Jana Foxe

Welcome to my personal website! I am Jana Foxe, a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Washington. I have an A.B. in Political Science from Brown University, and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington, where I am working on completing my dissertation on humanitarian advocacy (see Research). My work is at the intersection of international relations, public policy, and comparative politics, using a mixture of empirical methods, including quantitative, experimental and qualitative methods. 

My research sits at the intersection of comparative politics, international relations, and political economy, utilizing mixed-methods approaches. I explore the behavior of non-state actors, interest groups, activist movements, political parties, and NGOs, specifically examining themes such as humanitarianism, human rights, norm evolution, and responses to areas of political and ideological contestation. My dissertation, Dilemmas of Humanitarian Advocacy, explores how humanitarian aid NGOs navigate complex ethical and instrumental dilemmas.

My work on NGO politics and activist movements includes my current working paper, Aiding the Civilized? Detecting Eurocentrism in UK Humanitarian Aid Appeals for Ukraine, and the recently published Varieties of Climate Activism: Assessing Public Support for Mainstream and Unorthodox Climate Action (with Nives Dolšak and Aseem Prakash). I also recently completed a manuscript examining the role of celebrity endorsements—including Taylor Swift—on the willingness to purchase carbon offsets (with Nives Dolšak and Aseem Prakash). Regarding parties and party systems, my paper A Shock to the System? Assessing the Party System Implications of Europe's Austerity Doctrine is currently under review, as is a co-authored manuscript titled Comparative Homonationalisms of the Far-Right (with Jessica Sciarone, under review).

I maintain a strong personal and professional commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Higher Education. While working at University College Dublin, I was a founding organizer of the EDIG Initiative and Conference in 2020. From 2022-2025, I worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity (CERSE), where I worked on a number of NSF and NIH-funded projects. My work involved developing a rubric to evaluate the sustainability of grant-funded initiatives in higher education, and I recently co-published an overview of this new tool in Innovative Higher Education (with Ari Hock and Liz Litzler). 

Currently, I am the 2025-2026 Severyns-Ravenholt Fellow in Comparative Politics, and the chair of the 2025-2026 Severyns-Ravenholt Seminar in Comparative Politics. 

I grew up in Dublin, Ireland, attending high school in Rathmines, before moving to Norway to attend UWC Red Cross Nordic. Outside of academia, I enjoy cycling, pickleball, vegan cooking and watching reality TV. 

Click around to learn more about my work. I can be reached at jfoxe[at]uw[dot]edu