Lawrence C. Dodd
Manning J. Dauer Eminent Scholar in Political Science
Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1972
Email:ldodd@polisci.ufl.edu
Home Page: click here
How and why do democratic institutions develop and sustain their adaptability and resilience?
Virtually all of my scholarly work focuses on this puzzle. Across this work has emerged a theory arguing that the resilience of democratic politics results from (1) the long-term and reasoned pursuit of personal interests by citizens and elites, with elections and legislatures being critical arenas designed to mediate such goal pursuits; (2) their mutual crafting of sociopolitical institutions (particularly electoral processes and legislative organizations) in ways that facilitate these goal pursuits within existing societal conditions; and (3) their collective learning of new political paradigms by which to better understand their interests and recraft sociopolitical institutions in response to new social conditions.
I developed this theory out of early work on European and British Commonwealth Parliaments and in my career-long study of the U.S. Congress. I am currently utilizing it to explain the Republican Revolution in Congress during the 1990s and the enactment and effect of terms limits and electoral reform over the past two decades in the California and Indiana state legislatures. My coauthor (Leslie Anderson) and I are also drawing on it to understand the emergence and growing resilience of electoral democracy in post-revolutionary Nicaragua.
My homepage elaborates on my research interests and publications and provides a link to a recent essay, "ReEnvisioning Congress," which applies the theory to the contemporary Congress.
