Established in 1919, the Institute of Governmental Studies has continuously extended and reshaped its basic research mission. In its early years, the Institute had strong roots in public administration and California government. In the late 1980s, the late IGS Director Nelson Polsby broadened the IGS focus to include federal government generally and Congressional studies in particular. He built strong ties to scholars of American government around the world. Polsby also made IGS an intellectual catalyst and community builder for the campus, greatly expanding the Institute's multidisciplinary seminar offerings. These distinct features of the Institute remain, but in the period since 1994, IGS has sharpened its research focus, concentrating more on issues of institutional design and political reform.
As a consequence of highly salient contemporary controversies over campaign finance, redistricting, term limits, governance by initiative, and the like, political reform has become more important as a matter of public policy and scholarly inquiry. Unfortunately, the reform agenda is all too often driven by political rhetoric and is rarely informed by high quality research. IGS has attempted to remedy this in various ways: by initiating and funding research in these areas, training undergraduates and graduate students to do studies on related topics, sponsoring seminars and conferences that disseminate its academic work to other scholars, to practitioners and to the public, and by working with governmental bodies that are charged with proposing structural changes.
During 1998-99, the Institute strengthened its research agenda around the issues of domestic political reform and celebrated its 80th anniversary. IGS organized two scholarly conferences pertaining to California's new open primary electoral process. Scholars from across the state presented their research findings on primary politics and the Institute commissioned a series of papers based on this work slated for joint publication with UC Press. IGS also intensified its research emphasis on the emerging area of politics, money, and campaign finance reform. In this effort, the Institute achieved two significant results. First, the California Bipartisan Commission on the Political Reform Act, a statewide public agency, engaged IGS to perform its research tasks as a sponsored project to study the enforcement patterns and regulatory effectiveness of the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Second, the Citizens' Research Foundation (CRF), a nonprofit organization that sponsored research on political money, agreed to end its 25-year relationship with the University of Southern California and create a new affiliation with IGS, with the collaboration of Nelson Polsby. From 1998-2004 this new agreement brought great opportunity to IGS in leveraging private and foundation funding to support an array of campaign finance research initiatives: the role of "soft money" in American politics, comparative studies of western democracies, development of a central data warehouse for California campaign finance information, and assessment of various national reform proposals.
In July 1999, Bruce Cain assumed the IGS directorship, and IGS sharpened its research focus in the areas of institutional design and political reform. The basic questions underlying this research concern the purposes of political reform, the ways that institutional incentives promote desirable behavior, and the specific policy recommendations that follow from this analysis. Such investigations are necessarily interdisciplinary. Political philosophy and ethics address the questions of ends: i.e., what are the goals of a democratic state, how far should the principle of equality be carried in political representation, which information should be in the public realm and which in the private. Game theory and public choice analytics deriving from the economic tradition explore strategic incentives and their relationship to rules. Legal studies illuminate the constitutional issues that are often inherent in reform proposals. Historical research traces the evolutionary path of political institutions, addressing the pitfalls of a purely static analysis. Empirical political science and journalistic reporting collect information and test propositions about how institutions perform. In November 2009, the Statewide Database redistricting project left IGS to affiliate with the Berkeley Law School along with the Election Administration Research Center (EARC).
In July 2007, Jack Citrin assumed the directorship of IGS, promising to lead the Institute in new directions and to spearhead new focuses of research. In the past, IGS has encouraged both basic and applied research approaches. Under Jack Citrin's leadership a new era emerges that aims to better serve the University and the state. In 2008, IGS launched its premier e-journal, The California Journal of Politics & Policy, that provides analytical and practical research articles on California political and policy questions. New conferences are organized on Canada-US relations, the legacy of Proposition 13, the American presidency during wartime, and constitutional reform efforts in California. Each year new themes are selected that shape the programming of IGS public events. In 2010-11 for example, the dual themes of implications of national health care reform and electing the next governor of California will be highlighted. New centers are launched that build on the IGS brand that include the Center for the Study of Representation, Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics & Public Service, and the Center on Causal Inference & Program Evaluation. The new Matsui Center becomes the home for civic engagement activities for Berkeley undergraduates sending students interns to learn practical politics in Sacramento, Washington, and into local government.
And, the IGS National Advisory Council is reinvigorated to bring new ideas and resources to bear on IGS affairs that expands opportunities for students and faculty during an era of reductions in state support to public higher education.