The APSA Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy was established in 2001 to gather what political scientists and other scholars know about the ways in which recent trends in inequalities impact democratic participation and governance in the United States, and to consider how changing patterns of participation and policy influence inequality along various dimensions. In 2004, the task force published:

• "American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality," a report (.pdf) designed to provoke discussion and debate in the profession and in the broader public;
• Three critical analyses on economic, gender, racial, and ethnic inequalities in American politics; and
• A set of teaching materials to provide a "master" guideline for nearly two dozen distinct topics for instructors to choose among when designing course syllabi at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The task force findings were discussed in the December '04 issue of Perspectives in Politics and published in book form in 2004 by the Russell Sage Foundation as Inequality and American Democracy: What We Know and What We Need to Learn.

Task Force Operations and Acknowledgements

The Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy was convened by the American Political Science Association with the support of the Russell Sage Foundation. Read more about the Task Force Operations and acknowledgements to those who participated in and supported this effort.

Task Force Members

In 2002, then-APSA President Theda Skocpol, Harvard University, nominated the following diverse set of prominent scholars to the task force, which was appointed by the Council of the American Political Science Association to serve from January 2003 to January 2005.

Benjamin R. Barber, University of Maryland-College Park
Larry M. Bartels, Princeton University
Michael C. Dawson, Harvard University
Morris Fiorina, Stanford University
Jacob S. Hacker, Yale University
Hugh Heclo, George Mason University
Rodney E. Hero, University of Notre Dame
Lawrence R. Jacobs, University of Minnesota, Chair, jacobs@polisci.umn.edu 
Claire Jean Kim, University of California-Irvine
Suzanne B. Mettler, Syracuse University
Benjamin I. Page, Northwestern University
Dianne M. Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame, dpinderh@nd.edu
Kay Lehman Schlozman, Boston College
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University, ts@wjh.harvard.edu