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Byron E. Shafer
Research and teaching in American politics, broadly construed. Particular interests include: political parties, institutional reform, social cleavages, policy conflict, issue evolution, political orders, American political development, national party conventions, cultural issues, electoral campaigns, American exceptionalism, British politics, comparative politics of the G-7, empirical theory, classical political science, sociology of knowledge. Concerned with the ‘big picture’ in American political life, and with locating further research within this larger framework.
Major monographs on reform politics (Quiet Revolution:The Struggle for the Democratic Party and the Shaping of Post-Reform Politics), on institutional change (Bifurcated Politics: Evolution and Reform in the National Party Convention), on policy divisions (The Two Majorities: The Issue Context of Modern American Politics), on structural influences (The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South), and on public opinion (The American Public Mind: The Issue Structure of Mass Politics in the Postwar United States; for the codebook and dataset from this project in Stata format, click here). Many recent article-length pieces collected in The Two Majorities and the Puzzle of Modern American Politics. Click on Current CV for more detail.
Presently working on three further monographs: 1) The American Political Landscape: A New Technique for Mapping the Ideological Landscape of Electoral Politics, and the Understanding of Political Strategy That Follows From It, with Richard H. Spady (contracted to Harvard University Press). 2) Widening Gyre: Social Structure and Policy Preference in the Transformation of the American Party System, with Richard G.C. Johnston. 3) Political Structure and Political Substance: The Changing Shape of American Politics, 1945-2015.
Undergraduate lectures supported by an extensive library of campaign ads. For a current undergraduate class, click on PS 184. For the larger enterprise of which these ads are a part, see Wisconsin Advertising Project and Wesleyan Advertising Project. Graduate classes taught in modified master-class format. For a current example, click on PS 904. For other recent examples, click on Current CV and go to Selected Teaching Experience. I am also Editor of The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, which applies professional political science to current political developments.
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Recent Publications
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Byron Shafer, “The Master, the Acolytes, and the Study of American Politics”, in Angie Maxwell and Todd G. Shields, eds., Unlocking V.O. Key, Jr.: “Southern Politics” for the Twenty-First Century (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2011).
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Byron Shafer, Pär Jason Engle. "Where Are We in History? 2010 in the Longest Run." The Forum 8, 4 (2010).
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Byron Shafer, and William J. M. Claggett. The American Public Mind: The Issues Structure of Mass Politics in the Postwar United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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Byron Shafer The Pure Partisan Institution: National Party Conventions as Research Sites”, in L. Sandy Maisel, ed., Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
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Byron Shafer, and Richard Johnston. The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South. 2006. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Byron Shafer The Two Majorities and the Puzzle of Modern American Politics. 2003. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
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Byron Shafer, and Anthony J. Badger, eds., Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775-2000. 2001. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
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Current Courses taught for Spring 2012-2013
900 - Topics: Macrotheories of American Politics
Instructors: Byron Shafer Field: American Politics
Section Number: 002
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904 - Seminar: Macrotheories of American Politics
Instructors: Byron Shafer Field: American Politics
Section Number: 002
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