Michael Dawson

Michael C. Dawson is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Dawson received his doctorate degree from Harvard. His research interests include black political behavior and public opinion, political economy, and black political ideology. More recently he has combined his quantitative work with work in political theory.

His first two books, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics and Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies, won multiple awards. Recent books include Not In Our Lifetimes: The Future of Black Politics and Blacks In and Out of the Left. Recently, with Megan Ming Francis, Dawson launched a nationwide, multi-university project to study the intersection of race and capitalism.

Recent publications related to this project include two articles in Public Culture (with Francis) and Critical Historical Studies. He is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006.

In 2017 Dawson was the first awardee of the American Political Science Association’s Hanes Walton, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award for the Study of Race and Ethnic Politics.