Samuel DeCanio

Sam DeCanio is a political scientist with interests in American politics, political history, theories of the state, and general questions regarding how knowledge interacts with modern social institutions. His research has examined broad questions regarding the nature of the modern state, the historical forces that led to its emergence, and the epistemic problems confronting modern democratic politics. DeCanio's first book, Democracy and the Origins of the American Regulatory State was published by Yale University Press in 2015, and argued that high levels of voter ignorance allow elected officials and bureaucrats to act autonomously from popular pressures and demands. The book used this theory of state autonomy in democratic societies to offer a revisionist account of the historical origins of the American regulatory state in the late 19th century. DeCanio's current research examines how knowledge interacts with economic markets, democratic politics, and competitive states in international relations. His research has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, Critical Review, Journal of Politics, Studies In American Political Development, and Social Philosophy and Policy. DeCanio is currently a lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at King's College London where he is also the Associate Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society. He was previously an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University.