Chris Koski
Daniel B. Greenberg Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies
Chair
Email | 503-517-7719 | Vollum 139
Public policy processes, environmental policy, American government, and subnational politics.
B.A. 2001 Carroll College. M.A. 2003, Ph.D. 2007 University of Washington. Reed College 2011-.
Chris joined the Reed faculy in Fall 2011 after four years as an assistant professor at James Madison University (2007–2011). His research interests include many aspects of the policy process, with a particular focus on agenda-setting, policy design, and implementation. Theoretically, much of his work is situated in punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) and the social construction framework (SCF). Substantively, the bulk of Chris' research is focused on environmental policy, most recently the poltics of climate change - mitigation, adaptation, and geoengineering. He has also published work on homeland security policy and the politics of state budgeting. Chris teaches Introduction to American Government, Public Policy, State and Local Politics & Policy, Environmental Politics & Policy, and Introduction to Environmental Studies Research Methods (with Lynne Gratz in Chemistry). Chris' classes are also a part of the environmental studies (ES) program at Reed.
Chris is on his second tour as chair of the Department of Political Science at Reed and he has also chaired the Environmental Studies Program. He has previously served on the committee on academic policy and planning, the committee on advancement and tenure, the off-campus study committee, and the sustainability committee.
Chris also serves as the co-chair of HUM 411: Senior Syposium with Lucia Martinez Valdivia (English).
Beyond Reed, Chris has served as chair of the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy section of the American Political Science Association (2020-2023) as well as the president of the Public Policy section of the American Political Science Association (2022-2023).
In addition to authoring and co-authoring over 30 peer-reviewed articles, he and Christian Breunig (University of Konstanz) wrote Means, Motives, and Opportunities: How Executives and Interest Groups Set Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Chris also co-edited (with fellow Reed political scientist, Peter Steinberger) a political science reader, The Real World of American Politics: A Documentary Approach (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
Chris and Paul Manson (PSU) are currently working on understanding how attitudes of deservingness and power influence support for climate change policy design (see their most recent publication in PSJ, winner of the 2024 Theodore Lowi Award for the Best Article in Policy Studies Journal from the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association) and how cultural theory can explain geoengineering attitudes (see their working paper).
He can be found talking politics and policy anywhere, but particularly while wandering public lands, playing pinball, enjoying a plate of barbeque, or on long trips back home to Montana.