Alexander Hertel-Fernandez

Associate professor of international and public affairs at columbia

I study the political economy of the United States, with an emphasis on business, the workplace, labor, and public policy. You can reach me by email at ah3467@columbia.edu. You can download my C.V. here.

I am an Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where I also serve as Vice Dean for Curriculum and Instruction.

I previously served in the Biden-Harris Administration in the Department of Labor and the Office of Management and Budget.

Together with Suresh Naidu, Adam Reich, and Patrick Youngblood, I co-direct the Columbia Labor Lab, an academic center for implementing rigorous, data-driven evaluations in partnership with worker organizations. You can read more about our work and recent learning partnerships here.

In collaboration with Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, and Kathleen Thelen, and with the generous support of the Hewlett Foundation, I co-lead the American Political Economy project. This is an effort to foster more research on the relationship between markets and government in the United States in comparative perspective. 

My research has been published, or is forthcoming, in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and LawPerspectives on Politics, Studies in American Political Development, and the Social Service Review. My work has also appeared in the American Prospect, Democracy Journal, the Harvard Business ReviewMSNBC, the New York Times, the New YorkerNPRSalon, Talking Points Memo, the Washington Post, and Vox. My research has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Tobin Project, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth

My recent work has focused on workplace standards, worker rights, and collective action, including at-will employment and just cause reform; workers’ knowledge of rights and access to workplace informationcivic engagement and participation in the workplace; the conditions surrounding the workplace during the COVID-19 crisis; and workers’ access to unemployment benefits.

My most recent book, The American Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2021), edited together with Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, and Kathleen Thelen, brings together leading political scientists to explore the distinctive features of the American political economy. 

My second book, State Capture (Oxford University Press, 2019), examines how conservative donors, activists, and businesses built up cross-state political networks since the 1970s that allowed them to transform state policy and politics – and why progressives lagged behind in their efforts to build liberal state-level clout. You can read more about the book in this Democracy Journal article. You can buy the book on Amazon here. And you can read the introduction here.

My first book, Politics at Work (Oxford University Press, 2018), examines how employers are increasingly recruiting their workers into politics – and why Americans should care. You can read more about the book in this American Prospect article. You can buy the book on Amazon here. And you can also read the introduction and first chapter here

Politics at Work received the 2019 Robert A. Dahl Award, for scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy by an untenured scholar, and the 2019 Gladys M. Kammerer Award, for best book on the subject of U.S. national policy, both from the American Political Science Association. 

I received my PhD in Government and Social Policy from Harvard University in 2016. My thesis, on corporate-conservative mobilization across the states, received the 2017 Harold D. Lasswell Prize for best dissertation in the field of public policy from the American Political Science Association.

image