Jason MacDonald
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., George Washington University, 2003
Professor MacDonald studies American Politics, and more specially, the U.S. Congress and bureaucracy. He teaches the Department’s introductory American Government course, as well as its course on the U.S. Congress at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. He also teaches research methods at the graduate level, including the Quantitative Political Analysis class. Professor MacDonald’s research seeks to understand how the U.S. Congress tries to address policy problems. Thus far, his research has focused mostly on how and why Congress tries to maintain influence over policy after it has delegated authority to make decisions to the bureaucracy. He has published articles in such journals as American Politics Research (twice), Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, and Public Opinion Quarterly. Most recently, his paper, co-authored with Erin E. O’Brien, “Quasi-Experimental Design, Longitudinal Federal Data, and Women’s Interests: Reexamining the Influence of Gender on Substantive Representation,” was presented at the 2008 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. This paper has been nominated for the Emerging Scholar Award for best paper presented by scholars receiving their PhD during the last six years at that conference.
