RESEARCH

Policy. Language. Power.

Political economy, populist rhetoric, and computational approaches to political discourse.

01 / PUBLISHED WORK

Publications

RESEARCH ARTICLE2025

Fossil fuel subsidy reforms have become more fragile

Paasha Mahdavi, Michael L. Ross, and Evelyn Simoni

Nature Climate Change 15(5), 569–574

Using monthly data from 21 major gasoline-subsidizing countries, we examine how often subsidy reforms are introduced and how long they endure. Reforms introduced since 2016 became more frequent and ambitious, but less durable.

My contributionData analysis and interpretation of the results.

Among reforms introduced from 2016 to 2023, 30% lasted at least 12 months and 9% lasted at least 36 months. The study distinguishes the adoption of reforms from their persistence over time.

Mahdavi, P., Ross, M. L., & Simoni, E. (2025). Fossil fuel subsidy reforms have become more fragile. Nature Climate Change, 15(5), 569–574. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02283-4.

An earlier version circulated in 2024 as Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reforms Have Grown More Fragile Since the Paris Conference.

Read the earlier preprint

Published article Replication data Analysis code Policy brief

POLICY BRIEF2025

Government efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies have failed at a very high rate

Paasha Mahdavi, Michael L. Ross, and Evelyn Simoni

Nature Climate Change 15(5), 471–472

A companion brief discussing the policy implications of the research on subsidy-reform durability.

Read the policy brief

02 / ONGOING RESEARCH

Working papers & projects

WORKING PAPERSolo-authored

Deconstructing Populist Evolution: A Temporal Word Embedding Approach

How does anti-elitist rhetoric change while a leader is in power?

Data: Hugo Chávez’s Aló Presidente broadcasts, 1999–2012.
Method: Temporal word embeddings and semi-supervised dictionaries track changes in the targets, intensity, and meaning of anti-elitist rhetoric.
Contribution: The project follows the evolution of anti-elitism within a leader’s time in office, examining how the groups cast as opponents and the language used to describe them change over time.

Current direction

I am developing an additional analysis of the moral structure of this rhetoric: who is presented as a victim, who is assigned blame, which groups are portrayed as deserving, and what remedies are proposed. This extension asks how and why appeals to justice and deservingness change over time.

The moral analysis is proposed work, not a completed finding.

Text as dataTemporal word embeddingsDictionary methods

Contact me about this project

WORK IN PROGRESSSolo-authored

Populism at the Podium: UNGA Speeches and the Semantics of International Cooperation

How do political leaders give different meanings to a shared international vocabulary?

Data: United Nations General Assembly speeches, 1994–2022.
Method: Word embeddings and cross-national comparison examine how the meanings of sovereignty and multilateralism vary with populism and ideology.
Contribution: The project examines how leaders give shared diplomatic terms different political meanings, bringing the context of international language into the study of populism and ideology.

Research direction

The project studies differences in word meaning, rather than only differences in word frequency. Planned extensions examine the context surrounding selected terms and associations between rhetorical patterns and UN voting behavior.

Computational text analysisWord embeddingsCross-national data

Contact me about this project

03 / EARLIER WORK

Additional research

CONFERENCE RESEARCH2022

A Deeper Dive

Public preschool attendance and children’s math, language, literacy, and problem-solving skills.

A. Johnson, A. Partika, A. Martin, S. Castle, E. Simoni, and D. Phillips

2021 APPAM Fall Research Conference · held March 2022

Conference paper on Scholar

RESEARCH PROJECT2020

What Drives Chinese Firms’ Presence in Latin America?

An Empirical Analysis of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America.

Evelyn Simoni

Georgetown University

View Scholar record