About

I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego. You can reach me at b2noble@ucsd.edu.

My research examines American political institutions through the lens of strategic partisan communication, focusing on how executives and legislators increasingly weaponize partisan rhetoric to rally their own supporters and attack the opposition. Using text-as-data methods applied to millions of speeches, alongside formal theoretic models and survey experiments, my research shows that modern political conflict isn’t an unfortunate byproduct of ideological differences—it’s deliberately manufactured by strategic elites who find it electorally profitable to perform opposition rather than govern. I show that the system of checks and balances has transformed from a safeguard against government overreach into a weapon for partisan mobilization—with systematic consequences for cross-party cooperation, voter behavior, and democratic accountability. By focusing on the rhetorical dimensions of modern American political conflict, this work contributes to our understanding of nationalization, negative partisanship, and the feedback effects between elite rhetoric and mass polarization.

I teach courses on American politics and computational research methods at both undergraduate and graduate levels. I’ve also created Understanding American Politics, a free online companion textbook for Introduction to American Politics courses that explains American Politics at an undergraduate level through a rational choice framework.

Beyond research and teaching, I maintain an extensive library of advice for students on topics like choosing advisors, navigating conferences, and writing research papers. I also write occasional notes on the research process, teaching innovations, AI applications in academia, and academic life more broadly.