USC Dornsife launches center to overcome political polarization

The political divide is as stark as it’s been in modern memory and spans from the #resist movement on the left to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain on the right, and beyond. The new Center for the Political Future, opening today at USC Dornsife, seeks to bridge the gap with a new model for political inquiry that combines scholarly research, education and practical politics.

The center is led by longtime Democratic political strategist Robert Shrum and veteran GOP strategist Michael Murphy.

“The Center for the Political Future aims to be the premiere entity on the West Coast that combines the power of academic research and education with the practical wisdom and experience of political leaders, activists and journalists to foster public dialogue in civil and constructive ways,” said Shrum, the center’s director. “Our goal is to create an environment where individuals with different political views can seek common ground and — even when they disagree — respect and listen to other viewpoints.”

He and Murphy believe the nation is at a critical point, amid the deterioration of civil, fact-based political discourse.

“This is a moment to step up and redirect the conversations, to surmount the challenges of rancorous rhetoric and fake news, to pave the path toward a genuine exchange of ideas, and to enrich the education of tomorrow’s leaders by modeling new approaches for engagement,” Murphy said. 

To accomplish its goals, the center sponsors an array of endeavors and draws on faculty from across USC Dornsife’s wide academic breadth. One component, the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, focuses on educating students to become active in politics. Another, the nationally recognized USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll, administered by the center’s partners at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, will continue to monitor what matters most to voters, as well as how they perceive elected officials and candidates for presidential, congressional and state elections.

“We must develop creative approaches to mend our nation’s political divide,” said USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller. “By establishing an academic center that aims to advance civil, fact-based conversations in the public square, USC Dornsife provides a forum in which the strongest ideas are valued over the partisan rancor.”

Each year, the center will hold major conferences where scholars and practitioners focus on vital issues and significant developments in the public square. This academic year’s meetings will include the Law-Warschaw Practical Politics Conference following the midterm election, and a joint conference with USC Dornsife’s Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies that will explore the politics of climate change.

“The new center provides an opportunity to combine cutting edge social science research with real-world experience, in order to reshape the public conversation on politics,” said Andrew Lakoff, divisional dean for social sciences at USC Dornsife. “This is a critical moment to create an innovative forum for addressing our most pressing contemporary issues.”

Center fellows

The center will bring resident fellows to campus every semester. The fellows will be political and policy leaders, Republicans and Democrats, who will engage with undergraduate and graduate students, and with our other programs.

The first fellows for the center are:

• Dan Schwerin, former director of speechwriting for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign (Fall 2018)
• Gentry Collins, former national political director of the Republican National Committee (Fall 2018)
• Symone Sanders, national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign (Spring 2019)

The center will also host endowed chairs, drawing outstanding new tenure-track faculty with diverse, practical, and scholarly perspectives, while engaging current faculty.

Lastly, the center will support specific research endeavors, including an ongoing project focused on examining how technology could be used to strengthen political discourse in the 21st Century.

“The programs that will be offered by the new Center for the Political Future will constantly remind us of our shared values and will encourage us to thoughtfully explore issues of controversy in a civil manner,” said Steve Lamy, USC Dornsife professor of international relations. “The Center for the Political Future will link USC with the greater Los Angeles community and will provide an opportunity for our students to practice the basic skills of citizenship: critical thinking, reasoning, comparing and decision making. These are critical abilities for all citizens that are even more important in this time of political polarization and ‘post-truth’ media wars.”