Alison Craig

Alison Craig is an assistant professor in the Department of Government in the fields of Public Policy, American Politics, and Political Methodology.  Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, is focused on improving our understanding of the day-to-day functioning of the United States Congress, with an emphasis on the relationships between members and the challenges of policymaking in the modern legislature. Her book, The Collaborative Congress: Reaching Common Ground in a Polarized House (Cambridge University Press), argues that while public attention focuses on conflict and partisan warfare in Congress, members routinely work together to craft substantive and successful policy proposals. Her research on legislative politics has also been published in the American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. She teaches graduate-level courses on American political institutions, statistical analysis, and network analysis, as well as undergraduate courses on the U.S. Congress and the policy process.

Alison earned her Ph.D. in 2017 from The Ohio State University and has a B.S. in political science from the University of Oregon.  Prior to graduate school, she spent eleven years working for members of Congress on Capitol Hill and in her home state of Oregon.  In that time she filled various roles, from communications to casework, with most of her work as a legislative assistant handling domestic policy issues and as a field representative working with local governments and opinion leaders.