Christopher Wlezien

Christopher Wlezien is Hogg Professor of Government at University of Texas, where he is also a faculty affiliate of the Policy Agendas Project and the Center for European Studies. His primary, ongoing research develops a “thermostatic” model of public opinion and policy and examines the dynamic interrelationships between preferences for spending and budgetary policy in various domains. He has written about the effects of federalism, executive-legislative imbalance, and the proportionality of electoral systems in 17 countries. Current research considers news coverage and how it mediates public responsiveness to policy.

He holds or has held visiting positions at Academia Sinica (Taiwan), Australian National University, Columbia University, University of Copenhagen, European University Institute (Florence), Instituto Empresa (Madrid), Juan March Institute (Madrid), University of Manchester (UK), University of Mannheim (Germany), McGill University (Montreal), Pantheon-Assas University (Paris), Sciences Po (Paris), and the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

He joined the University of Texas faculty in 2013 from Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously he taught at Oxford University, where he was Reader of Comparative Government and a Fellow of Nuffield College. While at Oxford, he co-founded the ESRC-funded Oxford Spring School in Quantitative Methods for Social Research. Before that, he taught at the University of Houston, where he was founding director of the Institute for the Study of Political Economy.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1989 and his B.A. from Saint Xavier College (Chicago) in 1984.