Subfields

Political Behavior

Political behavior at UC Berkeley serves as a bridge between political science on the one side and political psychology and political sociology on the other. Its focus is on the social and psychological processes by which individuals (and groups) engage in political life. Although the actual studies of these matters may occur within a particular geographical or institutional context and data are most often drawn from the American experience, the purpose is to generalize to a class of political phenomena or behavior beyond specific countries or specific institutions. Attention is also paid to problems of survey design and analysis, the development of scales, indices, and other measurement devices, questionnaire construction, interviewing, sampling, and other elements of systematic research that aim to yield data susceptible to statistical analysis. Among the substantive topics covered in the field are: public opinion; political leadership; political participation and protest and personality and politics.

Directory

Name Research Interests Contact
Jack Citrin
 Public Opinion, Ethnic Politics, Multiculturalism 510 642-4692
gojack@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
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