UCSB Department of Political Science - M. Stephen Weatherford, Professor

Contact Information

Department of Political Science
Mailcode #9420
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9420

Phone: (805) 893-3432
Advising: (805) 893-4192
Fax: (805) 893-3309

M. Stephen Weatherford, Professor

American Politics, Politics of Public Policy, Political Economy, Representation, Methodology, Public Opinion and Elections
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Ph.D., Stanford University, 1976

Professor Weatherford's research has ranged over questions of representation, political behavior and political economy, mainly in the context of U.S. politics. On public opinion and participation, his publications include articles on economic voting, political trust, party realignment, and democratic deliberation.

On political economy, he has written on presidential leadership in economic policy-making and on economic policy coordination between the U.S. and Japan. Two active research projects include a survey of U.S. economic policymaking in the post-WWII years, and a study of community- and state-level innovations in deliberative democracy.

Courses Taught:

PS 104	Introduction to Research Methods in Political Science
PS 106	Deliberative Democracy
PS 153	Interest Groups and Public Policy
PS 203	Conduct of Inquiry
PS 215	Seminar on American Government and Politics
PS 253	Interest Groups and Social Movements

Selected Recent Publications:
"Comparing Presidents' Economic Policy Leadership," Perspectives on Politics 7:3 (September 2009), pp. 537-60.

"Deliberation with a Purpose: Reconnecting Communities and Schools" (with Lorraine M. McDonnell), in Can the People Decide? Theory and Empirical Research in Democratic Deliberation, ed. Shawn Rosenberg (Palgrave, 2007).

"Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: The Stages of Presidential Decision-Making" (with Thomas Knecht), International Studies Quarterly 50:3 (September 2006), pp. 705-27.

"Ronald Reagan as Legislative Advocate: Passing the Reagan Revolution's budgets in 1981 and 1982" (with Lorraine M. McDonnell), Congress and the Presidency 32:1 (Spring 2005), pp. 1-30.

"Presidential Leadership and Ideological Consistency: Were there 'Two Eisenhowers' in Economic Policy?" Studies in American Political Development 16:2 (Fall 2002), pp. 111-137.

"After the Critical Election: Presidential Leadership, Competition, and the Consolidation of the New Deal Realignment," British Journal of Political Science 32 (Spring, 2002), pp. 221-257.