Who We Are

David Bateman is an associate professor in the Government Department and in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. He is the author and co-author of two books – Disenfranchising Democracy: Constructing the Electorate in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France and Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction – and the co-editor of a collection of essays, When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice. His research focuses on democratic (and undemocratic) institutions, ideologies, and theory, including legislatures, voting rights, representation, race and racism, and the relationship between democracy and diversity.

Robert C. Lieberman is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on American political development, race and politics, and American democracy, including most recently Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (with Suzanne Mettler).

Suzanne Mettler is the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University. Her most recent book is Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (with Robert C. Lieberman). Her new book on the rural-urban divide, with Trevor Brown, is due out in late 2025.

Jamila Michener is an associate professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University. She studies poverty, racial inequality, and public policy, with a particular focus on health and housing. She is author of the award-winning book, Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics, co-editor of Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis, and co-author of Uncivil Democracy: Power, Politics, and Access to Justice (Princeton University Press, forthcoming). 

Tom Pepinsky is the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books and essays on comparative politics, political economy, and identity in Southeast Asia and beyond, including “Migrants, Minorities, and Populism in Southeast Asia” (Pacific Affairs), “Demographic “Structure and Voting Behaviour during Democratization” (Democratization), and “Voting in Authoritarian Elections” (American Political Science Review, to appear).

Ken Roberts is the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University, with a specialization in comparative and Latin American politics. His research explores the intersection of parties, populism, and social movements, with a focus on crises of democratic representation in different world regions.  His most recent books, forthcoming in 2025, include Polarization and Democracy: Latin America After the Left Turn (University of Chicago Press, co-authored with Santiago Anria), and Global Challenges to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on Backsliding, Autocracy, and Resiliency (Cambridge University Press, co-edited with Valerie J. Bunce, Thomas Pepinsky, and Rachel Beatty Riedl).

Founding Member Rick Valelly is Claude C. Smith ’14 Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College and a specialist in American political parties, national institutions, and public policy. His scholarship focuses on democratic development and enfranchisement in the U.S. His best known work is The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement (Chicago, 2004.)