Center for Political Studies
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI
48106-1248

Voice: (734) 763-1348
Fax: (734) 764-3341

The Center for Political Studies is recognized around the world as a leading center for the quantitative study of politics. Scholars at the center investigate the interactions among institutions, political processes, and individuals - themes united by a concern for understanding democratic politics.

CPS includes experts in geographic areas such as Russia, Western Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa, in addition to the United States; and methodologists who have developed tools to make political processes easier to understand.

Over its three-decade history, the center has expanded its research focus. At first, it emphasized individual voting behavior. Later it turned to institutions and their effects on policies and individual behavior. Today, CPS is diverse in its intellectual agendas and methodologies - building links between comparative, world, and American politics, and building bridges between the study of individual behavior and political and economic institutions.

CPS has its origins in the studies that became known as the National Election Studies, first conducted in 1948. In 1970, the studies were formalized as the Center for Political Studies, with Warren Miller as its first director. He was followed in the job of Director by Philip Converse, Harold Jacobson, William Zimmerman, Mark Tessler, and Nancy Burns. And now, for the first time, the project is being managed by a multi-university collaboration headed by Arthur Lupia (Michigan) and Jon A. Krosnick (Stanford).

The history of the American National Election Studies project is described in detail in The Michigan, then National, then American National Election Studies (PDF 128K), by Nancy Burns.

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