Alexander Keyssar
Matthew W. Stirling, Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard University
Chapter Member: Boston SSN
Areas of Expertise:
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About Alexander
Keyssar's research focuses on the history of American politics and institutions. He has published books on the history of unemployment, the history of the right to vote, and why we still have the Electoral College. He speaks and writes widely to nonacademic audiences.
Contributions
What Struggles over the Right to Vote Reveal about American Democracy
Key Findings Brief,
In the News
Research discussed by , in "2020 Democrats are Calling for Abolishing the Electoral College - It Nearly Happened a Few Decades Ago," Newsweek, March 24, 2019.
Quoted by Sean McElwee in "The Economic Plan That Could Save America (but Scares Conservative Billionaires Senseless)," Salon, June 29, 2015.
Quoted by Kay Steiger in "The Problem with Yoho's Property Owner Vote Idea," Talking Points Memo, May 23, 2014.
Opinion: "The Strange Career of Voter Suppression," Alexander Keyssar, The New York Times, February 12, 2012.
Opinion: "The Real Grand Bargain, Coming Undone," Alexander Keyssar, The Washington Post, August 19, 2011.
Opinion: "Short-Circuiting the Vote," Alexander Keyssar, Newsweek Online Edition, November 13, 2008.
Opinion: "The Electoral College Flunks," Alexander Keyssar, The New York Review of Books, March 24, 2005.
overview
Publications
"The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States" (Basic Books, 2009).
Traces the history of voting rights from the American Revolution through the 2008 election.
"Shoring Up the Right to Vote for President: A Modest Proposal" Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 2 (2003): 181-190.
Discusses the absence of a right to vote in Presidential elections and a proposal to correct this glaring problem.
"Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts" (Cambridge University Press, 1986).
A history of the emergence of unemployment as an important social problem and the policy responses to it.