Subfields
American Politics
Subfield Coordinator: Eric Schickler
The study of American politics at Berkeley brings together faculty and graduate students who seek to tackle the most important questions confronting the field using diverse methodological approaches.
Among other topics, the faculty’s research agenda encompasses the quality and meaning of representation in contemporary American politics, the political implications of rising economic inequality, the politics of immigration and of minority group representation, the meaning of American national identity, the sources and implications of party polarization, the development of American bureaucratic government and of the American welfare state, and the balance of power among Congress, the Presidency, and the Courts. Our program strives to train students to have a diverse methodological toolkit, including quantitative, historical/developmental, game theoretic, behavioral, and institutional approaches.
The Institute of Governmental Studies and Survey Research Center support several workshops and colloquia that foster this diverse intellectual community, including the American Politics Research Workshop, the Positive Political Theory seminar series, the Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Colloquium, the American Political Development working group, and the Quantitative Methods Workshop. These research units also provide funding for graduate student research projects and for faculty-student collaboration. Faculty work closely with students to help each student carve out a research agenda that fits his or her interests, while addressing a substantively important problem.
Directory
| Name | Research Interests | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Terri Bimes |
American Politics | 510 642-4679 bimes@berkeley.edu |
| Henry Brady |
Electoral Politics & Political Participation, Management Information Systems, Program Evaluation, Social Welfare Policy | 510 642-5116 hbrady@berkeley.edu |
| Bruce Cain |
State and Local Politics, California Politics, Legislatures | bruce@cain.berkeley.edu |
| Jack Citrin |
Public Opinion, Ethnic Politics, Multiculturalism | 510 642-4692 gojack@berkeley.edu |
| Rui De Figueiredo |
Institutional Analysis/Formal Theory, Game Theory, Mathematical Modeling, American Bureaucratic Structure and Performance | 510 642-6452 rui@haas.berkeley.edu |
| Sean Gailmard |
American Political Institutions, Principal-agent Theory, Bureaucratic Politics, Legislative Politics, Game Theory, Decision Theory (rational choice and behavioral modeling), Laboratory Experimentation, Statistical Modeling | 510 642-4677 gailmard@berkeley.edu |
| Rodney Hero |
American Democracy and Politics, Latino Politics, Racial/Ethnic Politics, State & Urban Politics, Federalism | 510-643-6371 rhero@berkeley.edu |
| Robert Kagan |
Empirical Study of Legal Institutions, Regulatory Enforcement and Compliance, Comparative Legal Institutions | 510 642-4582 rak@berkeley.edu |
| Todd LaPorte |
Technology Policy, Organization Theory, Public Administration | 510 642-4673 tlaporte@socrates.berkeley.edu |
| Taeku Lee |
Racial Politics, Public Opinion, Political Behavior, Social Movements, Asian American Politics | 510 642-4640 taekulee@berkeley.edu |
| Gabriel Lenz |
Elections, Public Opinion, Political Psychology, Political Economy | (510) 575-9971 glenz@berkeley.edu |
| William Muir |
Constitutional Law | (510) 642-4683 sandymuir@aol.com |
| Paul Pierson |
Public Policy, Political Economy, American Politics | 510 643-6424 pierson@berkeley.edu |
| Alan Ross |
510 643-1733 alanross@haas.berkeley.edu |
|
| Eric Schickler |
Congress, American Political Development, Political Parties | 510 643-2933 eschickler@berkeley.edu |
| Dan Schnur |
213 740-8964 dan.schnur@mindspring.com |
|
| Jasjeet Sekhon |
Program Evaluation, Statistical and Computational Methods, Causal Inference, Elections, Public Opinion, American Politics | 510 642-1624 sekhon@berkeley.edu |
| J. Merrill Shanks |
Election Behavior, Public Opinion, Research Methodology, Survey Techniques | 510 642-1104 jms@csm.berkeley.edu |
| Laura Stoker |
National Elections, Public Opinion, Research Design, Statistical Methods | 510 642-3396 stoker@socrates.berkeley.edu |
| Robert Van Houweling |
Congress, Political Parties, Voting Behavior, Spatial Models of Candidate Competition, Experimental Methods | 510 643-6678 rpvh@berkeley.edu |
| Margaret Weir |
Metropolitan Politics, Social Policy, Comparative Welfare State, Public Policy, Political Sociology | 510 643-1602 mweir@berkeley.edu |
| Raymond Wolfinger |
Voting Behavior, Congress | 510 642-2062 vturnout@socrates.berkeley.edu |