Political scientists launch the Berkeley Center for American Democracy
UC Berkeley has launched a new center to foster research on polarization, inequality, and extremism.
BCAD faculty Sarah Anzia’s research on the success of women candidates in local elections was recently featured in The Atlantic
Sarah Anzia was quoted in The Atlantic: To be sure, the recent literature doesn’t show that voters treat male and female candidates identically. As the political scientists Sarah Anzia and Rachel Bernhard wrote in a 2022 paper, “Some voters infer that women candidates are more liberal than men, more compassionate and collaborative, and more competent on […]
BCAD director and faculty affiliate David Broockman’s research on partisan media was featured in The New York Times
David Broockman was quoted in The New York Times: A new study available in preprint from Joshua Kalla, an assistant professor of political science at Yale, and David Broockman, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, complicates those assumptions. It shows that cable news viewers aren’t as old, as partisan or […]
BCAD faculty affiliate Gabe Lenz featured in The Los Angeles Times
Gabriel Lenz, a political science professor at UC Berkeley, said there is a flip side, in that Trump has had political success in suggesting to supporters that hisindictments are proof of a corrupt system that is out to get him.
BCAD faculty affiliate Eric Schickler was featured in the BBC
Eric Schickler was quoted in the BBC: Dianne Feinstein’s death could throw the race to replace her into chaos. A senate race featuring high-profile, ambitious Democrats is already underway to replace her in November 2024…A spokesman for Governor Gavin Newsom did not comment on a potential appointment. “It’s a decision he would rather not have to […]
BCAD faculty affiliate Cecilia Mo’s research about national service programs and political participation was featured in Science
Cecilia Mo was quoted in Science: Researchers had theorized that national service programs could improve dismally low voting participation rates among young adults. But the analysis of the TFA program, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), confirms and quantifies that positive relationship for the first time. The finding strikes a personal […]
BCAD faculty affiliate Paul Pierson co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times about the historical evolution of the Republican Party
An op-ed by Paul Pierson was featured in The New York Times: To many Americans, the 2024 election is an unwelcome contest between the felonious and the frail. Voters hear democracy is at risk, which is true but is also another potential reason for disillusionment. Yet the stakes of their choice for the basic public […]
BCAD faculty affiliate Desmond Jagmohan’s book chapter on Booker T. Washington was featured in Boston Review
In a recent essay discussing Booker T. Washington’s “ethics of ambivalence,” for example, political scientist Desmond Jagmohan argues that although “we value truthfulness and sincerity and condemn deceit,” “these moral judgments hold true in a community of social equals. . . . the Jim Crow South was far from being such a place.” Washington believed that aggressive protest of Jim Crow would likely fail because of the economic, political, and ideological entrenchment of white supremacy; this is why, according to Jagmohan, Washington sought a more accommodationist route to achieving his ends: “that way forward required the use of concealment and dishonesty, political necessities of the dispossessed and powerless.” While Washington explicitly preached accommodationist policies in public, he defended ambivalences about them in private correspondence
BCAD faculty affiliate Amy Lerman’s research about clean slate laws was featured in WIRED
“What our study shows,” study authors Alyssa Mooney, Alissa Skog, and Amy Lerman told me in an email exchange, “is that automating record clearance alone is not going to be sufficient to reduce racial disparities in who has a criminal record. … What will be needed to actually reduce the racial gap in criminal records is a policy change that extends record clearance eligibility to a wider range of cases. This isn’t a technology problem; it’s a political problem.”
BCAD director and faculty affiliate David Broockman’s research on the polarization and political accountability was featured in The New York Times
David Broockman was quoted in The New York Times: As Trump rose to the presidency, one explanation that swept political science was the power of polarization, specifically a phenomenon known as affective polarization, but a keen group of scholars now suggests that this approach is inadequate. It would be hard to describe the state of […]
BCAD faculty affiliate Paul Pierson co-authored an op-ed in The Atlantic about the politics of the Senate filibuster
The filibuster is in trouble. President Joe Biden has come out in favor of reforming it, and Democrats in the Senate are weighing alternatives. But the strongest sign that its days are numbered is that the Republican leader Mitch McConnell is threatening Armageddon if the other party touches it. No one presently—or perhaps ever—in the Senate has practiced the dark art of obstruction as relentlessly as the current minority leader.
BCAD faculty affiliate Desmond Jagmohan was featured in The San Francisco Chronicle
UC Berkeley political science Professor Desmond Jagmohan said there’s a pattern of politicians — on both the left and right in the Bay Area — choosing to prioritize policing pandemic-related crime over tackling its core causes.
BCAD faculty affiliate Sean Gailmard was featured in Mission Local
Sean Gailmard was quoted in Mission Local: The San Francisco general election on March 5 drew in a stunning amount of cash: Over $11 million raised on the various ballot measures and candidates, much of it by a clique of wealthy individuals. But how far did that money go to lure voters in the DCCC race? The […]
BCAD faculty affiliate Sean Gailmard was featured in The Daily Texan
Sean Gailmard, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, describes how many universities outside these red states see academics leaving due to political reasons as a potential hiring opportunity, often paying special attention to their applications.
BCAD director and faculty affiliate David Broockman’s research on campaign persuasion effects was featured in Vox
David Broockman was quoted in Vox: Groups that want to defeat President Donald Trump have already spent a decent chunk of money making and airing negative ads making the case Trump should not be reelected. A new survey experiment by political scientists David Broockman and Joshua Kalla suggests that this is probably a mistake. People have already […]
BCAD director and faculty affiliate David Broockman’s research on the political behavior of economic elites was featured in The New York Times
David Broockman was quoted in The New York Times: In 2017, David Broockman, Gregory Ferenstein and I conducted the first large-scale survey of the founders of technology companies. We found that they were heavily Democratic, with over 75 percent indicating that they supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Yet technology founders were unusual in […]
BCAD affiliate Sarah Anzia’s research on the effects of election timing was featured in the National Review
Public education is one of America’s hottest political flashpoints, yet, counterintuitively, making it more political will help lower the temperature.
BCAD faculty Sarah Anzia pens Washington Post op-ed about the challenges of rising local pension costs
In late July, the House passed a bill that would shore up endangered pensions for millions of private-sector retirees and workers in trucking, mining and other blue collar industries, offering loans for insolvent employers so they could make good on their contractual promises. But underfunded state and local government pensions loom as an even bigger problem. Over the past few decades, policymakers from California to Wyoming have made public pension benefits ever more generous — while setting aside too little money to pay for them.
BCAD faculty Sarah Anzia’s book on the origins of urban-rural political conflict was featured in The New York Times
In an analysis of the complexity of the current Democratic predicament, Sarah Anzia, a professor of public policy and political science at Berkeley, addressed the preponderance of urban voters in the Democratic coalition: “The Democrats have a challenge rooted in political geography and the institution of single-member, first-past-the-post elections.” Citing Jonathan Rodden’s 2019 book “Why Cities Lose,” Anzia argued that the density of Democratic voters in cities has both geographically isolated the party and empowered its most progressive activist wing
BCAD faculty Sarah Anzia was quoted in The Sacramento Bee
“Young people, even with their higher turnout in 2018, were far less likely to participate than those 40 and up,” said Sarah Anzia, a political science professor at University of California, Berkeley. “Even with increases in turnout that I expect to see in 2020, they’re still far, far below the turnout rates of senior citizens and the middle-aged”
