How and why do everyday Americans get involved in public life? Whose voices are heard – and whose are not? Why does political engagement matter? I examine these questions by looking at reform movements (e.g., for gun violence prevention); at social groups (e.g., women); and at support structures (e.g., policy-minded donors). My CV is here.

What’s new?

Concerned about gun violence, gun policy, and gun politics? Everything you need to know is in the new edition of The Gun Debate (with Philip Cook; 2020). Here are my thoughts on the political meaning of the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen. The “missing movement” for gun reform is no longer missing, as I document in Gun Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Policy, Politics, and Practice (co-edited with Jennifer Carlson and Harel Shapira). And public engagement in the American gun debate appears to be shifting as gun regulation advocates seek to be heard (as Matthew Lacombe and I illustrate).

One hundred years after suffrage, American women are spearheading a great political reformation, as I argue in the Preface to the 2nd ed. of The Paradox of Gender Equality (2020). These activist women have a lot of history on which to draw, as I show in this volume celebrating the 19th Amendment.

Might big philanthropists be donors for democracy? Jeffrey Berry and I have an early take in our symposium in Interest Groups & Advocacy.  

Public policy acts on nonprofits to shape people’s civic engagement, as Carolyn Barnes, Deondra Rose, and I demonstrate in Policy Studies Journal.

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