Shawn Rosenberg is a Canadian author, academic and a researcher. He is a Professor of Political Science & Psychological Science at
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...
. His research focuses on cognition and political ideology, candidate image-making, the decline of democracy and the rise of populism. In an article on ''
Politico
''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
'', he was called "one of the lions" of the field of political psychology.
He was the founding Director of the Graduate Program in Political Psychology at UC Irvine. He has been a member of the editorial board of various journals including ''Political Psychology'', ''Interdisciplinary Journal of Populism''. His research has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Politico.com and several other newspapers and magazines.
Education
Rosenberg was born in
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...
and was raised in Canada, the US and Mexico. He received his Bachelors in Political Science from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
in 1972. He then did graduate study in Psychology at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
and sociology at
Nuffield College, Oxford
Nuffield College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer c ...
. Rosenberg received his Masters of Letters Degree in Political Sociology and Psychology from
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
in 1982. He was then a Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science and Psychology at Yale University.
Career
Rosenberg was first employed as a Lecturer of Political Science at Yale University. In 1981, he accepted a position of Assistant Professor at University of California, Irvine where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1988 and to Professor of Political Science & Psychological Science in 2000. During his tenure at University of California, he served as founding Director of Political Psychology Graduate Program from 1991 till 2014. He has a been a Fellow of the Princeton University Center for Human Values and a Visiting Professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, the
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...
, the
University of Utrecht
Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollm ...
and
Lund University
, motto = Ad utrumque
, mottoeng = Prepared for both
, established =
, type = Public research university
, budget = SEK 9 billion Alastair Gillespie, Minister of State for Science and Technology, Canada and as a speechwriter for the
James C. Corman
James Charles Corman (October 20, 1920 – December 30, 2000) was an American politician who served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council from 1957 to 1961 and as a member of the United States House of Representatives between 1961 and 1981. ...
, US House of Representatives.
Research
In his research, Rosenberg has theorized about the nature of political psychology and has conducted significant empirical research on ideology, and political cognition, candidate image making citizen development and
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
. Much of Rosenberg's early work focuses on defining political psychology and its relationship to the other social sciences. In this vein, he has critically examined the psychological presuppositions of
neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
and its applicability to the study of political behavior. He argues that there is necessarily an important disconnect between government policy initiatives and the choices citizens make to realize their preferences.
Addressing
political sociology
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...
, Rosenberg similarly suggests that citizen attitudes and behaviors cannot adequately be explained by their social situation or cultural context. Rather than being simple learners, citizens actively reconstruct the information to which they are exposed. Throughout Rosenberg argues there is a need to recognize the quasi-independent structure of how people think. At several points in his writing, he has developed his ‘structural pragmatic’ view of political psychology to integrate the individualism of psychology and the collectivism of sociology. In so doing, he also addresses the necessarily intertwined relationship between
empirical research
Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of on ...
and normative inquiry.
Rosenberg's empirical research has focused on the study of political ideology and cognition. In several books, he has proposed that there is a single structuring logic underlies the various political views an individual holds. He further argues that over time this underlying logic may develop and the broad quality of how a person thinks about politics will thus change. Where individuals have developed to different degrees, this can lead to stark differences in the understanding of political events they construct. Rosenberg has conducted both in-depth interviews and experiments to substantiate his claims. The evidence suggests that adults construct fundamentally different understandings of the basic nature of nationality, citizenship, governance and international relations.
Rosenberg shifted his attention to the study of democracy in the early 2000s. To begin he focused on deliberative democracy. He argued that research needs to attend less to the impact of deliberation on participants' attitudes and more on the quality of the deliberation itself. To facilitate this he developed a typology of forms of deliberative engagement ranging from a very simplistic, restrictive proto-discourse through a largely uncritical conventional discourse to a more reflective, creative collaborative discourse. In his empirical research, Rosenberg demonstrated that in the self-directed citizen deliberations, there is a worrying lack of the more reflective, critical kind of discourse typically assumed by democratic theorists.
With the rise of
populism
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term develope ...
, Rosenberg has deployed his political psychological approach to assess the attractiveness of illiberal populisms and the concomitant weakness of democracy in the US and Europe. In ''Democracy Devouring Itself,'' he argues that
liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...
is overly complicated and abstract, and thus alienating for most citizens. In contrast, populism, with its clear categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and its simple
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
view of power, offers a vision that is more readily understood and thus more comfortably embraced. Consequently, when free to make the choice, people reject liberal democratic concepts and institutions in favor of the populist alternative.
Awards and honors
*1989 - Erik H. Erikson Award for Early Career Achievement, International Society for Political Psychology
*1990 - Outstanding Book Award, Association of University and College Libraries
Selected publications
*''Political Reasoning and Cognition: A Piagetian View'' (Duke University Press, 1988)
*''Reason, Ideology and Politics'' (Princeton University Press,1988)
*''The Not So Common Sense: How People Judge Social and Political Life'' (Yale University Press, 2002)
*''Deliberation, Participation and Democracy: Can the People Govern?'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)