State Party Platform Archive Project
Eric Schickler, Professor
Political Science
Applications for Spring 2026 are closed for this project.
State parties regularly produce platforms that outline their positions on major issues facing the state and nation. These platforms have been used by scholars to understand the development of party polarization, changes in party positions on major issues, and dynamics of accountability and responsiveness in the U.S. political system. They are a valuable resource for understanding the development of American politics. Working with scholars at several institutions, we have produced an archive of platforms from roughly 1932 to the present. I am working now to extend that collection back to the 1870s. This is a major data collection effort involving systematic searches of a range of sources, but with a particular focus on historical newspapers (using proquest historical newspapers via the Berkeley library, as well as online subscription services). I have good collections for several states but am working to fill in the collection for a number of other states. I am looking for a team of about 6 students to work on the project this spring.
Role: 1) Systematic searches of newspaper archives and additional online services to find and download the text of state party platforms from the 1870s-1920s. It requires considerable digging and, at times, creativity to find these documents. Learning outcome: this should build skills in finding and using archival research materials. (Each student would be assigned a small set of states to work on -- given the diversity of states, the strategies appropriate for one state may not work for another).
2) The students would also work with me to clean the documents and bring them into a machine readable form. Learning outcome: this will involve reading through the platform texts, building understanding of an important era in American political history.
3) Meet with Prof. Schickler approximately once per week or every other week to talk about progress and go over strategies.
Qualifications: 1) Willingness to build skills in using online archival databases.
2) Interest in American politics and / or American history
3) Detail-oriented
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Students can do the work from home (but we will meet regularly on campus or via zoom).
Social Sciences