Biographical note

Karen Orren is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her areas of expertise are American Political History and Institutional Development. Stephen Skowronek is the Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University. He is the author of Building A New American State, The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920, and The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton. He is also, with Karen Orren, the managing Editor of Studies In American Political Development. He has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has held the French-American Foundation Chair in American Civilization at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociale in Paris.