Mark A. Peterson, Ph.D.

(Bios are for archival purposes)

A specialist on American national institutions and a political scientist, much of Professor Petersons scholarship focuses on interactions among the Presidency, Congress, and interest groups, evaluating their implications for policy making, both within the general domain of domestic policy and with special attention to health care policy. He has written extensively on how Congress responds to presidential legislative initiatives, exploring how different political, economic, and institutional settings affect coalition building, promote inter-institutional conflict or cooperation, influence the presidents legislative performance, and establish the baseline for assessing the performance of individual leaders. He has also investigated the ways in which presidents use relationships with organized interests to promote their administrations political or programmatic agendas, based on the presidential objectives and strategic calculations. His most recent research examines how transformation of the interest group community, institutional dynamics in Congress, changes in the context and demands of political leadership, and various dimensions of social learning by policy makers promote or constrain enacting major health policy innovations. These various projects have been supported by, among others, the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Dirksen Congressional Leadership Research Center, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, and time as a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

From 1993 to 2002, Professor Peterson was the editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, a leading bimonthly scholarly journal in the field. He now chairs the journals Executive Committee and also serves on the Board of Editors of PS: Political Science & Politics. Previously he was on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Politics.

Professor Peterson has also been engaged with politics and policy making more directly. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, he was Democratic Party Ward Chair in the First Ward, and worked on many political campaigns. As an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, he served as a Legislative Assistant for Health Policy in the Office of U.S. Senator Tom Daschle. Currently he is on the Study Panel on Medicare and Markets organized by the National Academy of Social Insurance. He has often been interviewed for television, radio, and print media stories, including for National Public Radio, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Christian Science Monitor.

In addition, Professor Peterson chairs the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations Scholars in Health Policy Research program and is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Foundations Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) program and its Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research Program.

At UCLA, he is a Faculty Associate of the Center for Health Policy Research and on the faculty boards of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, the Center for Policy Research on Aging, the Center for Governance, the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, and the Institute for Social Science Research.

Before coming to UCLA, he was an associate professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, and Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Henry LaBarre Jayne Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University.

Bio from 12th Annual Healthcare Symposium

Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, UCLA School of Public Affairs
Past Editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law
 

A specialist on American national institutions and a political scientist, much of Professor Peterson's scholarship focuses on interactions among the Presidency, Congress, and interest groups, evaluating their implications for policy making, both within the general domain of domestic policy and with special attention to health care policy.

From 1993 to 2002, Professor Peterson was the editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, a leading bimonthly scholarly journal in the field. He later chaired the journal's Executive Committee. Previously he was on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Politics and of PS: Political Science & Politics. In addition, Professor Peterson chairs the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Scholars in Health Policy Research program and is a member of the National Advisory Committees for the Foundation's Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) program.

Professor Peterson has also been engaged in policy making more directly. As an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, he served as a Legislative Assistant for Health Policy in the Office of U.S. Senator Tom Daschle. During 2000-2003 he was on the Study Panel on Medicare and Markets organized by the National Academy of Social Insurance.

At UCLA, Professor Peterson chaired the Department of Public Policy from 2001 to 2005. He is a Faculty Associate of the Center for Health Policy Research; Co-Director of the Policy Core, Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services; and on the faculty boards of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, the Center for Society & Genetics, the Center for Policy Research on Aging, and the Institute for Social Science Research.