Expertise

Campaign Finance, Political Parties, Electoral Systems, Legislative Studies, Political consultants, Policy Studies, Comparative Politics

Robin Kolodny received her BA in political science from Florida International University in 1985 and her PhD in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1992. She is Professor of Political Science at Temple University, where she has taught since 1991. Kolodny was selected to serve as an APSA (American Political Science Association) Congressional Fellow in 1995 when she worked in the office of Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut. In 1999, she received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Political Organizations and Parties Section of APSA. During academic year 2008-09, Kolodny was named a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar to the United Kingdom, affiliated with the Department of Politics and Contemporary European Studies at the University of Sussex and the Sussex European Institute (SEI). Kolodny is the author of Pursuing Majorities: Congressional Campaign Committees in American Politics(University of Oklahoma Press, 1998) as well as numerous articles on political parties in the US Congress, in elections, and in comparative perspective.

She also writes extensively on political consultants and campaign finance in the US. Kolodny served as President of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society from 2010 to 2012. She has also been a member of Academic Advisory Board of the Campaign Finance Institute since 2000. Kolodny was also the Chair of the Faculty Board of Review of Temple University Press from 2011-2015. Kolodny has also been recognized for her teaching. In 1998, she won the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award at Temple University. In 2003, she won the 2003 Rowman & Littlefield Award for Innovative Teaching in Political Science from the American Political Science Association along with several of her colleagues from the Political Science Department at Temple University for the department’s experiential learning program. In 2011, Kolodny won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, a university-wide award given by Temple University and the Lindback Foundation.

Website

Selected Publications

• “The New Normal: Partisan Volatility and the US Midterm Elections of 2010.” Representation 47 (2011), no. 2: 231-239. *Invited submission to peer reviewed journal.
• “Paving the Road to “Too Big to Fail”: Business Interests and the Politics of Financial Deregulation in the U.S.” Politics and Society, 39 (2011), no. 1: 74-102. With Sandra Suarez.
• “Educating the Least Informed: Group Endorsements in a Grassroots Campaign.” The American Journal of Political Science, (2009), no. 4: 755-770. With Kevin Arceneaux.
• “Political Party Adaptation in Congressional Campaigns: Why Political Parties Use Coordinated Expenditures to Hire Political Consultants.” Party Politics, 9 (2003), no. 6: 729-746. With David A. Dulio.
• “Party Money in the 2012 Elections.” 2014. Chapter 6 in Financing the 2012 Election, David B. Magleby, ed. Brookings Institution Press, pp. 175-214 [peer reviewed]. With Diana Dwyre.

Courses Taught

• PS 0859 – The Making of American Society
• PS 2503 – Evidence and Knowledge (Research Design)
• PS 3105 – The American Party System
• PS 3520 – Topics in Research Preparation: Money and Politics
• PS 4131/4781/4904 (Univ. Honors) – “Seminar in Campaign Politics 2010, 2012”
• PS 4896 – Capstone Seminar in Political Science: Comparative Parties and Electoral Systems
• PS 8101 – Core Seminar in American Politics (Graduate Level)
• PS 8108 – American Political Parties and Pressure Groups (Graduate Level)
• PS 8985 Teaching in Higher Education for Social Scientists