Hosted by Niskanen Center · 🇺🇸 US · EN · 223 episodes
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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
Niskanen Center hosts The Science of Politics, a news show with 223 episodes published.
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 trai
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 posi
The Supreme Court’s voting rights decision is upending the midterm election and raising concerns about its role in democratic backsliding. Thomas Keck finds that the Court has rarely helped maintain democratic guardrails
Economic inequality is high and rising, without much political response. Most stay that's because our political institutions overrepresent the views of the rich. But Andrew Taylor finds that poor Americans don’t prioriti
Trust in American elections has declined since President Trump failed to concede the 2020 election. But voters do have real concerns about electoral institutions born of not knowing the process well. Jennifer Gaudette fi
Rural America has moved toward strong Republican voting even though Republican governance helps explain worse health outcomes in rural areas, from hospital closures to opioid policies. Michael Shepherd finds that rural a
Polarized politics is not leaving much room for agreement on economic regulation, even as inequality and business power grow. But Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee find that corporate scandals can often mobilize the public
Donald Trump has not been a favorite of university professors or public intellectuals, but he does have a base in some elements of political theory. What are their ideas and did they help bring us Trumpism? Laura Field t
The 2026 election will decide who controls the House and Senate for the duration of Trump's presidency. Trump's approval is low and public opinion is moving against his policy ideas. The historical pattern suggests Democ
Legislators spend considerable time dialing for dollars to support their party, even if they themselves are not in electoral danger. That helps them move up the party leadership ladder, but does not help them achieve the
AI tool improvement is compounding fast enough for researchers to start using tools like Claude Code for real social science tasks. What are the early lessons from using AI to conduct research? Will it just mean more slo
Some Americans prefer obedient, respectful, and well-mannered children and others prefer independent, curious, and self-reliant kids. And that divide is a surprisingly broad window into contemporary political views and p
Do rich white Americans always get their way in policymaking? Or does it matter who is in charge? Agustin Markarian finds that different groups see their policy preferences better represented depending on which party is
Despite calls for politics to return to kitchen table economic issues, the culture war rages on. That could be a product of the distinct incentives facing politicians, who have to win elections, and media actors, who jus
Donald Trump has taken extraordinary actions to redirect or ignore congressional appropriations, from dismantling foreign aid to making the Education Department a ghost town. But how unique are Trump’s efforts to avoid s
How unique is Donald Trump’s trajectory as a president born of backlash? What should we make of Trump following Barack Obama? Julia Azari finds that backlash presidents like Trump tend to follow transformative presidents
A year before the midterms, quarterly fundraising reports are already reshuffling expectations and causing some candidates to drop out. And candidates are spending almost as much raising money as they collect. That’s bec
Many thought the second Trump administration would feature a confrontation between a Supreme Court intent on limiting executive discretion and an empowered president flaunting the rules. Instead, the Supreme Court has la
Democrats are out of power in all three branches of government, uncompetitive in many states, and divided on how to prepare for 2026. What’s the path forward? Should the party refocus on economics over cultural issues? M
Texas, California, and Missouri are moving forward with plans for mid-decade redistricting to gain partisan advantage—with other states threatening to follow. They are not hiding the motive: President Trump asked Texas t
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The Science of Politics is hosted by Niskanen Center. The show is categorised under news and has published 223 episodes.
The Science of Politics has published 223 episodes.
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