Eric Schickler

Influential scholar of political institutions and political behavior. Author or co-author of four books, including two winners of the Richard Fenno prize for the best book on legislative politics. His Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), the first attempt to integrate rational choice theory with historical institutionalist approaches, explained institutional reforms in Congress from 1890 to 1989. His Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (2016) shows how the partisan realignment associated with the 1960s was largely accomplished in the 1930s and 1940s, aligning Democratic partisanship, economic liberalism, and support for civil rights.