INDEPENDENT, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
ON POLITICS AND SOCIETY

From the CPS Blog

The ANES at 75: Historical Trends Captured in the American National Election Studies

The consistency of the ANES study allows researchers to identify and study historical trends in the electorate over time. Read more from the CPS blog.

Is Partisan Hostility Damaging American Democracy?

A new book by some of the foremost scholars of polarization amasses empirical evidence of the consequences of political hostility in recent years, and offers a theory of when it affects political beliefs and behaviors. More from the CPS blog.

Events

This year’s CPS Wednesday seminar series has an exciting lineup of speakers.

Miller-Converse Lecture 2025

The 2025 Miller-Converse Lecture will be held on March 20, 2025 at 4 p.m. The speaker will be Tali Mendelberg.
ISR Thompson 1430

View all events

The Miller-Converse Lecture

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CPS News

Anne Pitcher Unpacks Protests in Mozambique

Posted Nov. 25, 2024.

Weeks of protest followed a contested election in Mozambique. António Bai, Anne Pitcher, José Jaime Macuane, and Ruth Castel-Branco shared insights in a webinar on the politics underlying the popular uprising. More from the Africa Is a Country; video here.

Next Generation Scholar Eugenia Quintanilla Investigates Prosociality

Posted Nov. 13, 2024.

Eugenia Quintanilla, a Next Generation scholar affiliated with CPS, studies prosociality in American politics, examining how a desire to help others can affect the ways in which people choose to get involved in the political sphere. More from ISR.

Vaccine uptake influenced by politics, socioeconomics

Posted Oct. 10, 2024.

New research sheds light on the rationales and information environments for early, late, and nonadopters of the COVID-19 vaccine– and suggests online influencers and celebrities might play an important role in encouraging vaccine uptake. CPS’s Ceren Budak, Michael Traugott, and Josh Pasek investigated with colleagues at Georgetown. More from Michigan News.

Nick Valentino appointed the Donald R. Kinder Collegiate Professor of Political Science

Posted Oct. 3, 2024.

Nicholas A. Valentino was appointed as the Donald R. Kinder Collegiate Professor of Political Science this fall, with the named professorship recognizing a fellow research professor in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. More from LSA.

Krupnikov and Ryan: Undecided voters unable to pick a candidate whose views align

Posted Oct. 10, 24.

Undecided voters aren’t struggling to choose between options that appear equally good. CPS affiliates Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan, experts on partisanship and the politically disengaged, say they’re struggling to select a candidate whose policies align with their beliefs . More from Michigan News.

$3M Minerva Project to Investigate the Role of Social Cohesion in Weathering Crises in the Indo-Pacific

Hicken Posted Sept. 24, 2024.

The Minerva Research Initiative, a university-based social science research initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, has awarded more than $3 million in funding for a research project led by CPS’s Allen Hicken. The four-year project, “Cohesion under Crisis: Concepts, Measures, Implications,” will investigate the role of social cohesion in weathering crisis, focusing on the Indo-Pacific region. More from CPS.

CPS Affiliates to be Honored at APSA 2024

Posted Sept. 3, 2024.

A host of CPS affiliates will take awards home from the APSA Annual Meeting this week in Philadelphia. CPS Director Ken Kollman will receive the 2024 Eldersveld Career Achievement Award from the Political Organizations and Parties section; awardees also include Charlotte Cavaillé, Megan Stewart, and Hilary Izatt. More from CPS.

Celebrating 75 years of the American National Election Studies

The American National Election Studies celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2024 with events at MPSA, APSA, and more. The Center for Political Studies blog offers chronicles, comments, and reflections on the project. More from CPS.

Featured Project

Climate Change, Demographic Shifts, and Socio-Political Stability in Sub-Saharan Africa

Leveraging the skills of an exceptional interdisciplinary team of University of Michigan’s social, data, and climate scientists, this project will advance the frontiers of usable social-scientific knowledge at the intersection of climate, demography, and socio-political stability as it affects U.S. national security interests. The project will analyze how complex interactions of climate and demographic change affect sociopolitical stability in Africa, assess where and when risks are greatest, and thus respond to two central concerns of the 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy: climate change and China (PRC). The project will generate actionable research findings on factors that prompt and locations that harbor great risks of political instability and conflict in Africa.

Learn more about the project, funded by the Minerva Research Initiative.

The PIs are Arun Agrawal and Yuri Zhukov.

Featured Publication

Partisan Hostility and American Democracy

For generations, experts argued that American politics needed cohesive parties to function effectively. Now many fear that strong partisan views, particularly hostility to the opposing party, are damaging democracy. Is partisanship as dangerous as we fear it is? To provide an answer, this book offers a nuanced evaluation of when and how partisan animosity matters in today’s highly charged, dynamic political environment, drawing on panel data from some of the most tumultuous years in recent American history, 2019 through 2021. The authors– James N. Druckman, Samara Klar, Yanna Krupnikov, Matthew Levendusky, and John Barry Ryan– show that partisanship powerfully shapes political behaviors, but its effects are conditional, not constant. Instead, it is most powerful when politicians send clear signals and when an issue is unlikely to bring direct personal consequences. In the absence of these conditions, other factors often dominate decision-making. They argue that while partisan hostility has degraded US politics—for example, politicizing previously non-political issues and undermining compromise—it is not in itself an existential threat. As their research shows, the future of American democracy depends on how politicians, more than ordinary voters, behave.

Read more about the book. (University of Chicago Press: June 2024)

INDEPENDENT, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHON POLITICS AND SOCIETY