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Andrea Louise Campbell

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Co-Director of the Boston SSN Regional Network; Associate Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

77 Massachusetts Ave., E53-461
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
(617) 452-2295

Expertise & Civic Involvements

Campbell’s research focuses on public opinion, political participation, and public policy, with a particular interest in social policy and political inequality. Current projects include an examination of Americans’ attitudes toward taxes over time, and a study of the impact of the Great Recession on the fifty states that asks why some states faced greater fiscal crises than others and how policy choices varied. Campbell speaks to community groups, writes for think tanks, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences commission on the Fiscal Future of the United States

SSN Briefs

Key Publications

  • "America the Undertaxed: U.S. Fiscal Policy in Perspective" Foreign Affairs 91, no. 5 (September/October 2012): 99-112.
    Seeks to better understand current polarized narratives behind the respective fiscal policy platforms espoused by the two major U.S. parties by viewing the American tax system in the context of other developed countries. Finds that, compared to other nations, the U.S. model collects little revenue, poorly redistributes that revenue, and is overly complex.
  • The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Policy (with Kimberly J. Morgan) (Oxford University Press, 2011).
    Illuminates how many U.S. social policies are not run directly by government, but instead delegated to non-profit organizations, for-profit firms, and even to consumers themselves. Using the Medicare Part D prescription drug program as a case study exemplifying all three kinds of indirect administration, this book examine the implications of delegation for program effectiveness, fraud and abuse, and accountability.
  • "Paying America’s Way: The Fraught Politics of Taxes, Investments, and Budgetary Responsibility" in Reaching for a New Deal: Ambitious Governance, Economic Meltdown, and Polarized Politics in Obama's First Two Years, edited by Theda Skocpol and Larry Jacobs (Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), 386-421.
    Examines how the invisibility of Obama administration policies to deal with the Great Recession along with historically low trust in government undermined efforts to address economic inequality and reorient the tax burden to fall more heavily on the rich.
  • "Social Security: Political Resilience in the Face of Conservative Strides" (with Ryan King), in The New Politics of Old-Age Policy, 2nd edition, edited by Robert Hudson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 233-253.
    Shows how public skepticism and lack of support among Congressional Republicans defeated George W. Bush’s second-term push to privatize Social Security.
  • "What Americans Think of Taxes" in The New Fiscal Sociology, edited by Monica Prasad, Isaac Martin, and Ajay Mehrotra (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 48-67.
    Examines the politicization of taxes over time, showing that heightened elite rhetoric beginning in the 1970s captured public attention and increased the impact of attitudes toward taxes on voting and public views of the political parties.
  • "Financing the Welfare State: Elite Politics and the Decline of the Social Insurance Model in America" (with Kimberly J. Morgan). Studies in American Political Development 19, no. 2 (2005): 173-95.
    Argues that the payroll tax has been fiscally successful and unusually popular, but once criticized by policymakers on both the right and left, it has become less credible as a means for broadly funding the nation’s long-term social programs or meeting new demands for social protections.
  • How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Citizen Activism and the American Welfare State (Princeton University Press, 2003).
    Shows how the growth of Social Security helped transform U.S. senior citizens from the least to the most politically active age group – by giving them income and free time to facilitate participation, along with a tangible stake in public policy and a shared identity allowing mobilization by political parties and interest groups such as the AARP.

Media Contributions

Talks and Briefings

  • "Myths and Puzzles in Americans’ Tax Attitudes," New Hampshire Institute of Politics, March 16, 2010.
  • "What the Social Security Experience Tells Us about Taxes Americans Can Embrace," Scholars Strategy Network, Washington, D.C., February 25, 2010.
  • "Funding America’s Priorities: The Possibilities and Politics of Public Revenues," (with E.J. Dionne, Robert Kuttner, Jacob Hacker, and Larry Jacobs), Washington, D.C., February 25, 2010.
  • "Health Care Reform in the U.S.: What Will It Look Like and What Does It Mean?," Panel with Jonathan Gruber and Amy Finkelstein, sponsored by the Office of the President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 26, 2010.