Welcome!

My name is Sean Kelly. I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. Camarillo is located north of Los Angeles and south of Santa Barbara.  CSUCI is the newest campus in the California State University System.  Open to CSUCI students for the first time in 2002 we are in our seventh year of operation.  The CSUCI campus is nestled against the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, and is just minutes from the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway.  

I am a native of Seattle, Washington. I earned my B.A. degree in political science from Seattle University in 1986, and my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Colorado in 1992. I am an alumnus of the American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship Program (1993-1994). As  a fellow I worked for the Senate Democratic Policy Committee -- an arm of the Democratic Leadership, Co-Chaired at the time by Senators George Mitchell and Tom Daschle -- as a health policy analyst. I joined the faculty at Cal. State Channel Islands in 2007 after teaching for eight years at Niagara University in Lewiston, NY, and six years at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

Teaching

I teach very broadly in the area of American politics including research methods, public policy and administration, the presidency, Congress, environmental politics and policy, political behavior, state and local politics, and politics through film.

Research

My research is focused on American political institutions, primarily Congress. The approach employs multiple methodologies--both quantitative and qualitative--relying heavily on archival sources.  I firmly believe that archival sources contain considerable data of interest to political scientists but remain woefully under used.

Scott Frisch and I wrote a book titled Committee Assignment Politics in the U.S. House of Representatives that was published by the University of Oklahoma Press (2006) in Ron Peters' Congressional Studies Series.

Our book Jimmy Carter and the Water Wars: Presidential Influence and the Politics of Pork (Cambria Press 2008) explores presidential influence in the context of the battle between Congress and the president over the "power of the purse."

Scott and I are now engaged in research that extends our work on committee assignments and pork barrel politics by examining the politics of congressional earmarks.  We are working on two books.  The first is a provocative volume that argues that earmarks are good for American democracy (under contract with Paradigm Publishers).  The second capitalizes on unique earmark data and is aimed at a slightly more academic audience.  This book is under contract to the University of Michigan Press and is tentatively titled Pork: Who Gets What, How, and Why.  We are planning a multimedia web site that will improve the "teachability" of the book.

With Wayne Steger (DePaul University) and Mark Wrighton (University of Southern Mississippi I co-edited Campaigns and Political Marketing (Haworth Press, 2006).

In our spare time Scott, Doug Harris (Loyola University of Maryland), and I are putting together an edited volume (involving a rag-tag group of political scientists who use political collections) that focuses on introducing political scientists to archival research methods.  This book is under contract to Cambria Press.

Service

I am engaged in extensive service at CSUCI.  I am Chair of the Professional Leaves Committee and Faculty Development Committee, Vice Chair of the Faculty Affairs Committee, and I serve as a member of several other committees including the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Advisory Committee, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, and the Executive Board of the California Faculty Association-Channel Islands. 

My professional service includes serving on the Executive Committee of the Western Political Science Association, as Section Chair for Legislative Politics (WPSA 2010), and active service in the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress.  I serve on the Editorial Board of the International Encyclopedia of Political Science (CQ Press) and I am the past Editor of the Legislative Studies Section's Extension of Remarks.

Scott Frisch and I are co-editors of a series entitled Politics, Institutions, and Public Policy in America at Cambria Press. 

Series Description: Politics, Institutions, and Public Policy in America is a book series intended to showcase high quality research contributions in political science. We believe that political science is relatively theory-rich and data-poor. As a result we prefer studies that break new empirical ground over studies that solely focus on establishing new theoretical ground. We also believe that political science research has the capacity to address contemporary American politics in a way that is accessible to political professionals. Books in this series will draw on the many and varied methodological approaches available to researchers without prejudice, but authors must have the capacity to communicate their methods, findings, and study implications to a broad audience.

If you are interested in publishing in our series please contact me at: sean.kelly@csuci.edu.