Weidenbaum Center Forum explores whether America is as bitterly divided as media suggests, March 28

March 22, 2005 -- Morris Fiorina, author of a new book on the perceived deep divide between America's "red" and "blue" states, will lead a discussion on "Polarization, Tolerance, and the State of American Public Opinion" in a community forum at 7:30 p.m. March 28, in May Auditorium, Simon Hall.

James L. Gibson, Ph.D., the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University, will join Fiorina for public discussion of his comments.

Sponsored by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, the event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Melinda Warren at (314) 935-5652; warren@wc.wustl.edu or visit the Weidenbaum Center Web page at wc.wustl.edu.

Fiorina, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, is the author of "Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America," which maintains that most Americans stand in the middle of the political landscape, preferring centrist candidates from either party to the extreme partisans who often emerge from the primary process.

Fiorina, who specializes in elections, public opinion and Congress, contends that political parties and the media have distorted the reality of most Americans' actual views about the social, political and economic issues of the past 30 years.

"Increasingly, we hear politicians, interest group leaders, and assorted 'activists' speak half-truths to the American people," Fiorina said. "They tell us that the United States is split right down the middle, bitterly and deeply divided about national issues, when the truth is more nearly the opposite."

Speaker Biographies

Morris Fiorina

Morris P. Fiorina is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Formerly he was the Frank Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he taught from 1982-1998. From 1972-1982 he taught at the California Institute of Technology. Professor Fiorina's research focuses on legislative and electoral processes with particular emphasis on the ways in which political institutions and procedures facilitate or distort the representation of citizen preferences. He has just published "Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America" with Samuel J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope (Pearson Longman, 2004). Earlier he published numerous articles and books including The New American Democracy (Allyn & Bacon, 1998), Divided Government (2nd edition, Allyn & Bacon, 1996), and Home Style and Washington Work, coedited with David Rohde (University of Michigan Press, 1989). "The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence," coauthored with Bruce Cain and John Ferejohn (Harvard University Press, 1987), won the 1988 Richard F. Fenno Prize. He is also co-editor of Continuity and Change in House Elections (Stanford University Press and Hoover Press, 2000). A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Professor Fiorina currently serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals, including American Political Research, British Journal of Political Science, Congress and the Presidency, Journal of Law, and Economics and Organization. From 1986 to 1990 he was chairman of the Board of Overseers of the American National Election Studies. Professor Fiorina received his B.A. degree from Allegheny College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester.

James L. Gibson

James L. Gibson is the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Gibson received his B.A. (with highest honors) from Emory University in 1972, and his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1975. He taught at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee from 1975 until 1983, when he joined the faculty at the University of Houston. In 1996, he was named Cullen Distinguished Professor. He joined the Political Science Department at Washington University in 1999. Gibson has research interests in most areas of political science, including comparative politics (especially processes of democratization), American politics (including political parties, public opinion, and especially courts and legal processes), and all areas of quantitative research methods (especially survey research). He has published in virtually every major political journal (from the American Political Science Review to the British Journal of Political Science), has co-authored two books, and his research has received several citations for excellence. Gibson is currently working on studies of a) the consolidation of democratization in Russia, b) political tolerance, justice, and the initiation of democratic reform in South Africa, c) law, legal values, legal consciousness in Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Spain, and the United States, and d) the legitimacy of judicial and legal institutions throughout the world. Gibson is immediate past president of the Midwest Political Science Association.