Faculty
CSAD supports and promotes the work of Berkeley’s outstanding faculty studying American politics and democracy. We provide support for faculty research through conferences and workshop opportunities for major projects, particularly those that focus on the quality of American democracy.
Sarah Anzia is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies American politics with a focus on state and local government, interest groups, political parties, and public policy. Her first book, Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups, examines how the timing of elections can be manipulated to affect both voter turnout and the composition of the electorate, which, in turn, affects election outcomes and public policy. She also studies the role of government employees and public-sector unions in elections and policymaking in the United States.
Terri Bimes is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Charles and Louis Travers Department of
Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research specializes on the
historical development of the presidency and presidential rhetoric. In her book project, she
investigates the relationship between statebuidling and the use of populist rhetoric. Her
previous publications have examined presidential rhetoric, divided government and
presidential elections. In addition to teaching, Terri also runs the John Gardner Public Service
Fellowship.
David Broockman is an Associate Professor of Political Science. He researchers public opinion and political representation in the United States. His research has appeared in Science, the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and other outlets.
Professor Citrin teaches in the field of political behavior and his research interests include political trust, the foundations of policy preferences, direct democracy, national identity, and ethnic politics, including immigration and language politics. His work primarily concerns American politics but also Western Europe and Canada. Professor Citrin received his B.A. and M.A. from McGill University and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. He has taught here since 1970.
Among his books and edited volumes are American Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism (2014), Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy (2009), Tax Revolt, Something for Nothing in California (1982,1985), After the Tax Revolt: Proposition 13 Turns 30 (2009), and Nominating the President: Evolution and Revolution in 2008 and Beyond (2009). He is the author of numerous articles in leading journals as well as many book chapters, with some recent examples listed below.
Professor Citrin formerly was Director of the State Data Archive and Acting Director of the Survey Research Center at Berkeley. Since 2007 he has served as the Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies.
Sean Gailmard
Professor Gailmard studies principal-agent problems in politics, such as delegation of authority and communication of policy expertise. He applies this perspective to better understand the structure and development of political institutions. His research in this area has focused on the strategic origins of American political institutions in the English colonial period; expertise and political responsiveness in the bureaucracy; historical development of the American executive branch; the internal organization of the U.S. Congress; and electoral accountability. He has also studied models of collective decision making in laboratory experiments.
Professor Gailmard is the author of Learning While Governing: Expertise and Accountability in the Executive Branch (with John W. Patty), which won the William H. Riker Prize (APSA political economy section) and Herbert A. Simon Prize (APSA public administration section), as well as Statistical Modeling and Inference for Social Science, a Ph.D.-level textbook. He has published research in leading social science journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics.
Rebecca Goldstein is an Assistant Professor of Law in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy
Program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Her research interests
include racial and ethnic politics, bureaucratic politics, and the politics of criminal justice
policy. She received my Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government in
2019 and her B.A. in Statistics from Harvard College in 2013.
Desmond Jagmohan
Professor Jagmohan specializes in the history of African American and American political thought. His current research and teaching interests include the politics of deception, theories of property, slavery, and domination, and the ideas of nationalism and self-determination. At the moment he is completing his first book, Dark Virtues: Booker T. Washington’s Tragic Realism, which studies moral agency—including the use of deception—under conditions of extremity such as slavery and Jim Crow. He has also begun work on a second book: Slavery and Subversion: The Political Thought of Harriet Jacobs, which reads Jacobs as a moral and political theorist. So far, his research has been published in the Journal of Politics; Political Theory; NOMOS; Perspectives on Politics; Politics, Groups, and Identities; Contemporary Political Theory; and Boston Review.
Prior to arriving at Berkeley Professor Jagmohan was Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where he delivered the 2018 Constitution Day Lecture and was awarded the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Preceptorship in the University Center for Human Values. He was the winner of the APSA Best Dissertation Award from the Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section (2015) and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2018). He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
My research is broadly concerned with the effects of cognitive processes – including perception, attention, concept formation, and memory – on political behavior writ large. My primary research project investigates the ways in which the psychological and neural underpinnings of threat perception influence policy preferences, with a particular focus on national security decision-making.
I hold an AB from Harvard in Government, an MSc from LSE in Global Politics, and a PhD from MIT in Political Science. Prior to arriving at Berkeley, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT in SaxeLab.
Taeku Lee is George Johnson Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests are in racial and ethnic politics; public opinion and survey research; identity and inequality; deliberative and participatory democracy. He is author of Mobilizing Public Opinion (2002); Transforming Politics, Transforming America (2006),Why Americans Don’t Join the Party (2011), Accountability through Public Opinion(2011), Asian American Political Participation (2011), and the Oxford Handbook of Racial and Ethnic Politics in the United States(2015).
Lee is co-Principal Investigator of the National Asian American Survey, co-Principal Investigator of the Bay Area Poverty Tracker, and Managing Director of Asian American Decisions. He serves on the National Advisory Committee for the U.S. Census Bureau and has previously served in numerous leadership positions, including as member of the Board of Overseers of the American National Election Studies (twice), member of the Board of Overseers of the General Social Survey, Treasurer and the Executive Council member for the American Political Science Association, Department Chair at Berkeley, and Associate Director of the Haas Institute at Berkeley. His previous positions include Assistant Professor at Harvard, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar at Yale, Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Effective July 1, 2019, Lee will be Associate Dean of Law, directing its Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program.
Lee was born in South Korea, grew up in rural Malaysia, Manhattan, and suburban Michigan, and is a proud graduate of K-12 public schools, the University of Michigan (A.B.), Harvard University (M.P.P.), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D.).
Gabriel Lenz is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has a forthcoming book with the University of Chicago Press and his articles appear in the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, and Political Psychology. Professor Lenz studies democratic politics, focusing on what leads citizens to make good political decisions, what leads them to make poor decisions, and how to improve their choices. His work draws on insights from social psychology and economics, and his research and teaching interests are in the areas of elections, public opinion, political psychology, and political economy. Although specializing in American democracy, he also conducts research on Canada, UK, Mexico, Netherlands, and Brazil. He has ongoing projects about improving voters’ assessments of the performance of politicians, reducing the role of candidate appearance in elections, and measuring political corruption.
Amy E. Lerman is Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, Co-Director of The People Lab, and Associate Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is focused on issues of race, public opinion, and political behavior, especially as they relate to punishment and social inequality in America. Lerman is the author of numerous books and journal articles, and her work has been featured in media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN and NPR. In addition to her academic scholarship, Lerman has served as a speechwriter and communications consultant for national nonprofits and members of the United States Congress, a community organizer in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and an adjunct faculty member of the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison. She consults widely on issues related to prison reform, access to higher education, and law enforcement mental health.
Dr. Cecilia Hyunjung Mo (Ph.D. Political Economics and M.A. Political Science from Stanford University; MPA in International Development from Harvard University) is an Associate Professor of Political Science. She is concerned with basic research on behavioral political economy and aspirations-based models of politics, and her applied work focuses on understanding and addressing important social problems related to democratic citizenship, immigration, inequality, and prejudice. Dr. Mo has significant experience with experimental methods, impact evaluations, quantitative methods, and survey methods. She is also the recipient of the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) 2015 Franklin L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Award, APSA’s 2016 Best Paper Award on Political Behavior, and APSA’s 2018 Best Paper Award on Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior, as well as the 2018 Roberta Sigel Early Career Scholar Award from the International Society of Political Psychology and 2020 Emerging Scholar Award in the study of Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior from APSA.
Website: ceciliahmo.com
Paul Pierson is the John Gross Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley and Director of the
Center for the Study of American Democracy. His research focuses on American political economy and public policy. He is the author or co-author of six books, including the best-selling Winner Take All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, co-authored by Jacob Hacker. Pierson is a regular commentator on public affairs, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, and Foreign Affairs. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Pierson is a former Guggenheim Fellow, Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, and Russell Sage Foundation Fellow. He also served as co-Director of the Successful Societies Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).
Eric Schickler is Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of three books which have won the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics: Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the United States Senate (2006, with Gregory Wawro), and Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (2016, with Douglas Kriner; also winner of the Richard E. Neustadt Prize for the best book on executive politics). His book, Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965, was the winner of the Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book on government, politics or international affairs published in 2016, and is co-winner of the J. David Greenstone Prize for the best book in history and politics from the previous two calendar years. He is also the co-author of Partisan Hearts and Minds, which was published in 2002. He has authored or co-authored articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Polity, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Social Science History. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of American politics, the U.S. Congress, rational choice theory, American political development, and public opinion.
Laura Stoker is Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of Political Science at UC
Berkeley. Her research focuses on the development and change of political attitudes and
behavior and on topics at the intersection of research design and statistics. Stoker is the recipient of fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Oxford
University, and the University of Manchester, and has served on the Board of the American
National Election Studies (2000-2002, 2018-present), the British National Election Studies
(2014-2016), and the CASBS Causal Inference for Social Impact Lab (2019-present).
Professor Van Houweling studies political behavior and legislative institutions in the United States. Both aspects of his research are driven by an interest in better understanding the representational linkages between electorates and officeholders. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan in 1993 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003. He worked as a Legislative Assistant to Senator Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota from 1993 to 1995. He has published articles in a variety of political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and Studies in American Political Development.
Professor Van Houweling is engaged in two large ongoing projects. The first project, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, examines how citizens respond to various characterisitics of candidates policy positions, including their content, consistency, and ambiguity. The second project examines how modern congressional majority parties employ legislative tactics to weaken representational constraints on their members. One unique aspect of this Congress-focused work is that it uses surveys and survey experiments to better understand how the electorate provides incentives for, and constraints upon, the procedural strategies legislators adopt.
Steven K. Vogel is Chair of the Political Economy Program, the Il Han New Professor of Asian
Studies, and a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He
specializes in the political economy of the advanced industrialized nations. He recently published “The Regulatory Roots of Inequality in America” (2021). He is also the author of Marketcraft: How Governments Make Markets Work (2018), Japan Remodeled: How Government and Industry Are Reforming Japanese Capitalism (2006), and Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries (1996).
Graduate Students
CSAD works to encourage the intellectual growth of the next generation of American politics scholars. We provide students with financial support, including grants to cover costs associated with their research, and we offer office and meeting space for advanced graduate students. Recent graduates of the political science department studying American politics have moved on to faculty positions at leading institutions, including Chicago, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford and Yale.
I am a first-year political science PhD student at UC Berkeley. Before this, I worked at the MIT Election Lab for two years after graduating from Dartmouth College, where I double majored in Quantitative Social Science and Government. My research focuses on political psychology, political behavior, and race and politics. Some of my specific interests include elite cues, partisanship, voting behavior, racial fluidity, and racial attitudes.
Matt is a PhD student in political science studying American politics. His research interests include federalism, representation, and inequality. His master’s thesis studies the effects of local racial income inequality on political behavior and attitudes, and his dissertation studies the effects of different federalist arrangements within state and local governments on political and socioeconomic inequality
I am an Americanist with a strong interest in the methodology of the social sciences.
In American politics, my substantive interests include elite strategy, ideology, racism, and political communication. I’m also interested in the long-run consequences of federalism on public opinion, and the political economy of the US Higher Education system.
Methodologically, I’m interested in applied statistics for the social sciences, including causal inference and machine learning. In the philosophy of social science, I’m interested in causality and theory building.
I completed my BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford, and an MPP at Georgetown University.
I am a PhD student in the Political Science department at the University of California, Berkeley. My research interests include civil discourse, public opinion, and voting behavior in the United States. Specifically, I am interested in how individual policy preferences are formed, and the factors that impact the extent to which legislators reflect the policy preferences of their constituents. I received my Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College, where I studied Philosophy and Government & Legal Studies.
Norris Davis III
Norris Davis III is a first-year PhD student in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include political behavior, race and ethnic politics, and the Black diaspora in the United States. Specifically, he is interested in the relationship between Black political elites and Black voters, and how it affects mobilization and political participation. Davis graduated from the University of Alabama with a BA in African-American Studies and Political Science, summa cum laude.
David Foster
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. I apply formal theory and quantitative methods to questions about American political institutions. My dissertation uses formal theory to understand presidential unilateral action. My work is forthcoming in The Journal of Politics and The Journal of Theoretical Politics and is conditionally accepted at The Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy. My CV is here.
Biz Herman is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley. Her research broadly focuses on the politics of history, group belonging, and conflict, with her dissertation project examining how the mental health implications of forced migration and conflict impact social stability. Her interests also include the gendered dimensions of power and policymaking; she is currently conducting a Center for the Study of American Democracy-supported project evaluating how gendered networks operate at a micro-level in the U.S. Congress.
I am a fourth year doctoral student in the Department of Political Science here at Berkeley. Broadly, my interests are in race and politics, with particular interests in Black politics, coalition and conflict between communities of color, public health, and the politics of representation. My dissertation project, Corrupting the Conscience: The Congressional Black Caucus and Constraints of Black Politics, looks at why, even in spite of increasing influence and seniority, the Congressional Black Caucus does not account for corresponding gains for Black communities around the country. My research has been published or is forthcoming in Sociological Forum, The Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law and Politics, Groups, and Identities. I am also the author of Latino Politics, 3rd. Edition w/ Professor Lisa Garcia Bedolla.
I am a Political Science PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley. My interests lie at the intersection of public policy, public opinion, inequality, race, and political behavior. Broadly stated, I study the relationship that states have with their vulnerable populations in the Americas. Thus far, my research has examined this relationship through the lens of the carceral state in the United States and Latin America. My work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the American Political Science Association.
Evelyn Jiyun Kim is a second year Ph.D student in the Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley focusing on American Politics. She graduated with Honors from the University of Michigan. Her research interests include youth political engagement, economic impact on political attitude, and perception of corruption.
I’m a fourth year PhD student in the Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley. Before coming to Berkeley, I graduated with a BA in political science and sociolegal studies from the University of Washington (Seattle) and earned a MSc in politics research at the University of Oxford (Nuffield College). I study race and ethnic politics, political psychology, and political behavior. My dissertation focuses on the politics of white racial identity in the US. You can find my CV here.
Elizabeth Mitchell is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Charles and
Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California
Berkeley. Her research draws on literature from across the social sciences to
understand how individuals’ social and economic contexts shape their political
knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Her dissertation focuses on geographic
variation in the conditions that lead to political efficacy and trust. For more
information, see her website and curriculum vitae.
Rhea Myerscough
I am a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley.
I study race, class, and inequality in the United States. My primary research interest is understanding the policies and institutions that maintain and exacerbate the racial wealth gap.
My dissertation project examines the political power of the payday lending industry and the broader issues of inequality and policy-making in state governments.
Please feel free to contact me at myerscough
To view a copy of my CV, please click here.
Stephanie Peng
I am a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. My research interests include the political incorporation of immigrants in the U.S., the effects of interior immigration enforcement policies, and racial dynamics between minorities. Within these topics, I am especially interested in the ways that political institutions can more effectively increase the civic engagement of immigrants and voters of color. Before coming to Berkeley, I worked as a research fellow for Professor Tom K. Wong at the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) and as a K-12 educator in San Diego. I earned my B.A. in International Studies with High Distinction from the University of California, San Diego.
Samuel Trachtman
Sam Trachtman is a PhD candidate in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of
Political Science at UC Berkeley. He studies the politics of policy reform in the U.S.,
focusing on climate policy and healthcare policy. His articles have appeared in outlets
including the American Political Science Review, Energy Policy, and Health Affairs. You can
read more about his work at samtrachtman.com.
Joseph Warren
I am a PhD candidate in political science at UC Berkeley. I use game theory and history to study political institutions. In particular, I am interested in causes of durable shifts in the distribution of power.
My dissertation uses formal models to analyze different facets of legal authority, with historical cases drawn from 18th century American state formation. How do institutions gain or lose authority over time? Why do political actors adhere to formal boundaries of authority? How do centralized or decentralized legal structures affect politics?
Prior to UC Berkeley, I attended Reed College, where I majored in political science and economics.
I am a PhD student focusing on American politics. My research interests include representation, local politics, and rural politics. Prior to coming to Berkeley, I graduated from Tufts University and subsequently spent three years as a research associate in the political science department at MIT.
Alan Yan
Alan is broadly interested in the intersection of class, race, and ideology. Specifically, he is working on how class and racial rhetoric affect the strength and salience of class and racial identities and the types of policy voters will support. Along these lines, he is examining workers' preferences toward economic democracy and developing a competing conceptualization of ideology.