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Instructor: Methods of International Relations Spring semester 2014
Instructor for masters level course on statistical methods and data anal-
ysis, including programming using the software package STATA.
Guest Doctoral Researcher August 2013-July 2014
Rice University, Houston, TX
Field Work June 2013
Research interviews in Brussels, Belgium
Interviewed ocials from European Union member state Permanent
Representations about domestic policy-making processes involved in
policy harmonization.
Teaching Assistant Spring semester 2013
Teaching assistant, graduate advanced statistical modeling course.
Supplemental instruction on topics including multilevel modeling, dis-
crete choice modeling, and statistical programming.
Weekly oce hours to answer questions and grading.
Research Assistant Jan. 2010 to Dec. 2012
Field research and data collection under the direction of Dr. Lanny Mar-
tin (NSF SES-0748824).
Electronic data collection, including programming web spidering ap-
plications to pull information from national parliamentary archives in
countries including: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Romania.
Field research in Prague, Czech Republic, June 24, 2010 - July 21,
2010. Collected legislative data and trained local team to code data.
Field research in Bucharest, Romania July 22, 2010 - July 29, 2010.
Meetings with parliamentary archive ocials.
Robert M. Beren Academy, Houston, TX
Advanced Placement Statistics Instructor Aug. 2012 to May 2013
Developed and taught the advanced introductory statistics course.
AP course with undergraduate-level curriculum covering research design,
probability theory, data visualization and data analysis.
Loftis 2 of 4
Transparency International Romania, Bucharest, Romania
External Relations Coordinator Dec. 2005 - Oct. 2007
International media spokesperson; coordinated communications strategy.
Research, analysis, and writing reports on advocacy concerns.
Liaison to the International Secretariat of Transparency International and
to the 90 national chapters of the TI network.
Co-authored and translated grant applications and proposals, including
the successful bid for European Union contract: Assistance to set up an
ecient legal aid system in Romania under the Phare 2004 program.
Referee Service
American Journal of Political Science
Legislative Studies Quarterly
Political Communication
Political Research Quarterly
Research &
Teaching
Interests
Research interests
Bureaucratic delegation, principal-agent theory
Coalition government and legislative behavior
Electoral accountability, political parties
European Union compliance
Corruption and governance
Teaching interests
Comparative politics / political institutions
Statistical methods
Bureaucracy
Comparative political corruption
European politics; American politics
Conference
Participation
[7] Loftis, Matt W. Policy Under Pressure: When coalition government collu-
sion breaks down. Presented at:
European Political Science Association Annual Conference 2013
[8] Loftis, Matt W. and Jaclyn Kettler. Lobbying from Inside the System: Why
local governments pay for representation. Presented at:
Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference 2013
[9] Heinrich, Tobias and Matt W. Loftis. Democracy Aid and Electoral Ac-
countability. Presented at:
Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference 2013
[10] Loftis, Matt W. Deliberate Indiscretion?: How political corruption encour-
ages discretionary policy making. Presented at:
European Political Science Association Annual Conference 2011
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Research
Skills
Programming and scientic/statistical computing:
Perl, R, JAGS/BUGS, Python
Stata and Mathematica
Languages:
Romanian (advanced); French (intermediate)
Professional
Memberships
American Political Science Association
European Political Science Association
Midwest Political Science Association
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