Education & Professional History
Indiana University, BA, MA, PhD
At Carleton since 1988.
Highlights & Recent Activity
Current Courses
-
Fall 2021
POSC 150:
The Political Thought of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. & the American Civil Rights Movement
-
POSC 223:
Political Science Lab: Content Analysis
-
POSC 300:
Political Research Experience
-
POSC 307:
Go Our Own Way: Autonomy in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement*
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
POSC 223:
Political Science Lab: Content Analysis
-
Fall 2022
POSC 100:
Political Culture and Political Communication
-
POSC 215:
Comparative Political Communication: News Coverage of Elections
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
POSC 232:
Political Science Lab Focus Group Analysis
-
Winter 2023
POSC 335:
Navigating Environmental Complexity—Challenges to Democratic Governance and Political Communication
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Spring 2023
POSC 214:
Visual Representations of Political Thought and Action
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
Barbara Allen is a political scientist and filmmaker. Her research in political communication includes analyzing election news coverage and political advertising, subjects on which she has published many articles and an award-winning book, Truth in Advertising? Lies in Political Advertising and How They Affect the Electorate, co-authored with Daniel Stevens. With Stevens and dozens of Carleton students she has been analyzing local and national news coverage of US Elections since Election 2000. The Carleton Election Study has been the basis of student research presentations at such professional conferences as the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting and a subject of numerous senior thesis projects. Professor Allen also writes in the field of political theory, publishing many journal articles and books on the democratic theory of Alexis de Tocqueville and the political thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. She teaches courses on Tocqueville and King as well as on many other thinkers and activists working for social justice in late–twentieth century and current US politics. Professor Allen earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University working with Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom and political theorist Vincent Ostrom. She is a Senior Research Fellow of the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis where she has co-authored and edited books with Vincent Ostrom including the two-volume work, The Quest to Understand Human Affairs: Vol 1, Natural Resources Policy and Essays on Community and Collective Choice and Vol 2, Essays on Collective, Constitutional, and Epistemic Choice. This research is also the subject of her courses on Institutional Analysis and Development and Social Ecological Systems, which she teaches in the Environmental Studies, Public Policy, and Political Science programs.
Professor Allen teaches in Cinema and Media Studies as well as in Political Science, using tools from both fields to think about and analyze many important puzzles that face human communities. Her work as a director of nonfiction films examines urgent political, economic, and social issues. Signing On: Stories of Deaf Breast Cancer Survivors, Their Families and the Deaf Community won the Twin Cities Film Fest Audience Award in 2011, screened in Berlin at Gebärdensprachfilmwoche 2013, and aired on PBS Television. Signing On uncovered the disparities in healthcare access for Deaf people and troubling facts about US health literacy in general and for all non-majority language communities. In 2019, Allen premiered Actual World Possible Future: The Lives and Work of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. The film documents Noble Laureate (Economics) Lin Ostrom’s research showing how ordinary people can tackle global challenges like climate change. A TV version of Actual World Possible Future was broadcast by Indiana Public Television, winning a bronze medal in the 2020 Telly Awards, Social Responsibility Division. Professor Allen’s filmmaking also reflects her interest in design, particularly mechanical design. With timpanist and marimba soloist Rebecca Kite, she also holds four US and international patents for design of timpani.
Current Courses
-
Fall 2021
POSC 150:
The Political Thought of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. & the American Civil Rights Movement
-
POSC 223:
Political Science Lab: Content Analysis
-
POSC 300:
Political Research Experience
-
POSC 307:
Go Our Own Way: Autonomy in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement*
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
POSC 223:
Political Science Lab: Content Analysis
-
Fall 2022
POSC 100:
Political Culture and Political Communication
-
POSC 215:
Comparative Political Communication: News Coverage of Elections
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
POSC 232:
Political Science Lab Focus Group Analysis
-
Winter 2023
POSC 335:
Navigating Environmental Complexity—Challenges to Democratic Governance and Political Communication
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Spring 2023
POSC 214:
Visual Representations of Political Thought and Action
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
Film Works
Signing On: Stories of Deaf Breast Cancer Survivors, Their Families and the Deaf Community for Public Television
Timpani Manufacturers Barbara Allen and Rebecca Kite Discuss their Patented Redesigns of GP Percussion Timpani
Published Works
Books
Truth in Advertising? Verbal, Visual, and Oral Lies in Political Advertising and How They Affect the Electorate. Lexington Books, 2018 (with Daniel Stevens). Winner 2019 Richard E. Neustadt Book Prize awarded by the American Politics Group of the British Political Studies Association for the best book in American Politics.

Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution: Harmonizing Earth with Heaven. 2005. Lanham, MD: Lexington books.

The Quest to Understand Human Affairs: Essays on Collective, Constitutional, and Epistemic Choice by Vincent Ostrom. 2012. Edited, Annotated and Introduced by Barbara Allen. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
The Practice of Constitutional Development. 2009. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (edited volume with Filippo Sabetti and Mark Sproul-Jones).

The Struggle to Constitute and Sustain Productive Orders. 2008. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (edited volume with Filippo Sabetti and Mark Sproul-Jones).
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Articles
Political Theory
Choosing a President: The Electoral College and Beyond
An Undertow of Race Prejudice in the Current of Democratic Transformation: Tocqueville on the “Three Races” of North America
The Media and the Gulf War: Framing, Priming, and the Spiral of Silence
Martin Luther King’s Civil Disobedience and the American Covenant Tradition
Tocqueville’s Analysis of Belief in a Transcendent Order, Enlightened Interest and Democracy
Political Communications
Fair’s Fair? Principles, Partisanship, and Perceptions of the Fairness of Campaign Rhetoric
Partisanship and Perceptions of Fairness: Ignoring the Facts
The Media and the Gulf War: Framing, Priming, and the Spiral of Silence
What is Negative about Negative Advertisements?
Local News and Perceptions of the Rhetoric of Political Advertising
Racism, Sexism, and Candidate Evaluations in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
When Going to War Is Costly: A Comparative Study of Audiences and the Partisan Press
Local News Coverage in a Social Capital Capital: Election 2000 on Minnesota’s Local News Stations
What’s Good for the Goose is Bad for the Gander: Negative Political Advertising, Partisanship, and Turnout
Deaf Studies
Assessing the End-of-Life-Care Educational Needs of Elderly Deaf Persons: Lessons on Language and Culture for Researchers and Health Practitioners
American Sign Language and End-of-Life Care: Research in the Deaf Community
Using American Sign Language in Assessing the End-of-Life-Care Educational Needs of Deaf Persons: Lessons on Language, Culture, and Research Practices