With support from the SNF Agora Institute, a one-day symposium at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center brought together scholars and practitioners, allowing researchers, policymakers, and civic leaders to test ideas against lived experience and explore how democratic research can better reflect the people who shape public life.
Hosted by Peopling Politics, the symposium was grounded in a core premise: research improves when it centers people and emphasizes the experiences of voters, nonvoters, organizers, advocates, elected officials, staff, and the institutions and relationships that shape political behavior.
Wendy Li, a postdoctoral fellow at SNF Agora and one of the event’s organizers, said a people-centered approach guided the event. She said the network began with scholars seeking more research on “the perspective of the everyday person who’s doing this work.” For Li and her colleagues, that includes people inside institutions who are often discussed in abstract terms: lobbyists, congressional staffers, campaign professionals, civil society leaders, and public officials.
Timed to coincide with the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting in Washington, the symposium was not a traditional academic conference. Organizers created a space for academics and practitioners to learn from one another directly. Li described the goal as “breaking down silos between academia, public policy, and organizing” and building conversations across boundaries.
Rather than splitting into concurrent sessions, the symposium used a single-track format with shared meals, coffee breaks, and opportunities for discussion. Participants from diverse fields remained together throughout the day, encouraging direct exchange beyond formal presentations and drawing on perspectives from civil rights, policy, and organizing.
A theme emerged across panels and discussions. As Li put it, “just talk to people.” The phrase summed up a key argument: scholarship on U.S. politics often relies on abstractions or assumptions about institutions. Speakers instead called for empirical research, direct engagement, and attention to the people whose daily work shapes politics.
Li sees no trade-off between scholarly rigor and public engagement. “Doing rigorous, innovative research is not mutually exclusive with being engaged and accessible,” she said. She believes that connecting with study subjects makes research more original, empirically sound, and accessible to wider audiences, especially when scholars consider the ways race, class, organizations, and culture shape institutions.
Peopling Politics asserts that democracy is shaped by relationships, hierarchies, workplaces, and inequalities. Understanding these dynamics requires studying how people navigate power, act within organizations, and how race and class shape access and representation.
After the event, organizers began mentoring early-career scholars, planning a special journal issue, forming smaller working groups, and developing accessible research formats, including white papers. These efforts advance the network’s aim of strengthening research and expanding public understanding and policy engagement.
For Li, the day showed that the ingredients for stronger democratic work already exist. “We have all the building blocks, tools, and resources,” she said. “If we just figure out how to put them together.”
