Terry Moe

About

Terry Moe is the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written extensively on the presidency and public bureaucracy, as well as American politics and political institutions more generally. His research focuses on the politics of American education, the structure and power of political institutions, and the dynamics of public policy and reform. Moe has authored several influential books, including Relic (2016), Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy (2020), and Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency (2025). His work also covers topics such as the politics of institutional reform, teachers unions, and education systems worldwide. Moe holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota (1976) and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego (1971).

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Political economy
• Law
• Computer Science
• Development economics
• Law and economics
• Public administration
• Economics

Selected publications

• Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy

  2020 · 113 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Has American democracy's long, ambitious run come to an end? Possibly yes. As William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue in this trenchant new analysis of modern politics, the United States faces a historic crisis that threatens our system of self-government--and if democracy is to be saved, the causes of the crisis must be understood and defused. The most visible cause is Donald Trump, who has used his presidency to attack the nation's institutions and violate its democratic norms. Yet Trump is b…

  PublisherDOI

• The Politics of Institutional Reform

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2019-02-07 · 38 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  In this ground breaking analysis, Terry M. Moe treats Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment that offers a rare opportunity to learn about the role of power in the politics of institutional reform. When Katrina hit, it physically destroyed New Orleans' school buildings, but it also destroyed the vested-interest power that had protected the city's abysmal education system from major reform. With the constraints of power lifted, decision makers who had been incremental problem-solvers turned in…

  PublisherDOI

• Interest Groups on the Inside: The Governance of Public Pension Funds

  Perspectives on Politics · 2019-03-21 · 31 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  New scholarship in American politics argues that interest groups should be brought back to the center of the field. We attempt to further that agenda by exploring an aspect of group influence that has been little studied: the role interest groups play on the inside of government as official participants in bureaucratic decision-making. The challenges for research are formidable, but a fuller understanding of group influence in American politics requires that they be taken on. Here we carry out a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• America’s Crisis of Democracy

  Political Science Quarterly · 2021 · 24 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The strongman presidency and the two logics of presidential power

  Presidential Studies Quarterly · 2023 · 22 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The strongman presidency presents an acute threat to democracy. Two logics underpin its emergence, both of which implicate the administrative state. Under the first, presidents have sought to deploy the vast resources of the administrative state in pursuit of power and legacy. This logic is symmetric, shaping the behavior of Republican and Democratic presidents alike. The second logic, however, sets them apart. Because most of the administrative state is the embodiment of progressive va…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John E. Chubb

  20 shared

• Sarah F. Anzia

  University of California, Berkeley

  19 shared

• Susanne Wiborg

  11 shared

• William G. Howell

  11 shared

• Tara Béteille

  World Bank

  7 shared

• Jonathan Bendor

  5 shared

• Rita Nikolai

  5 shared

• Robert W. Aspinall

  5 shared

Labs

• Vice Provost for Student AffairsPI

Education

• Ph.D., Political Science

  Harvard University

  1978

• B.A., Political Science

  Stanford University

  1973

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Hau Leeh-70
• Lawrence Goulderh-65
• Shanjun Lih-49