Rao, Sean
Bio
Sean Rao is a recent doctoral graduate in government and politics at the University of Maryland. In his three-article dissertation, he proposes a general mechanism of religion in politics which is not limited to the use of violent tactics or a particular religious background: religious belief and practice generate strong mutual commitment among individuals in a group and this commitment can, in turn, create political cohesion. The first article illustrates this relationship at the cross-national level with a novel dataset on self-determination organizations and shows that organizations in which individuals have visible commitments to each other are more likely to persist over time. The second article, using two survey experiments, shows that voters are more likely to completely believe a candidate's political promise when promises are based on religion. The third article shows whether religious rebel organizations return to war after a pause in fighting is influenced by whether they can continue to recruit from a religious network. His other research interests include the spread of religious commitment signals on social media, American public opinion on foreign policy, particularly related to religious and national identity, and how social ties, often formed over religious activity, can condition the behavior of rebel organizations. He is a Fulbright alumnus who carried out fieldwork in summer 2021 in Israel.
Degrees
PhD | Government and Politics, University of Maryland, August 2024
MA | Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, 2017
MA | Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015
BA | International Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
Research Topics
Sean Rao
Alumnus
| No Office
| seanrao@umd.edu