Center for the Study of Democratic Politics

Martin Gilens research examines public opinion and mass media, especially in relation to inequality, public policy, and citizen competence, and democratic responsiveness to public preferences. He is the author of Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy, and has published on political inequality, mass media, race, gender, and welfare politics in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the Berkeley Journal of Sociology.  He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California Berkeley, and taught at Yale University and UCLA before joining the faculty at Princeton.  His research has been supported by grants from the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.