Adam Seth Levine

Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University

Chapter Member: Maryland-Washington, D.C. SSN

Areas of Expertise:

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About Adam

Levine studies when people work together to solve problems in their community, including activists, nonprofit leaders, policymakers, researchers, community leaders, and other community members. He often focuses specifically on the role of science in politics, focusing on when scientists collaborate with civic and political leaders to address pressing public health, environmental, and other challenges. Levine runs an organization called research4impact, which puts these research-based insights into practice by creating powerful new collaborations between researchers and practitioners and policymakers.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | Member Spotlight | In the News | Publications

Contributions

How to: Chapter Matchmaking

January 2022

Local Political Parties as Networks: A Guide to Self-Assessment

Lara Putnam
Joseph Anthony
Jacob Martin Grumbach
Caroline Tervo

Memo, May 2020

Why Popular Economic Worries Fail to Spur Political Action

Key Findings Brief, February 2015

In the News

Opinion: "The Myth of Civic Engagement during Trump’s Presidency," Adam Seth Levine, Behavorial Scientist, November 6, 2017.

Quoted by John Sides in "Why Donald Trump’s ‘Rigged Elections’ Warning Could Actually Make His Supporters Less Likely to Vote," The Washington Post, August 15, 2016.

Opinion: "What’s Wrong with Bernie Sanders’s Message? He Makes People Feel Poor.," Adam Seth Levine, The Washington Post, February 8, 2016.

Opinion: "Why Climate Change Rhetoric Simultaneously Succeeds and Fails," Adam Seth Levine (with Reuben Kline), Huffington Post, January 4, 2016.

Opinion: "Don’t Talk about Those Unpaid Bills," Adam Seth Levine, New York Times, February 18, 2015.

Guest on MSNBC, February 11, 2015.

Research discussed by Helaine Olen, in "All of Us Worried, None of Us Angry," Pacific Standard, January 5, 2015.

Quoted by Brad Plumer in "Trickle-Down Consumption’: How Rising Inequality Can Leave Everyone Worse Off," Washington Post, March 27, 2013.

Quoted by Nicholas D. Kristoff in "Our Banana Republic," New York Times, November 6, 2010.

Publications

American Insecurity: Why Our Economic Fears Lead to Political Inaction (Princeton University Press, 2015).

Presents a new argument for why people do not become politically active on issues related to economic insecurity, even though they find the issues to be important.

"Expenditure Cascades" (with Robert H. Frank and Oege Dijk). Review of Behavioral Economic 1 (2014): 55-73.

Argues that growing income inequality increases people’s incentives to consume more, which in turn increases the prevalence of financial ruin.

"Why State Constitutions Differ in their Treatment of Same Sex Marriage" (with Arthur Lupia, Yanna Krupnikov, Spencer Piston, and Alex Von Hagen-Jamar). Journal of Politics 72 (2010): 1222-1235.

Challenges the conventional wisdom that variation in public opinion best explains why some states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and others do not; instead presents an institutional explanation.

"Were Bush Tax Cut Supporters ‘Simply Ignorant?:’ A Second Look at Conservatives and Liberals in ‘Homer Gets a Tax Cut" Perspectives on Politics 5 (2007): 773-784.

Challenges the common idea that more information would necessarily change people’s policy opinions, focusing here on preferences for the 2001 Bush tax cuts.