Adam Berinsky

Adam Berinsky is an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. His research focuses on the political behavior of ordinary citizens. While he is primarily concerned with questions of representation and the communication of public sentiment to political elites, he has also studied the continuing power of ethnic stereotypes, the effect of voting reforms, and public opinion concerning foreign policy.

Berinsky has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Public Opinion Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, and Political Psychology. He is the author of Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Representation in America, from Princeton University Press. In Silent Voices, Berinsky argues that the very process of collecting information on public preferences through surveys may bias our picture of those preferences. In particular, he focuses on the many respondents who say they "don't know" when asked to share their views on the political issues of the day. He concludes that "don't know" responses are often the result of a systematic process that serves to exclude particular interests from the realm of recognized public opinion. Contrary to the common view of polling, surveys may then echo, rather than correct, the inegalitarian shortcomings of other forms of political participation and even introduce new problems altogether.

Berinsky is currently completing a book on public opnion during wartime, with a focus on World War II.

Berinsky is a graduate of Wesleyan University, where in 1992 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high honors in government, and the University of Michigan, where he received a PhD in political science in 2000.