Dr. Morris P. Fiorina

2024 American Democracy Lecture

"An Era of Unstable Majorities Continues"

Synopsis: The United States is currently experiencing an historically unprecedented period of electoral instability. In this talk, Dr. Fiorina will discuss how current times contrast with earlier periods in American electoral history.  He will share how the sorting of the two parties into ideologically opposing organizations does not well represent the larger electorate. The result: the inability of either party to forge lasting majorities that can make significant progress on the problems our country faces.

Dr. Morris P. Fiorina, Ph.D., is the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Fiorina has written widely on American politics, with special emphasis on the study of representation, public opinion, and elections. He has published numerous articles and written or edited 13 books, including: Divided Government;  Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (with Samuel Abrams and Jeremy Pope); Disconnect: The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics (with Samuel Abrams); and most recently, Unstable Majorities.  

Fiorina has served on the editorial boards of a dozen journals in Political Science, Political Economy, Law, and Public Policy, and he is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. He has received Career Achievement Awards from the American Political Science Association’s Organized Sections on Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior, and Political Organizations and Parties.