Senior Adviser to Langer Research Associates, Robert Y. Shapiro is a professor and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and served as acting director of Columbia’s Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) in 2008-2009. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was a 2006-2007 Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Shapiro received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Shapiro specializes in American politics with research and teaching interests in public opinion, policymaking, political leadership, the mass media and the applications of statistical methods. He is co-author of The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (with Benjamin Page, University of Chicago Press, 1992), and Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (with Lawrence Jacobs, University of Chicago Press, 2000). He is also coauthor or coeditor of several other books and has published numerous articles in major academic journals.
He served many years as editor of Public Opinion Quarterly’s “The Polls – Trends” section, and is currently chair of the journal’s Advisory Committee. He also serves on the editorial boards of Political Science Quarterlyand Presidential Studies Quarterly, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. He has been President of the New York Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (NYAAPOR) and Councilor-at-Large in national AAPOR.
Shapiro’s current research examines partisan polarization and ideological politics in the United States, as well as other topics concerned with public opinion and policymaking.
Robert Y. Shapiro’s Columbia University faculty web page.