RESEARCH INTERESTS

Civil Society and Civil Society Organizations, Comparative Public Administration and Policy, Human Rights, Institutional Analysis, International Development, Law and Politics, Policy Process Theory, Public Law, Research Design and Mixed-Methods Research. Regional focus on the Global South—East Africa and the Caribbean—and the Global North in a comparative perspective.
PUBLICATIONS
DISSERTATION
2020. Domesticating Civil Society: How and Why Governments Use Laws to Regulate CSOs. Indiana Univserity, Department of Political Science and O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Doctoral Dissertation. ProQuest Open Access.
  • Awarded American Political Science Association (APSA) 2021 Edward S. Corwin Award for best dissertation in Public Law. 
    • “This remarkable dissertation uses five different methods, and data collected from 17 countries, over a time span ranging from 1872 to 2019 to explain 'the conditions under which governments enact and enforce permissive and restrictive legal provisions.’” (read full award committee citation here).​​
  • Awarded APSA 2021 Leonard D. White Award for best dissertation in Public Administration.
    • "This is a project that will be a must-read for students of developmental governance and human rights who seek a deeper institutional-based understanding of the relationships between the state and non-government organizations.” ​(read award committee citation here).
  • Awarded 2021 Best Dissertation Award in Human Rights by APSA Organized Section for Human Rights.
    • ​The Award committee noted “the committee was especially impressed with the depth and technical sophistication of DeMattee's analysis and with his willingness to embrace a strikingly diverse range of methods to answer the questions that motivated the project.”

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES

2023. "​To Manipulate and Legitimize: Government Officials Explain Why Non-Democracies Enact and Enforce Permissive Civil Society Laws." (Conditional Acceptance, Democratization).
2023. "Ushering Immigration Law into the Constitutional Mainstream: An Empirical Inquiry into Immigration Exceptionalism." With Hallie Ludsin and Matthew Lindsay. Brooklyn Law Review. (Accepted).
2022. "A Grammar of Institutions for Complex Legal Topics: Resolving Statutory Multiplicity and Scaling-up to Jurisdiction-Level Legal Institutions." Policy Studies Journal. (Online).
2022. "Overcoming the Laws-in-Translation Problem: Comparing Techniques to Translate Legal Texts.” With Nick Gertler, Takumi Shibaike, and Elizabeth A. Bloodgood. Qualitative and Multi-Method Research. 20(2): 13-21.
2022. "The Multi-Method Comprehensive Review: Synthesis and Analysis when Scholarship is International, Interdisciplinary, and Immense." With Allison Schnable, Rachel Robinson, Jennifer Brass, and Wes Longhofer. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. 33(1): 1219-1227.
2021. “Bureaucrats at Work: African Bureaucracies and Bureaucrats from the Sociological, Historical, and Political Perspectives.” African Studies Review. 64(4): 986-991.
2021. "Biases in Low-Information Environments: Understanding For-Profit and Non-Profit Salary Differentials in Haiti." With Alasdair C. Rutherford. Journal of International Development. 33(7): 1141– 1165.
2021. “International Development Buzzwords: Understanding Their Use Among Donors, NGOs, and Academics.” ​With Allison Schnable, Rachel Sullivan Robinson, and Jennifer N. Brass. The Journal of Development Studies. 57(1): 26-44.
2019. “Covenants, Constitutions, and Distinct Law Types: Investigating Governments' Restrictions on CSOs Using an Institutional Approach.” VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. 30(6): 1229-1255.
2019. “Toward a Coherent Framework: A Typology and Conceptualization of CSO Regulatory Regimes.” Nonprofit Policy Forum. 9(4): 1-17.

EDITOR-REVIEWED BOOK CHAPTERS

2022. “Taking Time and Distinct Law Types Seriously: How the Effect of CSO Laws Vary by Types and Unfold Over Time.” In Rosolino Candel, Rosemarie Fike, and Robert Herzberg (Eds.) Institutions and Incentives in Public Policy: An Analytical Assessment of Non-Market Decision-Making. (Roman & Littlefield). [In Production].
2021. “Ostromian Logic Applied to Civil Society Organizations and the Rules that Shape Them.” With Chrystie Swiney. In Shelia Foster and Chrystie Swiney (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Commons Research Innovations. (Cambridge University Press), pp. 176-187.
2019. ​“Was it Worth It?: The Effects of ODA, NGOs, and Time on the  Haitian State.” In Stefanie Haeffele, Abigail R. Hall, and Adam Millsap (Eds.) Informing Public Policy: Analyzing Contemporary US and International Policy Issues. (Roman & Littlefield), pp. 141-169.

​MANUSCRIPTS UNDER REVIEW & CONFERENCE PAPERS

Domesticating Civil Society: How Democracies and Autocracies use Laws to Structure the State-Society Relationship. Book manuscript in preparation for Cambridge University Press.
“Why Governments Soften and Toughen de facto Civil Society Restrictions: A Dyadic Analysis of 172 Democratic and Non-Democratic Regimes (1994-2014).” With Luke M. Shimek. (Under Review).
"Are Constitutions Important in Diffusion Research?: How Constitutional-Level Rules, Autocratic Learning, and Emulation Shape the Development of Civil Society Laws in East Africa."
"Burden and Standard Shifting in Immigration Bond Decisions." With Hallie Ludsin, Grace Shrestha, Grace Gerenday, Devon Thurman, and Jeffrey K. Staton.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Laws, Judiciaries, and National Security Agencies: Advancing Theory and Concepts of Civil Society Laws. Principal Investigator with co-PI Jeffrey K. Staton (2020-2022). National Science Foundation Award #2004520. 2020-2022. ($148,000).

NGO Knowledge Collective. Lead research assistant (2015-2017) to Jennifer N. Brass (Indiana University), Allison Schnable (Indiana University), Wes Longhofter (Emory University), and Rachel S. Robinson (American University). The research platform is the result of a systematic review of over 3,000 English, peer-reviewed, social science journal articles about NGOs in development published 1980-2014. www.ngoknowledgecollective.org

Cumulative Fieldwork Experience: Latin America and the Caribbean (primarily Haiti, 2011-2016); East Africa (primarily Kenya, 2018).