The Berkeley Center for the Study of American Democracy supports a robust community of scholars. We promote conversations within political science, as well as connections across disparate research specialties in the department and across other disciplines and sites of inquiry on campus.
CSAD recognizes that the United States faces a multifaceted crisis of governance marked by intense partisan polarization, frequent political gridlock, rising inequality, low political trust, and an alarming rise in racist appeals against a backdrop of profound demographic change. Our inaugural programs seek to support and connect scholars working to identify the causes and consequences of these recent developments that have placed acute pressure on our core democratic institutions.