Alumni Spotlight: Brianne Wolf

Bri first became intrigued by political science while in high school, and as an undergraduate at Michigan State University’s James Madison College, she studied political theory and constitutional democracy. It was also during her undergraduate studies that she developed an interest in Alexis de Tocqueville’s ideas—especially his understanding of the complexity inherent in human behavior—that is still evident in her research today.

undefinedundefined Wolf’s approach to her work in political economy is rooted in her lifelong understanding of the relationship between individuals and their communities. “I was really raised with the idea that hard work is very important. Being self-sufficient is incredibly important, but so is community,” she says. “When I found political economy, what made a lot of sense to me was the way in which we try to think about how individuals are working hard, how they can achieve what they want to achieve, and taking seriously that we as individuals have to live with other people.”

I wanted to know how thinkers I was already interested in for the political questions approached these economic questions that seemed so pressing to me.

After graduating from Michigan State University, she obtained her MA in social sciences from the University of Chicago before working on a PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “It wasn’t really until I got to graduate school that I started being interested in economic questions,” Bri says. “I wanted to know how thinkers I was already interested in for the political questions approached these economic questions that seemed so pressing to me.” So, when she saw a flyer for the Mercatus Center’s Adam Smith Fellowship in the hallway of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s political science department, she applied. “The flyer was advertising that this fellowship is going to be about reading Adam Smith and Tocqueville, two thinkers that I was really interested in. And so I thought, Hey, why not?”

She participated in the Adam Smith Fellowship during the 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and 2016-2017 academic years. As an Adam Smith Fellow, she read a number of articles and books from which she still draws today, found an influential mentor in Virgil Henry Storr, learned how to “jump into” conversations with scholars from other disciplines, and had multiple opportunities to publish her own research. In addition to these benefits, Bri built a network of colleagues and friends. “The really formative experiences, I think, occurred over meals and then especially into the evenings when we'd have really long discussions and stay up ‘til last call…That kind of stuff really shaped me as a scholar.”

If you have an interest in these ideas, this is your chance to get to explore them with other people who take them seriously but will also ask the tough questions about them.

Why apply for the Adam Smith Fellowship? “’Why not?’ is really the reason,” Bri says.

"If you have an interest in these ideas, this is your chance to get to explore them with other people who take them seriously but will also ask the tough questions about them. It’s your chance to meet with scholars who take these ideas seriously, who are huge deals in their field and take the time to speak with all of us and treat us as people who are deserving of their time and effort…The financial support was really helpful in navigating being a graduate student, but really, it's the ideas and the people that made the time commitment worth it."

Bri advises new or potential Adam Smith Fellows to “put yourself out there. Take advantage of the informal conversations, and try to speak out in the discussions and get involved in the conversation.” She reminds current fellows to focus on publishing and “try to think about ways that you can market yourself as being able to fill more than one hole for a place that you would try to get a job as an academic.”

Today, Bri says, the Adam Smith Fellowship’s emphasis on “thinking economically and coupling that with thinking politically…frames how I do my job.” She is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy and the Director of the Political Economy Minor at Michigan State University’s James Madison College—the same university she attended as an undergraduate. “I’m now teaching alongside my teachers, which is really fun,” she says. One of the courses she teaches is about the interaction between politics and markets. In it, she uses seminar-style discussions, like those modeled in the Adam Smith Fellowship colloquia, to engage students from different fields.

Those ideas really stick with me in thinking about how markets can act as a tool to help us get along but also realize what we want to get as individuals.

In addition to those responsibilities, Bri is working on a book about taste as a corollary for moral judgment. As liberalism was “dawning,” she explains, philosophers and political thinkers became increasingly concerned that the rise of individualism would exacerbate division, creating factions and weakening communities. In her book manuscript, currently entitled “Beyond Rights and Price: Liberalism with Taste,” Bri argues that taste, which strengthens interpersonal bonds and contributes to the development of moral judgment, along with markets, limited government, rule of law, and individual rights, is an important element of a liberal society. “If I can't talk to someone about the fact that they're a Protestant and I'm a Catholic or something like that, maybe we can have a productive discussion about what we think about a piece of art or a book we read. … And so really, I'm looking at an affective dimension of liberalism, and I'm arguing it was always there. And I want to mine that out of the eighteenth century through this idea of taste.”

Asked about a quote that’s stuck with her, Bri says, “My students would tell you that ‘it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,’” from Adam Smith’s seminal work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter II). But to that she adds the first line of Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments because “you have to read those together”:

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it." (Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part First, Section I, Chapter I)

She explains, “Those ideas really stick with me in thinking about how markets can act as a tool to help us get along but also realize what we want to get as individuals. And I think that's super important.”