Eric M. Patashnik
Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy
Professor of Political Science
Director, Master of Public Affairs Program
Eric M. Patashnik is Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Political Science, and Director of Brown's Master of Public Affairs program.
Patashnik is also Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Before coming to Brown, Patashnik held faculty positions at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA, and the department of political science at Yale University. During his time at UVA, he served as associate dean and acting dean at the Batten School. Patashnik is the author and editor of several books including Unhealthy Politics: The Battle over Evidence-Based Medicine (with Alan Gerber and Conor Dowling, Princeton University Press, 2017) and Reforms at Risk: What Happens After Major Policy Changes Are Enacted (Princeton University Press, 2008). He has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public Administration and also won the Don K. Price Book Award of the American Political Science Association. He was a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution during 1995-96, served as President of the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association during 2017-18, and was the editor of Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law during 2016-2019.
Patashnik received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
My current research projects include a study of how the incidence of costs and benefits influences citizens' policy preferences and a study of the politics of policy backlash.
A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving, 6th edition (with Eugene S. Bardach). (Washington: CQ Press, 2019)
Unhealthy Politics: The Battle over Evidence-Based Medicine (with Alan S. Gerber and Conor M. Dowling). (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017)
Congress and Policy Making in the 21st Century (co-edited with Jeffery Jenkins). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving, 5th edition (with Eugene S. Bardach). (Washington: CQ Press, 2016)
Living Legislation: Durability, Change, and the Politics of American Lawmaking (co-editor with Jeffrey A. Jenkins) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
Reforms at Risk: What Happens After Major Policy Changes Are Enacted (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
Promoting the General Welfare: New Perspectives on Government Performance (co-editor with Alan S. Gerber) (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2006)
Putting Trust in the U.S. Budget: Federal Trust Funds and the Politics of Commitment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). [Chinese translation, 2009]
May 13, 2020
In May 2020, Eric Patashnik co-wrote "Policy Analysis and Political Sustainability" with R. Kent Weaver. This piece focuses on a “checklist” of potential sources, risk factors, and warning signs for potential challenges to political sustainability and applies this analysis to the case of the Affordable Care Act.
April 1, 2020
In April 2020, Susan Moffitt co-edited, "The Politics of the Opioid Epidemic" with Eric Patashnik, as well as co-authoring an article in the volume with Paul Testa and Marie Schenk. The piece focuses on American policy and practice in response to the epidemic and explores the question, "Where do we go from here?"
February 7, 2020 The New York Times
Eric Patashnik in The New York Times, “Reducing the odds and potency of backlash is critical to the political sustainability of activist government.”
August 28, 2019 Market Watch
On Market Watch, Eric Patashnik recommends a list of questions to ask your doctor in order to minimize your risk of being offered treatments you don’t need.
May 14, 2019
In a chapter of the recently published Lessons from the Clean Air Act, Professor Eric Patashnik, Director of the Master of Public Affairs Program, examines market-based policies in the Clean Air Act.
December 14, 2018
In November, Professors Eric Patashnik and Wendy Schiller convened a conference on "The Dynamics of American Democracy: Partisan Polarization, Political Competition and Government Performance," to explore the current state of democracy in the United States.
5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. True North Classroom, Stephen Robert '62 Hall, 280 Brook Street