I am a political scientist specializing in U.S. public policy. I received both my PhD (political science) and MPP from Berkeley. Before moving to UVa in 2002, I held faculty positions at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and the Yale Political Science Department. My research explores how political factors shape the performance of American national government and its capacity to solve problems and sustain long-term policy commitments. I have studied the origins and political development of the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs; the politics of government trust funds; political conflicts over evidence-based medicine; and the strategic use of pork projects to build winning coalitions in Congress.
 My book Reforms at Risk: What Happens After Major Policy Changes Are Enacted (Princeton University Press, 2008), was awarded the 2009 Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration.  My new edited book (with Jeffery A. Jenkins) Living Legislation: Durability, Change and the Politics of American Lawmaking was published in 2012 by University of Chicago Press. My other books include: Promoting the General Welfare: New Perspectives on Government Performance (co-edited with Alan S. Gerber, Brookings Institution Press, 2006) and Putting Trust in the U.S. Budget: Federal Trust Funds and the Politics of Commitment (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
I am a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. My essays have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Governance, P.S., Policy Sciences, Health Affairs, Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law, Social Service Review, and in many edited volumes. My current major research project (with Alan Gerber, Yale) explores the politics of evidence-based medicine. Our research is supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator's Award in Health Policy Research (press release) and the Smith Richardson Foundation. A recent Health Affairs article of ours is here
My paper (with Julian Zelizer) "When Policy Does Not Remake Politics: The Limits of Policy Feedback" won the award for the best paper on public policy delivered at the 2009 American Political Science Association conference. My wife Deborah Gordon is a Nonresident Senior Fellow for the Carnegie Endowment. See: Deborah Gordon
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