Sean Rafferty

As a student of Government and Physics, I’ve enjoyed exploring the inner workings of policymaking institutions using both qualitative and quantitative methods. I've used these interdisciplinary skills to focus my studies on the relationship between transportation infrastructure and democratic systems. In my coursework, I’ve investigated topics including rail policy’s role in European political integration, effects of American federalism on electric transmission systems, and causes of corruption within the transportation sector. Outside the classroom, I’ve interned at state and regional transportation governance institutions and independently studied how transport systems have shaped the development of northern New Jersey communities.

Understanding the relationship between transportation and government structure is essential to analysis of modern urban areas, both within formal city limits and throughout broader metropolitan regions. As a Georgetown Global Cities Initiative Student Scholar, I hope to analyze dueling trends in transportation governance towards devolution and centralization. From the United Kingdom Labour government’s efforts to spark a “bus revolution” through devolution of franchising powers, to activist pushes for through-running and regional transit networks within the United States, I’ll examine variation in efforts to change the policymaking level at which transportation is governed. In this study, I hope to engage with both functionalist metrics of service quality and deeper questions of responsiveness to democratic interests.