Draft chapters for my book in progress, Segregation and Mistrust (under advance contract to Cambridge University Press) where I argue that it is segregation, not diversity, that drives down trust.  I examine theoretical linkages on contact theory and data from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia.

See my page on corruption research!

Click on the picture!

A long suffering baseball fan of:

My most widely cited book:

Click on the picture to go to the book

Visit my papers

page for work on 

trust and inequality, 

a recent paper

why American Jews

remain loyal to the

Democratic party,

and my page on

corruption and quality

of governance and my new 

page on diversity

segregation, and trust.

Also see my article 

with Bo Rothstein of 

Goteborg University, 

"All for All:

Equality, Corruption, 

and Social Trust," 

 published in 

World Politics, 

57 (October 2005)

• Eric M. Uslaner is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland--College Park, where he has taught since 1975. In 1997-1998 he was Distinguished University Research Fellow at the University of Maryland and in 1981-82 he was Fulbright Lecturer and Visiting Professor, Departments of American Studies and Political Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Professor Uslaner received his B.A. from Brandeis University cum laude with Honors in Politics in 1968 and his M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) in Political Science from Indiana University.   In 2006 he was appointed the first Senior Research Fellow at the Center for American Law and Political Science at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China.  In the Fall, 2010, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Political Science at the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University.

• In 2011 he was named one of the top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America.

• Uslaner is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Institute for Social Change at the University of Manchester (UK) and the "Social Trust in Sweden" research project, Ersta Sköndal University College, Stockholm, Sweden.  He is also affilliated with the Transnational Research Institute on Corruption (TRIC) at the Australian National University,

• His books include The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate (University of Michigan Press, 1999); The Decline of Comity in Congress (University of Michigan Press, 1993), Shale Barrel Politics: Energy and Legislative Leadership (Stanford University Press, 1989). His current research focuses on why people trust each other, primarily in the United States but also across nations. His most recently published book (click here to download) is The Moral Foundations of Trust, which has been published by Cambridge University Press.  Click here to order from Cambridge University Press or from amazon.com. 

• Uslaner's , Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law: The Bulging Pocket Makes the Easy Life, was published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press; paperback published in 2010; Chinese translation to be published by China Social Sciences Press and Japanese translation in progress.  See details on the corruption web page.

• His new book in progress, Segregation and Mistrust: Diversity, Isolation, and Social Cohesion (under contract to Cambridge University Press) challenges the argument that diversity drives down trust and altruistic deeds.  Rather, it is segregation and the lack of diverse ties that leads people to be less trusting.  See the book prospectus and several papers on the diversity/segregation page.

• Uslaner teaches courses in American politics (especially on Congress and Congressional elections), social capital, and institutional design.

• He is the co-editor of Institutions and Social Order (University of Michigan Press, 1998).  He has received a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to examine "Inequality, Trust, and Civic Engagement" (click here to download the proposal in WordPerfect or Adobe Acrobat format).  Uslaner was also the recipient of the Mentor of the Year Award from the Southern Regional Education Board.  Uslaner is also working with Professors Paul Sum of the University of North Dakota and Gabriel Badescu of Babes-Bolyai University on trust and civic engagement in  Romania and Moldova, with funding from the Institutional Review and Exchanges Board (IREX) Black and Caspian Sea Collaborative Research Program.  See preliminary findings from the surveys of the mass publics and organizational activists in Romania and Moldova and their article in Eastern European Politics and Society.

Uslaner is frequently quoted in the press (see the summary of his work on trust in the Washington Post's "Unconventional Wisdom" column on June 27, 1999 and the earlier Post story on trust in January, 1996). He talked about trust in other people on the "Chip Franklin Show" on WMAL radio, the ABC-owned newstalk station in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 1999. To listen to the radio interview using Real Player, click here.   He also discussed The Moral Foundations of Trust on NPR's program On Point with Tom Ashbrook (produced by WBUR Boston) on December 30, 2002.  Click here to listen to the program.

KEYNOTE SPEECHES: Uslaner has spoken widely about his work, giving keynote speeches in Australia, Bangladesh, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Nepal, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.   He has also been an invited speaker in Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand,  Serbia, and the Ukraine. 

Uslaner has also given talks sponsored by the U.S. Department of State in Bangladesh, India, Japan, Laos, Mexico, the Maldives, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and Saudi Arabia.

 And he is the proud husband of Debbie and even prouder father of Avery (click here to see them on their whale-watching exhibition in Australia and Avery's favorite pasttime), a rising senior majoring in Biology (and definitely NOT Political Science) at Colorado College.