Amel Ahmed
· Professor of Political ScienceUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst · Political Science
Active 2006–2025
About
Amel Ahmed is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, serving on both the Graduate and Undergraduate Faculty. Her main area of specialization is democratic studies, with a focus on elections, voting systems, legislative politics, party development, and voting rights. She examines these issues in both historical and comparative perspectives, with a regional focus on Europe and the United States. Professor Ahmed is the author of 'Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Engineering Electoral Dominance,' which received the 2014 Best Book Award from the APSA European Politics and Society Section and the 2025 George H. Hallett Award from the APSA Representation and Electoral Systems Section. Her upcoming book, 'The Regime Question: Foundations of Democratic Governance in Europe and The United States,' explores the history of regime contention in Western democracies and the enduring dynamics of fights over the 'rules of the game.' She is also working on a new book analyzing public attitudes towards democracy in the U.S. today. Her research interests include research methods, historical analysis within social sciences, and comparative area studies. Her work has been published in various academic journals, and she teaches courses in Comparative Politics, West European Politics, American Political Development, Democracy and Autocracy, Electoral Studies, and Research Methods.
Research topics
- Social Science
- Computer Science
- Sociology
- World Wide Web
- History
- Mathematics
- Philosophy
- Epistemology
- Finance
- Business
- Advertising
Selected publications
Crossing the Boundaries of Comparison
2025-06-19
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingAbstract This chapter examines the relationship between comparative area studies (CAS) and comparative historical analysis (CHA). I trace both to a common lineage in the Annales school of historical research and its emphasis on contextualized comparison, determining the appropriate scope conditions, and mid-range theorizing as necessary conditions for causal explanation. However, while CHA has emphasized the challenges associated with understanding the temporal aspects of historical research, it has largely neglected the spatial. CAS helps to restore this critical element to historical analysis and bring back a sensibility toward historical geography that has been muted in recent discussions of social science history. Together, CAS and CHA offer powerful tools for comparative analysis and an opportunity to bring together features of historical analysis that have been divided between different research communities. Moreover, they serve as intellectual anchors for approaches that embrace a pragmatic hermeneutics and understand social scientific inquiry as the terrain of conceptual clarification and bounded explanation across different contexts.
Polity · 2022 · 6 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Sociology
- Epistemology
- Sociology
The historical turn in political science has yielded numerous innovations in historical methods, but little in terms of systematic engagement with historical methodologies, understood as the logics of inquiry underlying historical analysis. The lack of engagement with historical methodologies has led to a narrowing of the space for historical inquiry, as scholars are often presented with a binary choice between realist and poststructuralist approaches, with the question of objectivity serving as the intractable divide. To the extent that scholars have carved out a middle ground, it has rested on contextualist approaches, though these too have been vulnerable to the critique of objectivity. In this article, I articulate the principles of a fourth position, rooted in the methodology of Max Weber and the idea of reflexive verstehen (understanding), a mode of investigation which seeks an empathetic understanding of historical subjectivities while foregrounding the researcher’s subjective orientation to the inquiry. The Weberian alternative, I argue, navigates a unique path around the gauntlet of scientific objectivity. It offers the possibility of historical understanding that is rooted in subjective understanding, but by virtue of submitting to a process of evaluation and incorporating an element of reflexivity can claim the status of scientific knowledge. It also enables an “event” driven approach to historical inquiry that expands where we can look for historical knowledge. In doing so it both improves the quality of historical understanding and increases its scope.
2022-11-07
article1st authorCorrespondingPolitical Science Today · 2021
- Computer Science
- Computer Science
- Advertising
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Democratization · 2018-11-07 · 2 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingThis article offers an assessment of recent research employing multi-methodology approaches, both of the triangulation and integrative varieties, in the field of democratization studies. I argue that the major contribution of multi-methodology research (MMR) to the field is to bring into dialogue different research traditions. Because different scholarly communities tend to converge around specific methodologies, the tendency is for scholarship to become fragmented. Within this context, works employing MMR act as “intellectual bridges” bringing into dialogue research from the different traditions. This is a significant contribution in that it enhances the collaborative nature of scholarship without compromising methodological rigor for the field at large. Problems of incommensurability, uneven use of methodologies, and general analytical messiness still plague applications of MMR. However, despite these problems (and in some cases because of them), MMR works are able to speak to more diverse audiences. Thus, while single-methodology research (SMR) still accounts for the bulk of scholarship in the field, MMR also serves an important role in the advancement of scholarly ideas and debate.
The Study of Democratization and the Arab Spring*
Middle East Law and Governance · 2014-04-10 · 15 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingThis paper proposes and illustrates a framework for analysis of the recent events in Middle Eastern and North African countries (the so-called Arab Spring) by bringing into dialogue recent theoretical advances in democratization theory with the comparative-historical literature on the political development of the MENA region. We advocate two analytical shifts from conventional approaches in the analysis of the Arab Spring: first, reconsider the temporalities of democratization processes; second, focus on struggles over specific institutional arenas rather than over the regime as a whole. The former recommendation draws attention both to the strategies used by key actors in the political, economic, and civil society spheres, and to the historical legacies that built the influence and resources of these actors over time. The latter allows us to consider the institutional safeguards for old elites that are likely to be included in the post-authoritarian regimes emerging in the region. Even though some of these safeguards are clearly anti-democratic, historical examples show that they do not necessarily preclude democratization. Indeed, in some cases, their introduction might be necessary to achieve democratic openings in other arenas. We illustrate these theoretical points with reference to the case of Egypt.
The Journal of Politics · 2014-12-22 · 2 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingThis essay examines four recent works that look to the history of economic development with an eye to understanding the current moment of global instability as well as shedding light on what the future of economic development may hold. They do so by deconstructing the models of economic development that have implicitly and explicitly informed our theoretical frameworks, They represent important advances in historical research not only for the empirical correctives they offer, but because in deconstructing historical models, they in fact undermine the very idea of a model, instead introducing dynamic processes with indeterminate outcomes. The result is a reading of the history of economic development that offers new opportunities for scholarship and for politics.
The Consequences of Electoral Systems in Early Democracies: The Case of Smp
20th International Conference of Europeanists - Crisis & Contingency: States of (In)Stability · 2013-06-26
article1st authorCorrespondingConclusions: rethinking democracy’s determinisms
Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2012-11-22
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingA summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
France: the tumultuous path of electoral system choice in the Third Republic
Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2012-11-22
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingA summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Frequent coauthors
- 1 shared
Daniel Dardanelli
Carnegie Corporation of New York
- 1 shared
Bianca Dyzenhaus
Carnegie Corporation of New York
- 1 shared
John Armando
Carnegie Corporation of New York
- 1 shared
B. Feldman
Carnegie Corporation of New York
- 1 shared
Peter Carroll
University of California, San Francisco
- 1 shared
Geoff R. Allen
University of Tasmania
- 1 shared
Simone Chambers
- 1 shared
Conor Dorff
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Awards & honors
- Best Book Award from the APSA European Politics and Society…
- George H. Hallett Award from the APSA Representation and Ele…
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