I am a political scientist who writes about federalism, political development, and liberal self-governance. I am the Inaugural Director of Colby’s Public Policy Lab and I teach courses on American politics and governance in the Department of Government at Colby College. With Kal Munis, I co-edit the De Gruyter Series in American Political Geography.
I have published four books and my scholarly work has appeared in numerous journals, including: Perspectives on Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, Studies in American Political Development, Journal of Policy History, Education and Urban Society, and The Forum.
“Jacobs and Milkis convincingly place Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of American politics in historical and institutional context. They go beyond a simple indictment of Trump’s overreach to adroitly analyze the broader evolution—and dangers—of a ‘presidency-centered democracy’ that both drives and feeds on partisan polarization. In depressingly timely fashion they remind us that the displacement of collective deliberation by blind reliance on unilateralism betrays our Constitutional ideals.”—Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin College
“In this important book, two political scientists, rural themselves, set the record straight on the rural voter. Based on a massive voter survey stretching from 1824 to 2020, the authors carefully puzzle over reasons so many rural Americans now despair of the Democratic Party, and even see it as the enemy…If you live in the city, read this book.” — Arlie Hochschild, U.C. Berkeley, Emerita
“A work of impressive historical sweep and pointed analytical acuity, a bold and compelling reinterpretation of American political development. Jacobs and Milkis brilliantly illuminate the roots of the weakness of the American party system, the rise of a corrosive brand of populism, and the contemporary distemper of American democracy.” — Robert C. Lieberman, Johns Hopkins University