Overview
Mallory SoRelle is an Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Her research and teaching explore how public policies are produced by, and critically how they reproduce, socioeconomic and political inequality in the United States. She focuses primarily on issues like consumer financial protection and access to civil justice that fundamentally shape the welfare of marginalized communities yet are often overlooked by scholars of the welfare state because they are not traditional redistributive programs.
Mallory is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), which explores the political response—by policymakers, public interest groups, and ordinary Americans—to one of the most consequential economic policy issues in the United States: consumer credit and financial regulation.
Mallory is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection (University of Chicago Press, 2020), which explores the political response—by policymakers, public interest groups, and ordinary Americans—to one of the most consequential economic policy issues in the United States: consumer credit and financial regulation.
Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations
Tony & Teddie Brown Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
·
2025 - Present
Sanford School of Public Policy
Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
·
2025 - Present
Sanford School of Public Policy
Recent News Items
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Recent Scholarly Works
The racial politics of student debt relief policy
Journal article Politics, Groups, and Identities · May 6, 2026 Full text CiteElection Administration and Voting Behavior among Americans of Color
Journal article Journal of Race Ethnicity and Politics · January 1, 2026 Several U.S. states expanded vote-by-mail in 2020, while other states made no changes. This uneven expansion occurred in a highly racialized policy context. We explore how the United States’ history of race-based disenfranchisement, racialized elite rhetor ... Full text CiteCountermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age. By Eric M. Patashnik. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023. 256p.
Journal article Perspectives on Politics · December 2025 Full text CiteRecent Grants
CAREER: The Emerging Political Economy of FringeTech Financial Services
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2024 - 2029View All Grants
Education
Cornell University ·
2016
Ph.D.
Cornell University ·
2014
M.A.
Harvard University ·
2010
M.P.P.
Smith College ·
2006
B.A.