Overview
David Bateman is an Associate Professor of Government. His research focuses on democratic institutions and on ideas and ideologies of democracy, race, and racism. He has published articles in Studies in American Political Development, the Journal of Politics, the American Journal of Political Science, Public Choice, Perspectives on Politics, and The Forum. His co-authored book, Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction, examines the role of southern members of Congress in shaping national policy from the end of Reconstruction until the New Deal. Disenfranchising Democracy: Constructing the Electorate in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, examines the concurrent expansion of political rights alongside mass disenfranchisement in these three countries. He is currently researching Black political and labor organizing in the early 20th century and its impact on US statebuilding and ideologies.
Publications
Books
2023. When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice. Co-edited with Ewa Atanassow and Thomas Bartscherer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2018. Disenfranchising Democracy: Constructing the Electorate in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2018. Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction. With Ira Katznelson and John Lapinski. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Articles and Chapters
2026 “Democracy-Reinforcing Hardball: Can Breaking Democratic Norms Preserve Democratic Values?” Comparative Political Studies. 59(6): 1191-1225.
2025 “Democratization in the USA? The Impact of Suffrage Qualifications on Politics and Policy.” Journal of Politics 87(1): 50-69.
2025 “Election Administration and Democratic Fragility.” With Robert Lieberman and Aaron Childree. In Global Challenges to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on Backsliding, Autocracy, and Resilience. Valerie J. Bunce, Thomas Pepinsky, Rachel Beatty Riedl, and Kenneth M. Roberts, eds., pp.118-140. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2024 “A developmental approach to historical causal inference.” With Dawn Langan Teele. In Causal Inference and American Political Development. Jeffrey A. Jenkins, ed., pp.9-29. Springer Cham.
2023 “Gilded Age Doughfaces: Northern Democrats and Black Civil Rights.” With Richard Barton. Journal of Historical Political Economy 3(3): 363-90.
2023 “The Sovereign People and the Liberal Democratic State.” In When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice. Ewa Atanassow, Thomas Bartscherer, and David Bateman, eds., pp.139-157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2023 “A World on the Threshold.” With Ewa Atanassow and Thomas Bartscherer. In When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice. Ewa Atanassow, Thomas Bartscherer, and David Bateman, eds., pp.1-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2023 “The South in American Political Development.” Annual Review of Political Science 26.
2023 “Deeper Roots: Historical Causal Inference and the Legacy of Slavery.” With Eric Schickler. Journal of Historical Political Economy. 3(1): 95-124.
2023 “Race and historical political economy.” With Jake Grumbach and Chloe Thurston. In The Oxford Handbook of Historical Political Economy. Jeffery A. Jenkins and Jared Rubin, eds., pp.691-712. New York: Oxford University Press.
2022 “Judicial Power and the Shifting Purpose of Article V.”With Stephan Stohler and Robinson Woodward-Burns. Studies in American Political Development. 36(2): 84-103.
2021 “Elections, Polarization, and Democratic Resilience.” In Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization? Suzanne Mettler, Robert Lieberman, and Kenneth Roberts, eds., pp.343-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2019 “Partisan Polarization on Black Suffrage, 1785-1868.” Perspectives on Politics. 18(2): 470-491.
2019 “Transatlantic Anxieties: Democracy and Diversity in Nineteenth-Century Discourse.” Studies in American Political Development. 33(2): 139-177.
2019 “A developmental approach to historical causal inference.” Public Choice. 185: 253-279
2017. “A House Divided? Roll Calls, Policy Differences, and Congressional Polarization from 1877-2011.” With Josh Clinton and John Lapinski. American Journal of Political Science. 61(3):698-714.
2016. “An Inherent Tension within Populist Politics.” with Adam Levine. The Forum. 14(3): 311-327
2016. “Race, Party, and American Voting Rights.” The Forum. 14(1): 39-65
2016. “Ideal Points and the Study of American Political Development.” With John Lapinski. Studies in American Political Development. 30(2): 1-25
2015. “Southern Politics Revisited: On V.O. Key’s ‘South in the House.”’ With Ira Katznelson and John Lapinski. Studies in American Political Development. 29(2): 154-184
In the news
- ‘Naked power grab’: The politics behind attacking mail-in voting
- ‘Little reason to expect any meaningful check’ on president despite some vocal opposition to strikes on Iran
- Helping urban youth use AI to navigate the future
- What this year’s off-cycle elections mean for the national mood
- Cornell scholars address global democratic erosion in book
- Cornell Center for Social Sciences awards grants, invites new proposals
- Cornell scholars address global threats to democratic institutions
- Budget plan: ‘Long and extremely divisive process’ ahead for Republicans
- Speaker Johnson walking tightrope to avoid government shutdown
- Looking ahead: State elections ‘not always great predictors’ of what’s to come
- ‘Enormous consequences’ loom in the wake of Trump indictment
- Courts, not amendments, best route for constitutional reform
- A&S Student starts first term on Ithaca's Common Council
- History repeats with effort to protect voting rights, end filibuster
- Center for Social Sciences awards fall ’21 grants
- Progressives make sacrifices to win Manchin, Sinema
- Battle with Bannon is 'political theater,' shows need for reform
- DC statehood represents ‘equal rights of citizenship,’ not politics
- Voter suppression started way before Jim Crow. It’s a longstanding American tradition.
- Expert discusses Biden’s sweeping infrastructure package
- Southern politics, slim margins to force ‘tricky choices’ in Congress
- In election’s waning days, panel sees hope for democracy
- ‘Democracy Contested?’ forum panel to meet online Oct. 29
- Cornell’s Adult University hosting 2020 election seminar
- A&S initiative launches with webinar about abolishing police
- Webinar examines free and fair elections in November
- Panel: Partisan politics, shifting powers shape impeachment
- Government professor honored with book prize
- How Southern politicians defended white supremacy — and made the South poorer
- Defining 'the people,' expanding the vote
- Book traces influence of Southern white politicians on the US
- ‘Serendipity’ leads to summer research for history major
- Institute nurtures promising social scientists with ‘dream’ semester
- Panel reflects on Watergate and ‘Russiagate’
- Congress and political parties, a checkup
