Institute of Governmental Studies

The Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) is an interdisciplinary organized research unit at UC Berkeley, located in Philosophy Hall. It was founded in 1919 as the Bureau of Public Administration. IGS and its affiliated centers spearhead and promote research, programs, seminars and colloquia, training, educational activities and public service in the fields of politics and public policy, with a strong focus on national and California politics. Current IGS research focuses include institutional policy and design, political reform, term limits, campaign finance, redistricting, direct democracy, presidential and gubernatorial politics, representative government, the politics of race and ethnicity, immigration and globalization.

Faculty

IGS has an active interdisciplinary core faculty that draws from several schools and departments. In addition to political science, those disciplines include sociology, public policy, law, business, and history. The core faculty have published widely on many topics within the areas of institutional design, policy and politics. In addition, several of them have extensive experience working with governments, the media, and public commissions, adding a practical perspective to their work on institutional design and reform issues. Click here to view a full list of affiliate faculty.

Affiliated Research Centers

The Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service

Berkeley Center for Globalization and Information Technology

Berkeley IGS Poll

Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative (BIMI)

Center for Community Innovation (CCI)

Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP)

IGS Library

Visiting Scholars Program

Programs Within IGS

Cal-in-Sacramento Fellowship Program

Democracy Camp

John Gardner Public Service Fellowship Program

Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellows in Government Service

Matsui Center Washington Fellowship

Research

IGS has demonstrated in recent years an ability to organize and fund path-breaking research in the areas of institutional design and reform. The Constitutional Revision and Blanket Primary projects drew together scholars from across the UC system and in several disciplines to analyze important contemporary institutional issues — for instance, how should the California Constitution be reformed? What impact has the change in primary rules had on the political system? In addition, IGS sponsors an extensive array of seminars on topics from game theory to political history, creating an intellectually stimulating environment that facilitates new advances in the social sciences.

Resources and facilities

Part of the IGS mission is facilitating and disseminating research. IGS has several resources that cannot be found anywhere else in the state that allow it to play this role. The IGS Library is a valuable and unique national collection of fugitive research materials. IGS Press is a small press publisher and has entered into more formal collaborations with the University of California Press and other campus social science units. The Institute publishes an occasional magazine called The Public Affairs Report and a new e-journal called the California Journal of Politics and Policy.

Public service

In addition to conferences and seminars, IGS provides valuable public service to the campus and state of California in various ways. The Institute regularly hosts visits by public officials to the campus and provides outreach to state government leaders. The institute is the key campus resource for information about politics and public policy for members of the press and general public. The IGS Library answers thousands of public queries every year and recently launched a 2.0 website that has received much acclaim for its ability to break down state propositions in a clear and accessible manner.

IGS Library

The Institute of Governmental Studies Library is one of the nation’s oldest academic libraries focusing on public administration, public affairs, and public policy. A central part of the Bureau of Public Administration, the library was founded in 1920 by Samuel May.

The library holds more than 400,000 volumes and has one of the largest collections at UC Berkeley. Most materials are held in the closed stacks in the basement of Philosophy Hall. It features a reading room, a private study space, scanning and computing resources, and a reference collection accessible to members of the UC Berkeley community as well as members of the public. The library regularly circulates a large number of monographs while providing onsite access to restricted materials. Reference services are provided upon request.

The library houses a large number of historical and modern monographs, serials, newspapers, pamphlets, ephemera files, and government documents. Holdings cover a range of topics including election studies, government administration, political movements, and public finance. Special collections include folders containing campaign ephemera from state and local races; reapportionment files and maps used by the state legislature during reapportionment efforts; and records used in early studies of campaign finance in the United States. In 1977, the Library became a depository for California local government publications. In addition, the library regularly publishes online guides and endorsement tables covering California state ballot measures.

IGS Directors

The Institute of Governmental Studies, now in its tenth decade on the Berkeley campus, began life in 1919 as the Bureau of Public Administration.

The list of IGS Directors includes the following prominent scholars:

Samuel C. May (1921-55)

May earned his M.A. in political science at Columbia University in 1920. The University of California’s ninth president, David P. Barrows, brought May to Berkeley to define and develop the new field of public administration.

Milton Chernin (Acting Director, 1955-58)

Chernin received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1937. He authored numerous monographs on California’s correctional institutions with Berkeley’s Bureau of Public Administration, the predecessor of IGS.

Dwight Waldo (1958-67)

Considered the defining figure in contemporary public administration, Waldo received his doctorate from Yale. Some of his notable publications include The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Adminsitration (1984), The Study of Public Administration (1955), and Perspectives on Administration (1956).

Eugene C. Lee (1967-88)

Lee was the first chairman of the Commision on California State Government Organization and Economy. He earned both his master’s and doctorate from Berkeley. His works include The Politics of Nonpartisanship (1960), and — co-authored — The Challenge of California, The Multicampus University, and Managing Multicampus Systems (1971).

Nelson W. Polsby (1988-99)

Earning both his master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale University, Polsby was editor of the American Political Science Review from 1971-77. His published works focus on American politics, including Political Innovation in America (1984), Congress and the Presidency (1986), and How Congress Evolves (2004).

Bruce E. Cain (1999-2007)

Cain received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He contributed greatly to the field of election law and political regulation. Published works include The Reapportionment Puzzle (1984), The Personal Vote (1987), and Congressional Redistricting (1991).

Jack Citrin (2007-2017)

Since earning his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1969, Citrin’s research has focused on political trust, taxing and spending policies, ethnic politics, the future of national identity, and immigration and language politics. His published works include Tax Revolt, Something for Nothing in California (1982), How Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Shape the California Electorate (2002), and American Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism (2014).

Lisa García Bedolla (2017-2019)

Lisa García Bedolla is Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies and Chancellor’s Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. García Bedolla’s research focuses on how marginalization and inequality structure the political and educational opportunities available to members of ethnoracial groups, with a particular emphasis on the intersections of race, class, and gender. Her current projects include an analysis of how technology can facilitate voter mobilization among voters of color in California and a historical exploration of the race, gender, and class inequality at the heart of the founding of California's public school system.

Cristina Mora and Eric Schickler (2019-present)

Associate Professor Cristina Mora (Sociology) completed her B.A. in Sociology at UC Berkeley in 2003 and earned her PhD in Sociology from Princeton University in 2009. Before returning to Cal, she was a Provost Postdoctoral Scholar in Sociology at the University of Chicago. Professor Mora’s research focuses mainly on questions of racial and ethnic categorization, organizations, and immigration. Her book, Making Hispanics, was published in 2014 by the University of Chicago Press and provides a socio-historical account of the rise of the “Hispanic/Latino” panethnic category in the United States. This work, along with related articles, has received wide recognition, including the 2010 Best Dissertation Award and the 2018 Early Career Award (SREM) from the American Sociological Association.

Eric Schickler is Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of three books which have won the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics: Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the United States Senate (2006, with Gregory Wawro), and Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (2016, with Douglas Kriner; also winner of the Richard E. Neustadt Prize for the best book on executive politics). His book, Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965, was the winner of the Woodrow Wilson Prize for the best book on government, politics or international affairs published in 2016, and is co-winner of the J. David Greenstone Prize for the best book in history and politics from the previous two calendar years. He is also the co-author of Partisan Hearts and Minds, which was published in 2002. He has authored or co-authored articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Polity, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Social Science History. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of American politics, the U.S. Congress, rational choice theory, American political development, and public opinion.

External links

• Official website