About
At its inception in 2012, the American Municipal Officials Survey (AMOS) was the largest survey of elected municipal officials conducted by political scientists and was subsequently run in 2014 and 2016, with a shorter survey on a smaller sample of officials conducted in 2017.
Each iteration of the survey includes different questions and involved multiple research projects from scholars at universities across the U.S., resulting in multiple publications at top political science journals.
Purpose
The purpose of the survey is to better understand the officials who are at the heart of the “Great American Experiment” — local democracy.
Unfortunately, scholarly work on American politics overlooks municipal officials even though they form the vast majority of elected policymakers in the U.S. and their decisions have the greatest impact on the daily lives of most Americans. One reason for this oversight is the difficulty of gathering quantitative data about local officials.
The American Municipal Officials Survey fills this void and brings the study of local politics — whether it occurs in a large urban center or a small rural town — to the forefront of political science research, resulting in research publications at one of the top academic journals in the discipline.
Researchers from Across the U.S.
The American Municipal Officials Survey was begun in 2012 at Yale University by Professors Adam Dynes (then a Ph.D. student) and Daniel Butler. The survey has involved many different projects from political scientists at universities across the U.S., including:
- Brigham Young University
- Cornell College
- Florida State University
- Northwestern University
- Temple University
- University of California San Diego
- University of California Santa Barbara
- University of Chicago
- University of Houston
- University of Virginia
- University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
- Vanderbilt University
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Yale University
About the Directors
The American Municipal Officials Survey is run by Professors Adam Dynes (at Brigham Young University), Daniel Butler (at Washington University in St. Louis), Hans Hassell (at Florida State University), and Michelle Torres (at University of California, Los Angeles).
Dan Butler
Daniel Butler is a Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. He is also the director of the Laboratories of Democracy. He previously was at the University of California San Diego and Yale University after receiving his Ph.D. (2007) in political science from Stanford University. Dan Butler's research uses experiments to study how policymakers represent their constituents. This research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and other journals. studies American Politics. Prof. Butler is also the creator of the The Poli-Sci LEGO Guy YouTube channel, that presents LEGO explainer videos about American politics, aimed at college sand AP US government students as well as those who wouldn't mind going back to college to learn.
Adam Dynes
Adam Dynes is an assistant professor at Brigham Young University and a Faculty Scholar at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. He is also a member of the Laboratories of Democracy, a non-profit organization that collaborates with academics, non-profits, and public officials in the U.S. to evaluate the effectiveness of government policies, programs, and practices to improve America’s communities. Adam received his Ph.D. from Yale University and was a fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Center for the Study of American Politics. Adam’s research on legislative politics has appeared in the top journals in political science.
Hans Hassell
Hans J.G. Hassell, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2012. Hans Hassell is the LeRoy Collins Professor of Political Science at Florida State University and a member of the Laboratories of Democracy. His research focuses on political institutions and specifically on political parties and their role in electoral politics. His primary research area is the study of U.S. political parties and in particular, their role in electoral campaigns, candidate emergence, and primary elections. Lastly, he is also interested in questions of electoral accountability and how the contextual political environment and the actions of politicians shape political behavior.
Michelle Torres
Michelle Torres is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. Her broad research interests are in the fields of political methodology and political behavior. Her current research agenda focuses on the ways in which we can make statistical and computer science methods accessible to political science. Substantively, her focus on political media communication, participation, and attitude formation. Michelle hold a Ph.D. in Political Science and a A.M. in Statistics from Washington University in St. Louis. She is originally from Mexico City, where she obtained a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from CIDE (Center for Research and Teaching in Economics).
Thank you in advance for your interest in the survey and for all that you do to help your community and the “Great American Experiment” succeed. We hope you decide to participate.
Warmest regards,
Adam Dynes, Daniel Butler, Hans Hassell, and Michelle Torres