Barbara Norrander

Barbara Norrander has been a professor at the University of Arizona since 1990, with a Ph.D. from Ohio State University (1982).  Her teaching and research focus on American politics with specializations in elections, public opinion and political parties.  She is the author of The Imperfect Primary:  Oddities, Biases, and Strengths of U.S. Presidential Nomination Politics, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2020).  Recent articles include “Change, Continuity and Partisan Sorting on Moral Issues,” coauthored with Joshua Ridenour and Elizabeth Schmitt, The  Forum (2019) and "Open Versus Closed Primaries and the Ideological Composition of Presidential Primary Electorates," coauthored with Jay Wendland, Electoral Studies (2016).   Her blog posts on presidential nominations and Arizona politics appear on the London School of Economics US Centre Blog and The Monkey Cage. 

Professor Norrander teaches Introduction to American National Government (POL 201), Political Parties (POL 331), Elections and Voting Behavior (POL 435), and seminars in the graduate program.  She was president of the Western Political Science Association and has been a member of the executive board for the Midwest Political Science Association and the editorial boards of the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and State Politics and Policy Quarterly.