Kenneth W. Kollman
Center Director, CPS
Research Professor, CPS
Professor, LSA Political Science
- kkollman@umich.edu
- 734-936-0062
- 4202 ISR Thompson
- CV (PDF)

BIO
Ken Kollman earned his BA from the University of Notre Dame, and received his MS in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences and his PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University. Now, Dr. Kollman is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor, a title given to outstanding faculty in the social sciences and humanities in the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is also Director and Research Professor at the Center for Political Studies (Institute for Social Research) at the university.
Dr. Kollman's research focuses on political parties and organizations, elections, lobbying, federal systems, formal modeling, complexity theory, American politics, and comparative politics. His recent book, Perils of Centralization, published by Cambridge University Press, includes research on the European Union, the Roman Catholic Church, General Motors Corporation, and the United States government. He is completing a book (with John Jackson) on how and why voters' partisan loyalties change.
Throughout his career he has contributed in diverse fields: computational social science, comparative and American politics, European Union studies, comparative federalism, and comparative political parties and elections. His popular American government textbook with W.W. Norton is now in its third edition, and the New York Times and Washington Post have published his essays. He created and administered a new major and minor in International Studies through the University of Michigan School of Literature, Science, and the Arts, which has since grown into one of the largest majors at the university. He also co-founded and is co- principal investigator of the Constituency-Level Election Archive (CLEA), the world's largest repository of elections results data.
His recent book, Perils of Centralization, published by Cambridge University Press, includes research on the European Union, the Roman Catholic Church, General Motors Corporation, and the United States government.
- RIDIR: The Sub-National Data Archive System for Social and Behavioral Data. (Kenneth W. Kollman, Nahomi Ichino, Brian K. Min, Mai Hassan, Kevin Michael Quinn, M. Anne Pitcher, Robert J. Franzese Jr., Allen D. Hicken, Yuri Zhukov, Walter R. Mebane Jr., Yuki Shiraito, Christopher Jennings Fariss) 2019-2021. NSF.
- The Sixth Module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). (Kenneth W. Kollman) 2018-2022. NSF.
- Simmons, Joel, Allen D. Hicken, Kenneth W. Kollman, and Irfan Nooruddin. 2018. "Party system structure and its consequences for foreign direct investment." Party Politics 24(2): 141-153.
- Caramani, Daniele, and Kenneth W. Kollman. 2017. "Symposium on "The nationalization of electoral politics: Frontiers of research"." Electoral Studies 47: 51-54.
- Hicken, Allen D., Kenneth W. Kollman, and Joel W. Simmons. 2016. "Party System Nationalization and the Provision of Public Health Services." Political Science Research and Methods 4(3): 573-594.
- Kollman, Kenneth W. 2016. "Duverger's disciplinary and field-defining research on political parties." French Politics 14(1): 131-138.
- Jackson, John E., and Kenneth W. Kollman. 2012. "Modeling, Measuring, and Distinguishing Path Dependence, Outcome Dependence, and Outcome Independence." Political Analysis 20(2): 157-174.
- Jackson, John E., and Kenneth W. Kollman. 2011. "Connecting Micro- and Macropartisanship." Political Analysis 19(4): 503-518.