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INDEPENDENT, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
ON POLITICS AND SOCIETY

Get to know CPS

From the CPS Blog

What’s unique about the Trump 2.0 executive orders? And will they succeed? 

At a teach-in last week, Kenneth Lowande, expert on executive power, argued the executive orders of the new Trump administration are unprecedented because they are illegal power grabs by design, and that their success depends critically on compliance.  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.

Year of Democracy

The University of Michigan’s Year of Democracy events include a Feb. 20 roundtable on forced migration; The Great Retreat book talk on Feb. 26, and Teach Out While In: Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy, March 18.

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.

The politics of disaster prevention 

Despite the importance of effective disaster policy, governments typically fail to produce it. The main explanation offered by political scientists is that voters strongly support post-disaster relief but not policies that seek to prevent or prepare for disaster. This study challenges that view. We develop novel measures of preferences for disaster prevention and post-disaster relief. We find strong support for prevention policies and candidates who pursue them, even among the subgroups that are the most opposed. Support for prevention has the hallmarks of“real”attitudes: consistency across wordings and response formats, including open ended probes; steadfastness in the face of arguments; and willingness to make trade-offs against disaster relief, increased taxes, and reduced spending on other programs. Neither cognitive biases for the here and now nor partisan polarization prevent robust majority support for disaster prevention. We validate these survey findings with election results, which suggest voters act on these preferences. 

The Miller-Converse Lecture

CPS News

Talk to him: Mara Ostfeld and Sara Morell show a conversation can shape public support for women’s rights

OstfeldPosted Dec. 18, 2024. 

A single conversation with a close family member may not change a young woman’s views on policies protecting their rights, but it can strongly influence young men’s attitudes. A University of Michigan study found that family opinions heavily shape male youth’s views on women’s rights, while female youth are less affected. More from Michigan News.

 

Jon Miller's study tracks Gen X's changing attitudes toward science

MillerPosted Dec. 6, 2024. 

A longitudinal study led by Jon Miller of the Center for Political Studies has tracked how attitudes about science have morphed over time. More from Michigan News.

 

Dan Slater on the Political Dynamics of Türkiye, the Gulf, and the Americas

SlaterPosted Dec. 6, 2024. 

Authoritarianism expert Dan Slater of the Center for Political Studies is featured in an exclusive interview on the evolving political dynamics in Türkiye, the Gulf and the Americas: More from Türkiye Today.

 

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

Eugenia QuintanillaPosted 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.

 

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.

ANES at 75
Climate change

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.

Partisan Hostility and American Democracy

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)