Suzanne Mettler is the Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University. Her research and teaching interests include public policy, American political development, political behavior and civic engagement, and inequality.
Mettler is the author of four books, including: Degrees of Inequality: How Higher Education Politics Sabotaged the American Dream; The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Programs Undermine American Democracy; Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism In New Deal Public Policy, which was awarded the Kammerer Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book on US national policy and the Martha Derthick Award for a book that has made an enduring contribution to the study of federalism; and Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation, which was also awarded the Kammerer Award as well as the J. David Greenstone prize of the APSA Politics and History section. Mettler has published articles in the American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Studies in American Political Development, Journal of Health Policy, Politics, and Law, and other scholarly journals and edited volumes. She has co-edited two books, The Oxford Handbook on American Political Development and Remaking America. In addition, she has written op-eds for the New York Times and LA Times and essays for The Washington Monthly and Salon.
Mettler’s research has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She serves on the steering committee of the Scholars Strategy Network and is a fellow at the Century Foundation. She is the past president of the APSA Politics and History section and current president of the Public Policy section.
Statement of Views: I would seek to represent the diverse needs of our members as they aim to carry out teaching, research, and service in a system of higher education that is under strain from growing demands and diminished resources. I would also like to promote political scientists’ greater engagement in public life. In part, this means seeking ways for APSA members to make their research findings more readily available and accessible to journalists, policymakers, and the general public. In addition, the promotion of publicly-engaged, problem-driven research can help us to focus on questions of broad and practical significance to society.
The APSA Nominating Committee met on February 13, 2015, and nominated the slate of officers and council members to serve beginning in fall 2015. The call for nominations was circulated widely among the membership with outreach to APSA committees and organized sections. The nominating committee made its decisions after careful deliberation and due consideration for the diversity of the field and the varied interests of political scientists. There were no additional nominees from the members, and council members and officers were approved in October 2015 by the APSA Council, under its power to fill interim vacancies (APSA Constitution, Article V). APSA welcomes the new council members and other officers to APSA leadership.