About

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management, affiliated with the Center for Science of Science & Innovation, the Ryan Institute on Complexity, and the Northwestern Innovation Institute.

My primary research focus lies at the intersection of political economy, institutions, political behavior, and public policy. In particular, my work is concerned with how institutional and organizational arrangements, such as electoral rules or policy-making procedures, shape the individual and collective behaviors of political elites, experts, and policy-makers. Most recently, I am exploring how the composition and interactions of expert groups influence decision-making and public policy.

I also have secondary interests in studying the dynamics of violence and armed conflict and non-state armed governance.

My work emphasizes the application of research methods from computational social science and machine learning, causal inference, and formal modeling. My research has been published in Electoral Studies and the Journal of Peace Research.

I hold a Ph.D. in Political Science and an M.S. in Statistics from Northwestern University. Prior to that, I earned an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Warwick and a B.A. in Economics from the American University of Beirut.

Research

Publications

Saab, Andrew. 2026. “Fickle Loyalties: Intragroup Competition in Open List Elections.” Electoral Studies.

Saab, Andrew. 2025. “Conflict Relocation and Blood Diamond Policy Shifts.” Journal of Peace Research.

Working Papers

Conformity or Conviction in Deliberative Decision-Making? Evidence from FDA Advisory Committees (Resubmit, Political Behavior)

When Experts Follow the Crowd (and When They Don’t)

Expert Deliberations With Heterogenous Beliefs

Scientific Tradeoffs of Service on Federal Advisory Committees (with Alexander Furnas and Dashun Wang)

Beyond State Capacity: How Non-State Governance and Adjudication Influence Rebel and Criminal Rule (with Ana Arjona)

Linked Fate? Responses to Violence Across Conflict Fronts

Teaching

Northwestern University

Introduction to Empirical Methods (Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2021)

Introduction to Comparative Politics (Fall 2022, Winter 2022)

Evaluating Evidence (Winter 2023) [TA + Guest Lecturer]

American University of Beirut

Behavioral Economics and Public Policy (Spring 2020, Spring 2019) [TA + Guest Lecturer]