Abby Blass is an author, teacher, and researcher in the domain of law and political science. Her primary focus is the relationship between courts and politics in the United States and other advanced democracies, and she conducts research on constitutional law, judicial behavior, and comparative judicial politics more generally. She earned her Ph.D. in political science (public law) from the University of Texas at Austin in 2023.
Abby uses quantitative and qualitative research methods to explore how differences in the structure of constitutional courts (particularly strong and weak forms of constitutional review) shape the behavior of high court judges, and the causes and consequences of formal judicial empowerment over time. Abby earned a bachelor’s degree in political science (pre-law) from the University of Michigan, and she worked at the law firm Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody in Austin, Texas before beginning her doctorate, which included coursework at the University of Texas School of Law.
Abby is co-author of The DNA of Constitutional Justice in Latin America: Politics, Governance and Judicial Design (Cambridge University Press) and her work has been published in the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Election Law Journal, and the Oxford Political Handbook series.
Abby spent one year as a visiting researcher at the Center for European Studies at Sciences Po Paris to study the French Constitutional Council, and one year as a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies to study the emerging UK Supreme Court.