Welcome

You've reached Dan Pemstein's website. I'm a professor of Political Science & Public Policy at North Dakota State University, where I co-direct the Center for the Study of Digital Society. I'm a comparative political economist and methodologist who studies democratic institutions. Much of my current research examines challenges that digital networks pose to democracy and develops tools to better measure democratic institutions. I also have an ongoing research program that explores the interplay between legislative behavior, political careers, and party organization and have burgeoning interests in the political economy of development and criminal justice policy. I teach courses on comparative politics, political economy, global public policy, and research methods.

I am involved in a number of data and software projects. In particular, I am the co-director of the Digital Society Project, a co-developer of the Unified Democracy Scores, and a co-author of the Scythe Statistical Library. I also serve as project manager for measurement methods for, and sit on the steering committee of, the Varieties of Democracy project.

A variety of funders have supported my reasearch, including the National Science Foundation, the International Growth Centre, Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning, NORC at the University of Chicago's USAID-supported Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance program, Facebook, Google, Twitter, the European Union Center at the University of Illinois, and—through sub-contracts from the University of Gothenburg—the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

I occasionally share my research on mastodon or bluesky. Here's my public key in case you want to send me an encrypted file or verify my digital signature. You can also find it on various keyservers. The fingerprint is 4E93 1DF1 3616 CC4E 9502 3DF6 22DC 44AA 132A 20B8.

Research

You can find publications, working papers, and data related to my research on digital politics and policy, candidates, parties, and legislative behavior, measuring democratic institutions, political economy of development, and assorted other topics below. Take a look at my CV, google scholar profile, or dataverse for more information.

Digital Politics and Policy

Candidates, Parties, Careers, and Legislative Behavior

Measuring Democratic Institutions (V-Dem, UDS, and Related Methods)

Political Economy of Development

Everything Else

Teaching

Recent and Upcoming Courses

Workshops

Computing