About

Henry E. Brady is the Class of 1941 Monroe Deutsch Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on public policy and political science, contributing to the academic community through his role at the Goldman School of Public Policy. As a distinguished faculty member, he is involved in research and teaching that emphasizes analytic rigor in the service of the public good, supporting the development of future policy leaders and advancing understanding in his field.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Political economy
• Sociology
• Law
• Public relations
• Economics
• Public administration

Selected publications

• Thinking about the Future

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-06-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The five projective inference methods of statistical forecasting and modeling, technological forecasting, constructing future scenarios, configurative analysis, and robust decision-making (RDM) evaluate the possibility, attainability, and sustainability of plans or projections about the future such as a new constitution for a fledgling democratic republic in 1787–89, a transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, and a California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) in 2006. This chapter considers these five approaches to the projective inference problem of portraying causal relationships leading to future outcomes. The first two (statistical and technological forecasting) ask what is likely and focus on determining the probabilities of relationships and outcomes. The second two (scenario and configurative analysis) ask what is possible and best and focus on the values embedded in outcomes. The last one (RDM) asks what must be avoided or can be adventitiously exploited and focuses on robust actions and decision-rules to produce acceptable and sustainable outcomes. These different questions and emphases lead to different methods and procedures—all of which constitute legitimate forms of projective inference based upon modern understandings of scientific method reviewed in the last part of the paper. Because projective inference is important and because it poses special problems, political methodologists should pay more attention to it and develop better methods and standards for doing it.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2024-10-02

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Given human foibles and the difficulties of aggregating preferences, political theorists have been understandably concerned with whether democratic deliberation and the representation of individuals by delegates can produce democratic outcomes. Yet by focusing on these topics, they have neglected the American Founding Fathers’ concern with faction, and they have failed to understand and set standards for the vigorous competition among political parties, interest groups, and the media that is at the core of modern representative democracies. Because of this neglect, political theorists have missed a chance to do for politics what economists have done for economics through their detailed study of market failures and competitive successes within economic systems. In this book, Charles Beitz rectifies this mistake by considering the operation of the entire political system. He sets standards for political competition and uses empirical political science findings to determine when those standards are met or violated. The result moves us beyond a focus on deliberation by asking when representative systems work For the People? and when they fail to do so.

  PublisherDOI

• Sidney Verba

  Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge · 2023-12-01

  articleSenior author

  Abstract: This biographical memoir commemorates the life, work, and professional legacy of eminent political scientist Sidney Verba (1932-2019), who was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

  PublisherDOI

• Civic voluntarism

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-12-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This comprehensive and authoritative Encyclopedia, featuring entries written by academic experts in the field, explores the diverse topics within the discipline of political sociology. By looking at both macro- and micro-components, questions relating to nation-states, political institutions and their development, and the sources of social and political change such as social movements and other forms of contentious politics, are raised and critically analysed.

  PublisherDOI

• Protecting the integrity of survey research

  PNAS Nexus · 2023 · 25 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Political Science
  • Computer Security

  Although polling is not irredeemably broken, changes in technology and society create challenges that, if not addressed well, can threaten the quality of election polls and other important surveys on topics such as the economy. This essay describes some of these challenges and recommends remediations to protect the integrity of all kinds of survey research, including election polls. These 12 recommendations specify ways that survey researchers, and those who use polls and other public-oriented surveys, can increase the accuracy and trustworthiness of their data and analyses. Many of these recommendations align practice with the scientific norms of transparency, clarity, and self-correction. The transparency recommendations focus on improving disclosure of factors that affect the nature and quality of survey data. The clarity recommendations call for more precise use of terms such as "representative sample" and clear description of survey attributes that can affect accuracy. The recommendation about correcting the record urges the creation of a publicly available, professionally curated archive of identified technical problems and their remedies. The paper also calls for development of better benchmarks and for additional research on the effects of panel conditioning. Finally, the authors suggest ways to help people who want to use or learn from survey research understand the strengths and limitations of surveys and distinguish legitimate and problematic uses of these methods.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Science and Political Participation

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022 · 15 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract Citizen participation matters because public officials respond to those who make their voices heard. This chapter looks broadly at what political science has learned about political participation both recently and in the past. It keys new findings to the Civic Voluntarism Model, which goes beyond the earlier SES model and locates political participation in three interrelated sets of individual factors: resources such as time, money, and civic skills; psychological engagement with politics including strong commitments to political issues; and exposure to requests for activity and political mobilization efforts. Political participation is shaped by acquisition of these factors, which, in turn, depends upon experiences in social contexts—early on at home and in school and, during adulthood, in the workplace, religious institutions, and non-political organizations. Additional factors including such aspects of political context as the characteristics of political systems and institutions—most obviously ballot access laws and campaign-finance arrangements—also influence who takes part and how much.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  Daedalus · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science

  Should we trust major American political, economic, and social institutions when the people associated with those institutions are fallible and even, on occasion, venal or criminal? Do they really operate as trustworthy tribunes of the people? The public is doubtful.It is well known that trust in American government, especially in Congress and the executive branch, has been declining since the 1960s and 1970s: a period of social ferment, movements for political and social change, an unpopular war, and major government scandal.2 What is less well known is that the erosion of trust seems now to have spread to many supposedly nonpolitical institutions, including business, journalism, science, police, religion, medicine, and higher education.3 Concern about the reliability and competence of these institutions is stoked by news stories-and, more recently, social media attention-reporting malfeasance on Wall Street, errors in the media, fraud and conflicts of interest among scientists, misconduct by police, abuse of children by clergy, conflicting advice from public health experts, and admissions scandals in higher education. Efforts as varied as vaccinating the American public against a raging virus, reforming police departments tainted by racism, validating a presidential election, and addressing climate change have been thwarted by distrust in institutions and experts.The consequences of lack of trust depend not only on the level of trust and the range of institutions over which it extends but also on the extent to which the fault lines of distrust map onto other political, social, and economic conflicts. In a democracy, political parties function to organize social and economic conflict and make it relevant for politics. The extent to which party competition in the United States involves not just division but distrust has varied across history, but partisan distrust goes back to the nation's founding and the emergence of our first political parties. Jeffersonian Democrats vilified and distrusted “big government” Federalist John Adams when he became president. In turn, the Federalists distrusted Thomas Jefferson once he was in the White House. The culmination of this long history, partisan polarization is currently at its highest point in at least a century.4Partisan polarization over the past half-century has produced significant mutual distrust between the parties. What is perhaps more surprising and more worrisome, the pattern of partisan polarization of trust now maps onto trust in many supposedly apolitical institutions, including those that purport to cultivate and disseminate knowledge and information, provide security and protection, and establish and uphold fundamental social and ethical rules and norms. Where once political partisans had the same level of trust in most nonpolitical institutions except for business and labor, Democrats are now more likely than Republicans to trust higher education, journalism and tv news, public schools, medicine, and science. In turn, Republicans tend to trust the military, the police, and religion more than Democrats do.Should declining trust and polarized trust in nonpolitical institutions cause concern? Do they portend widening ideological battles, an erosion of institutional legitimacy, an increasing propensity to second guess experts and authorities, and an inability to get things done in society? The development of a partisan divide in trust in nonpolitical institutions places additional hurdles in the path of productive public debate and successful public policy. Governing becomes much more complicated when closed communities that differ on facts, science, morals, the rules of society, and worldview fail to communicate with one another, much less agree on compromise solutions. And institutions embroiled in constant partisan battles are hard-pressed to carry out the tasks they were designed to do. In short, distrust anchored in partisan, institutional, and cultural conflict hampers our capacity to come together to meet common challenges and solve shared problems.Central to our concerns in this issue of Dædalus are what institutions do and why trust matters for their success.5 Although we can trace some governing, religious, military, medical, and educational institutions back thousands of years, the modern profusion and rationalization of institutions dates to the nineteenth century with the rise of corporations, universities, hospitals, public education, nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, and the professions in response to urbanization, industrialization, and specialization.6 Scholars tell us that institutions structure, facilitate, and regulate behavior in particular areas of economic and social interactions, among them business, law, religion, education, journalism, the military, medicine, science, and policing.7 In higher education, for example, there are formal rules and informal norms that vary across universities and across fields of inquiry that define appropriate ways of interacting with students, disclosure of conflicts of interest in conducting scientific research, treatment of evidence that disconfirms hypotheses, and recognition of the contributions of those who assisted with research. Similarly, policing has standards for the training of police officers, the methods used to patrol a city, rules for interacting with the public and with suspects, guidelines for the use of force, and review boards to examine force incidents. All institutions have special rules and procedures that order and discipline them so that they can provide goods and services to people in acceptable ways.For institutions to be successful, these rules, standards, norms, regulations, training methods, and procedures must be seen as legitimate both by the stakeholders associated with them and by the public at large. Legitimacy can stem from four basic sources, and different institutions rely on different mixes of them.8 Legitimacy may stem from the political system sharing its regulatory authority with an institution-such as the military, police, or a corporation-based upon government's power of coercion to defend the nation, keep the peace, and to enforce contracts. As long as the institution conforms to the rules established by the government, it draws legitimacy from its relationship to the government in the form of laws or charters. Legitimacy may also come from adherence to culturally approved and accepted meanings and logics that are shaped by what is culturally appropriate for each institution, for example, in the practice of medicine, religion, education, and science. It may reside in moral and normative beliefs about how those in institutions behave, for example, in professional codes of ethics for law, medicine, religion, higher education, and journalism. Finally, it may come from pragmatic authority based on efficiency and high performance in, for example, corporations, science, or banks.To be seen as trustworthy, an institution must be seen as legitimate in at least one, and usually more than one, way. For example, corporations are legitimate if they stay within regulatory frameworks and do not overstep their authorities by becoming monopolies or watering their stock; if they reflect the standard, culturally acceptable practices for a corporation within a particular society by producing products that conform to cultural models and address cultural needs; if they adhere to the ethical and normative standards for businesses not only by eschewing bribery and other illegal practices but also by treating their employees, suppliers, and customers fairly and ethically; and if they produce an economically successful product. Failing on any of these dimensions risks a corporation's legitimacy, and hence its trustworthiness. Universities must also stay within regulatory frameworks and be financially viable, but evaluations of them are based more upon their cultural acceptability as centers of teaching and learning and their professional standards: their adherence to norms of free inquiry, freedom of speech, and seeking truth. Religious institutions must be especially attentive to their cultural legitimacy and their adherence to ethics and norms. Each institution holds or loses legitimacy according to its own weighting and mix of criteria.Presumably, if an institution is trustworthy, then people are more likely to trust it, have confidence in it, and accept its advice and decisions as legitimate.9 They expect that it will do the right thing in an uncertain future with respect to weighty matters that range from protecting their health and safety to providing them with information about public issues.During the last three years, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and election controversies brought into bold relief the importance of institutions to our health and well-being. Lack of trust in government, medicine, science, police, and election administration has made it difficult to overcome a pandemic, resolve concerns about public safety, and settle issues regarding an election. While the essays in this volume explore these issues in assorted contexts, a central theme is the challenge to institutional legitimacy given the overall in the trust and the polarization of that trust between Democrats and a when we most and institutional capacity to as one confidence in institutions is based upon both what we about them and upon what we about how they what they from the of and of in the relationship between knowledge and that is not that institutions and from some that of of do not of but are the same of social as political The same four that legitimate and pragmatic legitimate and the of in which a an one, in what matters are cultural as scientific or normative concerns as the of a or the of the methods that are and as the relationship of the or to order to accepted which the culturally ways in which expect the an and to be and to use in so involves three in the climate change and in a that with those who are from and to about what these as of for climate change and change and for and to between what is known and what is for example, to tell us how must be to a climate or economic models to how to with us that to these especially the can come from three from by the methods of and the from by and and the from by and moral of these methods are in a social that knowledge and for example, research, public and media and essays explore how well we have different institutions and the consequences of and polarized In of in in American and Thomas the from of from three that about in the institutions or the people the and the these provide information from on for four political executive branch, and the for nonpolitical those associated with the as business, Wall Street, and those to knowledge and information including the and tv news, public schools, education, higher education, and those norms and standards as the police, the military, and and those providing professional services as and in confidence in political institutions over the past has been especially for significant for the and the executive branch, and more but for the well known are the in confidence in nonpolitical As with the political institutions, the have not been the period from to with the period from to that confidence has for of these nonpolitical institutions, the same for one and only for the In most the over Wall Street, tv news, and the the most in to that for For public schools, medicine, business, and religion, the in confidence was more in to those for the and executive The in confidence was for law, education, and the to that for the were for higher and nonpolitical institutions have from a to only a with of of a and any at in the American public a of confidence in nonpolitical three institutions law, and only only institutions the military, science, higher education, police, education, and a of and institutions just that have only confidence in higher as have from that of institutions a of confidence to that only of a of with only some in partisan polarization of trust have the significant in In the only business and significant with Republicans business more than and Democrats more than the of nonpolitical institution except were more Republicans especially likely to trust police, religion, business, and Wall Street, and Democrats more than Republicans of tv news, labor, and public the nonpolitical institutions in which trust has for Wall Street, business, and an among partisans of the currently party especially the confidence of the party only or In the one in which trust among partisans of both parties and has is by the in confidence among the partisans of the more The in trust for the four institutions to the are about the same across the with change in trust for but significant for Wall Street, and Finally, confidence among political is than that of both Democrats and Republicans or between the for the of the parties. The in trust among those for the different of change for nonpolitical In some confidence in a particular institution may be to a with for example, across and a confidence in the military, or a confidence in and Wall In other have for confidence in a particular for example, the of police or the of a trust in the In a different a of especially an overall in trust in nonpolitical Although different including different party vary in their of confidence in nonpolitical institutions, operate more or less across to confidence in In a different there is a partisan of to a in trust among of one party or the upon the institution, in polarization in The at in complicated and to what is we must both the that have to a in trust and those that have to partisan polarization of are but are these In The of the of the about the of to about confidence in government may reflect which party is in with of the trust and those of the lack of seems relevant for trust in government, but it is to how it to trust in nonpolitical to the that to are not just to at with and other of lack of provide evidence that confidence in institutions has and that lack of trust in an institution is with an to have or a in or associated with that and that lack of trust in was to to public health guidelines the pandemic, but that trust in government was associated with to public health and that distrust in is associated with of to address climate that increasing trust in the police a more and to and that trust in religion is a of and that a for the is with to to use force to more and to In short, to be that is then are the that cause in trust for In in the on the of in journalism, that in trust from increasing about government and other institutions over the past The was the of to in which our to the of us that has at least in years, and the change of the not the political and cultural change of the in journalism of media the from to and in which is and and more of the have a education, which and nonprofit organizations, the news and the of by government and other is a to that of becoming trustworthy the development of then may these its constant and the of the in the of The in trust and polarization of trust in the and the and social media had of American The to in the with the of the and of used the in had by used social media by and had a by Although of trust to in the for many institutions, in the in trust and in polarization of trust at between about and as the became the rise of the in and and the and Black Lives but each was also in shaped by the importance of the to the matters a about who or what to trust is a social so is between in information and in social the of social media, the of and professional are of information and as on that of the of these and less social and the to the media from the of its the information is and public confidence in social media is of the American people that social media has a on the is and of that political partisans do not operate in a shared or shared moral it is as our and that of distrust in major institutions get at only of the about As and John tell us distrust medicine, they trust the and with they And that trust their election in trust may also from the within institutions that one or more for In the of a of how institutions have been by and they are the of moral and he to trust and of these is as for media produce that in and on for are in of that their in the police are distrusted by Black which to a of against In their as a on and that trust upon of and social and given their history, and institutions that and the public and the high of health is a of distrust in the In the among a of were the of health and shared by and of the In declining trust in higher seems to be to high their of in in the and explore trust in the which are to the four for and They some evidence for performance in but performance has a the high point for confidence in The high for ethical and but it is not how this has trust over of the in and on that may to confidence in the military, but the evidence is not to the are to confidence in the the on trust in the over is not are in confidence in the military, but the most is between Republicans and in in trust for election administration in The first is that the to the of and were more in the the election than they were in were also more polarized than from to that a to of Democrats were that were and In the of Republicans who were that were from in the of the election, in which to less than in in the election, of Democrats were that had been only of Republicans shared this second is of party are about to more likely to that their own was that different these based upon and the other by political for other institutions in which and who provide are but not the are but not the in the or with in the overall trust in the and why It is to why be to trust in government in the American in which the American most of the the of of with partisan but it is to why it be associated with trust in nonpolitical is partisan political to to and that have done just that for scientific about the of business practices on the and on public health to business and the of this made the that free was one of the of American government, that economic freedom political and that in business economic this in address in that is not the to our government is the into as that the most in the from the government, and to as to from and were made to on these and on the partisan divide over was by the partisan divide in and the distrust in is a from distrust and of also a by especially to election administration by that the election from In in in the of and a in trust in the as many the advice of respect to in party we that Republicans in their trust in the pandemic, Democrats and They that in and and health departments has more from than other information Finally, that the parties the and in the United States have of government and of many authorities, including scientific experts and different for polarization is that the of these institutions may be more partisan than in the by and that partisan and ideological to the people associated with many police, and are seen as and public and are as and are to on Republicans In has some evidence that at least some of the may be some professions have more partisan in their political contributions in the same ways on the if there is these we really do not about how the public has come to these and why the of institutional seems to so much in the of about a much of the that have the in trust and polarization in is to at the of the institutions over the past been of the the overall erosion of trust across institutions and the partisan polarization of trust in most institutions that we more for major social that have shaped these with social consequences is the in economic in which has been in the of social trust between in turn, is to other of is the in that has to much in a that has also been associated with the in social trust in especially when it is with And both of these have been associated with the partisan polarization of American that has been by the of partisan the of news, more recently, the emergence of social may have the distrust and that have us to we is the level of It is to trust institutions when they are not trustworthy, as we have from scandals that range from to the abuse of children by to the in trust in most institutions that public has since the a from what was much a level of is with the government, the media, labor, and and that high and of trust in the can have of trust in the may the of or some to the as political when which only to the over institutions and the trust it a on the most science, or other much trust of experts can to the in or the for the from trust can to what their for there are to there must be a basic level of trust for our institutions to operate It seems likely at least for some institutions, trust has so that their are The is to an appropriate polarization of trust is also a if it an institution into political with the that partisan will do just that by the media, medicine, and other on one it seems and to partisan with respect to trust in can an institution get its done when the the other polarization that the institution to how it its the of an institution be major in society distrust is this than in the distrust for the police by and the between and in trust in the As and also and point perhaps the is the of policing and the for the the for public confidence in police was their at expect in in the past confidence to rise that than to we expect that the who the most of Black increasing of confidence for The our is policing only with regulatory and pragmatic legitimacy in cultural and normative policing to and polarization of trust is a that a of how to legitimate an can be done to essays for that experts and institutions must get to science, medicine, or policing based upon regulatory They must get at of to to produce a of and ways to the between and of one for is policy. for trust in the training in of boards with authority not only to review police but also to make and the of the of institutional that and as well as and that we a that how can solve and point that is in distrust of election administration how that will our election by and well and is of trust is not to produce trust in those who government as the and who to who on that of government has a cultural that not the that government and and more acceptable ways to about the social It also that government can solve by and its is a and and the importance of a social in public administration to trust among public administration is a more and but are in their first in and for the with the of and on it as one of the government's performance are also more and make for the of public the pandemic, it became that the public about what public health and the media of their not that of and in As with there to be more for what government and how it but of a with a public health as its it is not how to do and also that there be more of public health from partisan but this must be done In many the pandemic, public health political a based upon and on of the pandemic, may not that those who on of both parties be but it the development of with public and are more than the or government, public health and the has the of trust by so many of information for their or a of for trust in the people more of their media to and ways to and to more by formal news and social media, for and a to with the is major for our we The in this volume is how institutions as the of government, the performance of government, and the As us in our challenges to as the of the the or the when authorities were and must authority by ways to legitimate have a of and of

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fifty Years of Declining Confidence & Increasing Polarization in Trust in American Institutions

  Daedalus · 2022 · 74 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Political economy

  Abstract Except for the military and science, confidence in most American political and non-political institutions has fallen precipitously over the past fifty years. Declines in trust are partly the result of dissatisfaction with governmental and institutional accountability and concomitant skepticism about the competency and responsiveness of institutions. Declines are also the result of a polarization in trust in institutions, as Republicans trust business, the police, religion, and the military much more than Democrats, whose confidence in these institutions, except the military, has fallen. In turn, Democrats trust labor, the press, science, higher education, and public schools much more than Republicans, whose confidence in these institutions has fallen. Declines and polarization in confidence may be traceable to political polarization stemming from increasing income inequality and segregation in America. With polarization and decreasing trust in institutions, it becomes more difficult to fight epidemics, maintain faith in policing, and deal with problems such as climate change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Challenge of Big Data and Data Science

  Annual Review of Political Science · 2019-01-21 · 106 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Big data and data science are transforming the world in ways that spawn new concerns for social scientists, such as the impacts of the internet on citizens and the media, the repercussions of smart cities, the possibilities of cyber-warfare and cyber-terrorism, the implications of precision medicine, and the consequences of artificial intelligence and automation. Along with these changes in society, powerful new data science methods support research using administrative, internet, textual, and sensor-audio-video data. Burgeoning data and innovative methods facilitate answering previously hard-to-tackle questions about society by offering new ways to form concepts from data, to do descriptive inference, to make causal inferences, and to generate predictions. They also pose challenges as social scientists must grasp the meaning of concepts and predictions generated by convoluted algorithms, weigh the relative value of prediction versus causal inference, and cope with ethical challenges as their methods, such as algorithms for mobilizing voters or determining bail, are adopted by policy makers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Organizational Ecology of College Affordability: Research Activity, State Grant Aid Policies, and Student Debt at U.S. Public Universities

  Socius Sociological Research for a Dynamic World · 2019-01-01 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  Sociologists have theorized U.S. universities as a heterogenous organizational ecology. We use this lens to compare student debt and college prices for low-income students across public universities according to their research intensiveness and varied state grant aid policies. We show that students at research-intensive public universities have had an easier time repaying student loans than at other schools. By linking multiple data sets, we also provide the first comprehensive assessment for all 50 states of state-level need-based grant aid programs, which might alleviate loan repayment challenges. We find large disparities. California, Washington, Wyoming, and New Jersey spent more than $4,000 on aid per low-income student in 2015, more than the federal expenditure on Pell Grants for their state. Most states spend little in comparison. Contra the Bennett hypothesis, we also find that state need-based aid is strongly associated with both lower net prices and lower student loan nonrepayment rates.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Proposal: The Costs of Voting

  NSF · $71k · 2006–2010

Frequent coauthors

• Kay Lehman Schlozman

  57 shared

• Sidney Verba

  54 shared

• Jasjeet S. Sekhon

  28 shared

• Walter R. Mebane

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  27 shared

• Jonathan Wand

  Stanford University

  26 shared

• Kenneth W. Shotts

  26 shared

• S. Verba

  26 shared

• Sharon Vaughn

  The University of Texas at Austin

  25 shared

Awards & honors

• Harold Innis Award for the best book in the social sciences…
• Philip Converse Award for a book making a lasting contributi…
• American Association for Public Opinion Research best book a…
• Sartori Award for best book on qualitative methods
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2003)