University of Minnesota
Department of Political Science
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612-624-4144


Department of Political Science

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History of Political Psychology at Minnesota

The study of political psychology was launched formally in the fall of 1993 with the establishment of the PhD Minor. Two years later the CSPP was established as an additional platform for the interdisciplinary study of political psychology. In the ensuing years, we have built a robust program. The core faculty, who are working actively with graduate students in the program, include colleagues in political science, psychology and mass communications. Many other colleagues across the University of Minnesota provide occasional support and are formally associated with this program.

We have served a large number of students from the three departments mentioned above, over 80 PhD students. The program also has several PhD graduates from other departments. We have created and built—from the ground up—a vibrant and successful program that has a very strong representation in the international political psychology community. Our program has a very long history of involving graduate students in the research process, from brainstorming ideas and theories to writing and obtaining grants to data collection and analysis through to manuscript preparation, submission and final publication. We have done this for dozens of PhD students who have helped publish several hundred publications in top journals in psychology, political science, mass communications and political psychology.

Our students currently hold faculty positions at top research universities such as the University of Wisconsin, the University of North Carolina, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Pennsylvania, Tel Aviv University, Stony Brook University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Kentucky, and many others. We have also helped to train a large number of faculty who now teach at top liberal-arts colleges such as Oberlin College, the College of Wooster, the University of Minnesota Morris, St. Olaf College, Hamline University, and many others.

These former students hold positions of leadership in this interdisciplinary field—three of our graduates have served editors of the field’s international journal, Political Psychology, and many of them serve or have served as officers and leaders in the field’s top two associations, the International Society of Political Psychology and the Political Psychology section of the American Political Science Association. Some of our graduates who now serve as senior leaders in the field include Stanley Feldman, Pamela Conover, Michael Delli Carpini, Mark Peffley, Jon Hurwitz, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Howard Lavine, Wendy Rahn, David Peterson, Daniel Stevens, Dhavan Shah, and many others.

Affiliated Faculty (XLS)

Center for the Study of Political Psychology
1231 Social Sciences Tower
267 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-624-0864
Email: ppcenter@umn.edu
Directions: Social Sciences Building