The Science of Politics

The Niskanen Center’s The Science of Politics podcast features up-and-coming researchers delivering fresh insights on the big trends driving American politics today. Get beyond punditry to data-driven understanding of today’s Washington with host and political scientist Matt Grossmann. Each 30-45-minute episode covers two new cutting-edge studies and interviews two researchers.We welcome your thoughts on this episode and the podcast as a whole. Please send feedback or suggestions to scienceofpolitics@niskanencenter.org

The Science of Politics is a news podcast hosted by Niskanen Center, with 227 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Niskanen Center hosts The Science of Politics, a news show with 227 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  The Science of Politics

  Can housing policy overcome lousy folk economic thinking?

  Aug 19, 20261h 2m

  Housing advocates have won state policy changes and a new federal law. But can they overcome publics that still blame landlords and developers for rising prices. Christopher Elmendorf finds that housing opinions aren’t just a problem of people wanting fewer renters in their backyard. Instead, the public fundamentally misunderstands supply and demand: they don’t believe that more supply would lower prices and instead favor crackdowns on the suppliers.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Science of Politics

  Inside the Democratic Socialist uprising

  Jul 22, 202652 min

  Candidates affiliated with (or sympathetic to) the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) have recently won several Democratic primaries. Although this rise of the left takes a different form, it draws from prior social movements and Bernie Sanders' presidential candidacies. David Purucker has been both a close observer and a participant. He studied how the DSA makes decisions and organizes. Its electoral role draws from its relationship with the labor movement and other liberal causes. He says this year will raise a lot of questions about how the group responds to electoral success and failure.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Science of Politics

  The rise of small donors is mostly making politics worse

  Jul 8, 202658 min

  Candidates celebrate when their campaigns are funded by small contributions. Small donors are playing far greater roles in American politics but they are not having the positive envisioned effects. Ray La Raja and Zach Albert find that small donors are just as advantaged, partisan, and extreme as larger donors, but more impulsive, empowering show horse celebrities and norm breakers over consensus-building lawmakers. They want to redirect reformers’ energy toward strengthening political parties and emphasizing local representation.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Science of Politics

  Can We Make Legislators More Effective?

  Jun 24, 202653 min

  We fear that legislatures are gridlocked and performative, rather than focused on actually passing new laws. But some legislators are consistently more effective than others, at the state and national levels. Can we train legislators to be more effective at advancing their bills? Mackenzie Dobson finds that training programs for state legislators don’t make them more effective than their untrained colleagues. Most of the factors that make legislators more effective are structural: the competition between the parties and the positions they hold. Some of the common advice, find bipartisan partners and become an issue area expert, may not work everywhere.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The Science of Politics

  Will young Americans become long-term democrats?

  Jun 10, 202658 min

  Elite polarization may be helping young people sort out their politics but it could also make them misperceive how the other side lives. Delia Baldassarri finds that millennial and gen Z are now aligning their issue positions with partisanship as much as older generations. They are choosing their party more based on cultural and moral issues and, up to now, that’s been helping Democrats. But partisans assume that the other side has more stereotypical social groups and extreme views than they do. So polarization has confused us about how divided we are.

  ListenShow Notes

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.