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

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.

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

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.