Media Contact: Dolores Davies, (619) 534-5994 or ddavies@ucsd.edu

UC SAN DIEGO POLITICAL SCIENTIST WINS NAS AWARD

 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has selected Arthur Lupia, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, to receive the NAS Award for Initiatives in Research. Lupia is the first political scientist to receive this prestigious award.

The award is given annually to recognize innovative young scientists and to encourage research likely to lead toward new capabilities for human benefit.

According to the NAS, Lupia was chosen to receive the $15,000 prize "for his contribution to our understanding of the importance of knowledge, learning, and persuasion to political decision making by voters, legislators, and jurors."

Lupia, a professor in UCSD’s Department of Political Science since 1990, is interested in how political decision making at electoral, legislative, and judicial levels is affected by different cognitive factors and institutional incentives. Much of his research draws on other disciplines within the social sciences, including psychology, economics, and cognitive science.

The recipient of numerous academic awards, Lupia has been recognized within the political science discipline for his work on rational choice theory. In 1996, he was the first recipient of the American Political Science Association’s Voting and Public Opinion section’s Emerging Scholar Award. He has also become known for his research on persuasion, which draws from both microeconomic theory and social psychology to show the conditions under which one person can persuade another.

Lupia’s research has been published widely, in the American Political Science Review and numerous other major academic journals. He is also the co-author with UCSD political scientist Mathew McCubbins of the new book The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know (Cambridge University Press, 1998). The book combines insights from the disciplines of political science, economics, and cognitive science to explain how citizens gather and use information to make political decisions. In this work, Lupia and McCubbins conclude that in spite of the many limitations on their time, attention, and understanding of politics, people are able to overcome these factors and make reasonable political decisions.

Lupia and McCubbins, along with UCSD Political Scientist Elizabeth Gerber, are also the recent recipients of a research grant from the Public Policy Institute of California to conduct a study on voter initiatives and their cumulative impact on legislative decision making and the state budgetary process.