This research investigates political power in and of cities, focusing on redistribution, taxation, and crisis governance. It also engages broader questions about democratizing the economy.
Methods: Case study; archival analysis; key informant interviews
Keywords: Tax reform; political legitimacy; urban coalitions; homelessness; affordable housing; state formation; superstar cities; iterative problem-solving; policy learning; radical flank effect; crisis governance; participatory budgeting
[Accepted] Güler, Selen, and Devin Collins (co-first authors). “Statements of Emergency: Homelessness and the Performance of State Responses in Seattle.” Theory and Social Inquiry.
[under review] Güler, Selen. “From Tech Boom to Tax Boom: Building, Testing, and Rebuilding New Local State Powers for Progressive Taxation in Seattle."
[in progress] McNulty, Stephanie, Alvaro Luis Dos Santos Pereira, Benjamin Goldfrank, Selen Güler, and Celina Su. "Stakes and Scales of Financial Power: Urban Participatory Institutions in an Age of Austerity."
Quinn, Sarah, Mark Igra, and Selen Güler. “A Modern Financial Tool-kit: Lessons from Berle for a More Democratic Financial System.” In Democratizing Finance: Restructuring Credit to Transform Society, eds. Fred Block and Robert Hockett. Verso. 2022. [preprint], [book].
This work emerges out of a research-practice partnership between UW CERSE & Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, conducting research with teams who have been awarded NSF RED grants to 'revolutionize' STEM higher education.
Methods: Participatory action research; interviews; focus groups; abducted analysis
Keywords: social movements, movement pedagogies; community of practice; team formation; institutional change; national science foundation; power; resource mobilization theory; civic action
Margherio, Cara, Anna L. Swan, and Selen Güler. “From Individual Change Agents to ‘Revolutionary’ Teams: The Search and Selection Process of Team Formation within a Community of Practice.” Innovative Higher Education, 1–20. 2024.
[R&R] Güler, Selen, Elizabeth Litzler, and Cara Margherio. “‘We all signed on to this grant for the revolution’: From the Ivory Tower into a Community of Change Agents.”
[under review] Michael W. Beach, Rae J. Han, Selen Güler, Elizabeth Litzler, Isaac Sabat, Teodora Shuman, and Alan Cheville. “Context Matters: Integrating Organizational Theory and Social Network Analysis to Explain Variation in Departmental Change” [conference proceedings edition]
This research investigates morals in markets and how they relate to situational stakes, cultural group boundaries, and public institutions. It contributes to understanding cultural reproduction and moral variation within consumption and healthcare markets.
Methods: Mixed methods; factorial survey experiment
Keywords: Situational morality; evaluative logics; healthcare markets; soda taxes; cultural classifications; race, class, and gender; ideological fault lines; symbolic boundaries; sin taxes; institutional legitimacy and oversight
Güler, Selen. “The Good, the Bad, and the Healthy: A Factorial Survey Analysis of Situational Morality in Consumption and Healthcare.” Social Science Research 138. 2026.
ASA Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption, Student Paper Award - 2025 Honorable Mention