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 Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

in 1984, a Masters from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

(Urbana) in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

, 1989, and a Ph.D. from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

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. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

, 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 13 ...

, Department of Political Science. Since July, 2007, she has been the

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 a ...

Professor of American Institutions, Department of Government, Cornell University. She received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

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, social ...

," 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 five books, most prominently two winners of the

Kammerer Kammerer is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Andreas Kammerer, German physicist and amateur astronomer * Carl Kammerer (born 1937), American football player * Charlene P. Kammerer, bishop of The United Methodist Church ...

Award of the

American Political Science Association The American Political Science Association (APSA) is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903 in the Tilton Memorial Library (now Tilton Hall) of Tulane University in New Orleans, ...

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

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

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); and, ''The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Programs Undermine American Democracy'' (University of Chicago 2011). Mettler has written for a broader audience with publications in ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

L.A. Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', ''

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

'', and

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

. 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 of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine is known for its annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which serves as an alternat ...

'', July, 2011 *"We Are the 96 Percent", with

John M. Sides John M. Sides is an American political scientist. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996, and pursued a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. Sides then began his teaching career as an assistant pro ...

, ''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 ...

, 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