Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and the Spence and Cleone Eccles Family Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976).  He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford.  Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012.  He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000).   His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics.  

His last book, “Democracy more or less”, traces the tension between populist and pluralist approaches as it plays out in many seemingly distinct reform topics, such as voting administration, campaign finance, excessive partisanship, redistricting, and transparency and voter participation. It explains why political primaries have promoted partisan polarization, why voting rates are declining even as election opportunities increase, and why direct democracy is not really a grassroots tool. Cain offers a reform agenda that attempts to reconcile pluralist ideals with the realities of collective-action problems and resource disparities.