NEWS

Susan Stokes, Faculty Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, recently published an opinion piece in Project Syndicate, "Inequality Spurs Democratic Backsliding." The piece draws on research from the center that shows that countries with higher income inequality...

Susan Stokes, Faculty Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was quoted in The Atlantic's article, "What Trump's Total GOP Control Means Next" (June 6, 2024). Among her contributions to the piece is: The strong message of the near-universal Republican...

Susan Stokes, the Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was quoted in the ABC News article, "Americans think democracy is in peril in the 2024 election" (February 1, 2024). Among her viewpoints expressed in the article: "I...

Susan Stokes, Faculty Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, today published an opinion piece in Project Syndicate, "Neutralizing Trump's Big Lies." The description of the piece is: Donald Trump’s falsehoods about the federal case against him threaten to...

Three centers at the University of Chicago—the Center for Effective Government, the Chicago Center on Democracy, and the Center in Paris—recently convened a group of scholars and practitioners in Paris for a set of roundtables on vulnerabilities to democracy. Those...

In an op-ed published in Project Syndicate on January 10, Susan Stokes discusses the recent attack on government buildings in Brazil: the country's "own version of January 6" in the United States. The piece argues that: "When aspiring dictators are not held...

Susan Stokes, Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was recently a guest on WNYC's "The Takeaway" radio program. On the second anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, this program looked at the "state of democracy here in the United States and abroad,...

The Chicago Center on Democracy's Director Susan Stokes spoke on KNX radio in Los Angeles about the recent attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi. Her interview begins around minute 6:08: "We're in a very violent period, a period of tremendous violent...

Susan Stokes, director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, recently talked with Wisconsin Public Radio about the proposed constitutional amendment in Wisconsin that would allow citizen initiatives in the state. In addition, she wrote an op-ed, "Direct democracy can...

Susan Stokes, Faculty Director of CCD, and two collaborators (Eli Rau and Radha Sarkar) last week published a Monkey Cage piece in the Washington Post: "Kansas voted for abortion rights. What does that mean for the midterms?" It draws on research to help explain the...

On January 20, 2022, Susan Stokes, Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, participated in a conversation looking back at the first year of the Biden administration. It was broadcast on WTTW, the Chicago-area PBS member television station. Watch the segment...

Susan Stokes, Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was quoted in several articles about the one-year anniversary of the January 6 Capitol insurrection: "January 6 laid bare our national fissures. One year later, the day's memories still divide us" (USA Today,...

Susan Stokes, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, discussed President Joe Biden's Democracy Summit in two recent news articles. The first, "Biden convenes ‘democracy summit’ as America’s system grows imperiled" (Los Angeles...

Susan Stokes, director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was quoted extensively in the USA Today story, "The 'gaffe machine' gets a tuneup: Joe Biden stays surprisingly on message as president" (May 23, 2021). One of her quotes: "The majority of Americans thought...

Susan Stokes, Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, has been selected as one of the next Carnegie Fellows, an award administered by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This $200,000 award will allow Stokes to develop a book, tentatively titled How Would-Be...

Susan Stokes, Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was in the news twice this week: In a radio interview on WBUR's "On Point" program, talking with host Meghna Chakrabarti about what recent anti-protest bills reveal about the state of U.S. democracy. (Listen...

Sue Stokes, Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, spoke about referendums and political power on March 10, 2021 as part of a panel organized by the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. She addressed the question: Does direct democracy increase democratic...

      During the turbulence of the last few months, faculty members connected with the Chicago Center on Democracy contributed to the public conversation about democracy in the United States. Below are some of the recent news stories. Stories that...

Two articles published today—one in the Washington Post and the other in the New Yorker—cover Bright Line Watch's recent surveys. Bright Line Watch is a multi-university initiative, housed at the Chicago Center on Democracy, that conducts regular surveys to gauge...

Bright Line Watch, a multi-university initiative housed at CCD to monitor the state of U.S. democracy, has produced the results of its 12th survey wave, conducted from October 5-16, 2020. Political scientists and a subset of the American public assessed the quality of...

A new op-ed in the Seattle Times, written by CCD faculty director Susan Stokes, discusses how Donald Trump's rhetoric should itself be considered an attempt to sabotage the 2020 presidential election. Read the op-ed: "Don’t be misled by Trump’s brazen election...

Bright Line Watch, a multi-university initiative housed at CCD, has produced two new reports illuminating how Americans view the current state of U.S. democracy. First, Bright Line Watch has completed its latest survey of experts, its 11th since 2017, to gauge views...

Susan Stokes, faculty director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, was a featured guest on WBUR's On Point program this past Tuesday, August 25, 2020. She discussed the politicization of U.S. institutions, in particularly the postal service. She explained that there...

In a recent Harper Lecture, Prof. Susan Stokes, faculty director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, examined protests in the context of the global pandemic. In a conversation moderated by Kevin Kromash, CCD Senior Research Associate, Prof. Stokes drew from her...

Susan Stokes, CCD's faculty director, participated in a conversation about "Will U.S. Protests Lead to Change?" on the Wilson Center NOW program. She discusses the current Black Lives Matter movement and global protests over the killing of George Floyd. Stokes also...

Why Bother?: Rethinking Participation in Elections and Protests, co-authored by CCD faculty director Susan Stokes and S. Erdem Aytaç, has received the 2020 David O. Sears Book Award from the International Society of Political Psychology. This award is given for the...

Bright Line Watch, an initiative housed at the Chicago Center on Democracy, has released a new report, based on its most recent survey of political scientists and a representative sample of the United States, conducted March 12 - April 15, 2020. The survey results...

A paper by Susan Stokes, the Chicago Center on Democracy's Faculty Director, was referenced in a New York Times opinion piece by Thomas Edsall on April 15, 2020. The paper, Beyond Opportunity Costs: Campaign Messages, Anger and Turnout among the Unemployed, was...

Susan Stokes, faculty chair of the Chicago Center on Democracy, has co-authored a new essay in The Wilson Quarterly on the rise of mass protests over the past decade. She and her co-author, S. Erdem Aytaç, describe the mass demonstrations that have taken place across...

In January 2020, the Chicago Center on Democracy won a $220,000 grant from the United Nations Democracy Fund to embark upon a two-year project to develop a set of publicly available tools that will shed light on key areas of democratic functioning. The United Nations...

The Chicago Center on Democracy brought a panel of esteemed scholars together on November 22nd, 2019, to discuss the comparative politics of impeachment. Participating in the conversation were Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq, professors of Law at the University of Chicago,...

The Chicago Center on Democracy is the home of Bright Line Watch, a multi-university initiative to monitor the state of U.S. democracy. We do this by administering a regular survey to political scientists and a representative sample of the American public about how...

Adam Przeworski, Professor of Politics at NYU, one of the world’s leading thinkers on democracy, visited University of Chicago on November 5th to participate in a conversation on the topic: “Are we in a crisis of democracy?” Susan Stokes, Faculty Chair of the Chicago...

The Chicago Center on Democracy had the privilege of organizing a summer internship for five undergraduate students this past summer. We collaborated with Brown University, such that three UChicago students and two Brown students worked as a cohort on some innovative,...

Bright Line Watch, a multi-university initiative to monitor democratic practices, their resilience, and potential threats housed at the Chicago Center on Democracy, has released the latest update to its ongoing measurement of the state of U.S. democracy. In March...

Chicago Center on Democracy's March 5th conference on campaign finance reform, which we co-organized with the Paul Douglas Institute and Reform for Illinois, was recorded and broadcast by CAN TV, which is "an independent nonprofit established by the City of Chicago in...

The New Yorker recently covered Bright Line Watch's recent study that explores voters' commitment to democratic norms. These norms include respect for universal access to voting and deference to the decisions of courts (even when they believe the courts made the wrong...

Susan Stokes, Faculty Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy, recently spoke at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs about the use of isolationist rhetoric by politicians. She draws from a psychological framework called cognitive appraisal theory to explain why...