Professional Bio

Plutzer is a Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science (Ph.D., Washington University, 1987) and serves as Director of Polling for the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and is completing his second term as co-editor-in-chief of the journal Public Opinion Quarterly.

He specializes in voter turnout and civic engagement, public opinion, and how politics becomes entangled with religion, education, family, and work life.  A major project, with Michael Berkman, seeks to understand how and why citizens vary in their views of what democracy should be.  His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Russel Sage Foundation, Spencer Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, and the National Center for Science Education.

He teaches classes on public opinion, political behavior, and the statistical analysis of survey data.