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American Politics
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Franklin Gilliam
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Representative democracy in the United States relies on three branches of government to defend the rights of citizens and translate their will into public policy. Scholars in the American politics field at UCLA, together with colleagues in neighboring fields and departments, study every aspect of the democratic process, including mass political behavior, representative institutions, public policy formation, and constitutional foundations. With more than a dozen faculty, the field offers rich opportunities for graduate and undergraduate studies. An area of particular strength at UCLA is political behavior. David Sears, Frank Gilliam, and Mark Sawyer study political psychology, all with a focus on race and politics. Their research group, which includes psychologist James Sidanius as well, is one of the largest of its kind in the United States. It receives generous financial and institutional support from the Institute of Social Science Research, directed by David Sears, and the Center for Communications and Community, founded by Frank Gilliam. John Zaller and Lynn Vavreck are experts in the field of political communications, with active research programs in elections, the mass media, and public opinion. Methodologists James DeNardo, Jeff Lewis, and James Honaker often work on electoral politics as well, with a focus on statistical methods for electoral data. UCLA is a noted center for research on American political development as well, and home of the flagship journal in the field. Professors Karen Orren and Scott James specialize in the historical evolution of American institutions, including the electoral college, regulatory agencies, the judiciary, and the presidency. Their work is supported by collaboration with colleagues from the School of Law, the Department of History, and UCLA's School of Public Policy. The field of Congress and legislative institutions is a third focus at UCLA. Kathleen Bawn and Thomas Schwartz have broad expertise in legislative politics and institutional design. Joel Aberbach, who is founding Director of UCLA's Center for American Politics and Public Policy (CAPPP), works on congressional oversight of the federal bureaucracy. CAPPP maintains a substantial research center in Washington DC that provides the opportunity for faculty, doctoral students, and undergraduates to conduct extended field research in the nation's capital. Legislative research in the Department proceeds along many fronts, including formal theory building, statistical analysis, and close participant observation. It is enriched by a genuinely comparative perspective, and active interaction with specialists from Comparative Politics who study democratic institutions all over the world. Graduate education in American politics at UCLA is distinctive in several ways. One is the great diversity of course offerings in areas of strength. Another is the superb support the field enjoys from the methodology field. It is hard to imagine a top young scholar who lacks familiarity with statistical and formal theory, and that familiarity is easier to achieve here than at most other places. Students can be substantive specialists in American politics with a background in methods, or they can specialize in methods with applications to American politics. Both combinations are common. Finally, American politics at UCLA benefits from its location in a great city that is a real time laboratory for emerging forces that are reshaping our political system. In Los Angeles, immigration and globalization, advanced information technology, defining cultural institutions, and continuous political innovation are part of everyday life. |
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