Suzanne Mettler is an American political scientist and author, known for her research about the way Americans view and respond to the government in their lives, and helping to stimulate the study of

American political development American political development (often abbreviated as APD) is a subfield of political science that studies the historical development of politics in the United States. In American political science departments, it is considered a subfield within Am ...

Education and career

Mettler received a B.A. from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

in 1984, a master's from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

(Urbana) in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

, 1989, and a Ph.D. from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in government, 1994. From 1994 to 2007 she taught at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

, rising from assistant professor to full professor at the

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Maxwell School) is the professional public policy school of Syracuse University, a private research university in Syracuse, New York. The school is organized in 11 academic departments and 1 ...

, Department of Political Science. Since July 2007, she has taught at

. Between 2007 and 2018, she held the position of

Clinton Rossiter Clinton Lawrence Rossiter III (September 18, 1917 – July 11, 1970) was an American historian and political scientist at Cornell University (1947-1970) who wrote ''The American Presidency'', among 20 other books, and won both the Bancroft Prize ...

Professor of American Institutions, Department of Government,

. Since 2018, she serves as the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell. She received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 2019.

Works

Mettler co-edited the'' Oxford Handbook of American Political Development'' (2016). Mettler subscribes to the subfield of political science called American political development (APD), which recognizes the need for an analytic approach to researching and understanding U.S. politics. She feels there is a distinctiveness of the APD approach, which studies "the causes, nature, and consequences of key transformative periods and central patterns in American

political history Political history is the narrative and survey of political events, ideas, movements, organs of government, voters, parties and leaders. It is closely related to other fields of history, including diplomatic history, constitutional history, soci ...

," as well the "durable shifts in governing authority" in the United States. Mettler has been described as a prominent Americanist scholar in this relatively new field, which blurs the border between political science and political history. Her particular interests include inequality, democratization and civic engagement. She has written six books, most prominently two winners of the Kammerer Award of the

American Political Science Association The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political scientists in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, it publishes four ...

for the best book on U.S. national policy: ''Soldiers to Citizens: The

G.I. Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...

and the Making of the Greatest Generation'', 2005 (Oxford University Press), and ''Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy'', 1998 (Cornell University Press), which also won the Greenstone Book Prize and the Martha Dertick Book Award. Other books include ''The Government-Citizen Disconnect'' (Russell Sage 2018);'' Degrees of Inequality: How The Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream'' (Basic Books 2014); ''The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Programs Undermine American Democracy'' (University of Chicago 2011); and ''Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy'' (St. Martin’s Press, 2020), co-authored with Robert C. Lieberman. Mettler has written for a broader audience with publications in ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

L.A. Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', ''

Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit organization, nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership or ...

'', and

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

. The election of Trump heightened Mettler's concerns about the future of American democracy. In 2017, Mettler initiated the American Democracy Collaborative, a group of political scientists "who are evaluating the health of democracy in the United States".

Selected op-eds and short essays

*"Our Hidden Government Benefits", ''The New York Times'', September 11, 2011 *"Why Skimp On the G.I. Bill", ''Los Angeles Times'', November 11, 2011 *"20,000 Leagues Under the State", ''

Washington Monthly ''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine primarily covering United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine also publishes an annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which ser ...

'', July, 2011 *"We Are the 96 Percent", with John M. Sides, ''The New York Times'', September 25, 2012 *"College, the Great Unleveler", ''The New York Times'', March 1, 2014 *"5 Things You Didn't Know About for-Profits",

The Century Foundation The Century Foundation (established first as The Cooperative League and then the Twentieth Century Fund) is a progressive think tank headquartered in New York City with an office in Washington, D.C. It was founded as a nonprofit public policy r ...

, March 19, 2014 *"Why should we care about public opinion about Obamacare", with Lawrence Jacobs, '' The Hill'', July 25, 2016 *"Democracy On the Brink, Protecting the Republic in Trump's America", ''Foreign Affairs'', August 2017 *"The Welfare Bogeyman", ''The New York Times'', July 23, 2018

References

External links

Why is trust in federal government at an all-time lowAmericans hate big government even when they benefitInvisible government policies may surprise youACA provisions beyond healthcare unseen by publicGovernment citizen disconnect
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mettler, Suzanne Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Cornell University alumni Boston College alumni Syracuse University faculty American women political scientists American political scientists Cornell University faculty American women academics 21st-century American women