Larry Bartels

May Werthan Shayne Professor of Public Policy and Social Science
University Distinguished Professor of Political Science
University Distinguished Professor of Law
Co-Director, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions

Larry M. Bartels holds the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University and a secondary appointment at the law school. His scholarship and teaching focus on public opinion, electoral politics, public policy and political representation. His books include Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (with Christopher Achen) and Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (2nd edition), both published in 2016. He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles, and of commentaries in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other prominent outlets. Bartels has received the Warren E. Miller Prize for contributions to the study of elections, public opinion, and voting behavior and Vanderbilt’s Earl Sutherland Prize for Career Achievement in Research. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society.

Research Interests

American politics, political methodology