Congratulations to Associate Professor Robert Mickey, who, alongside Professor Rita Chin, was awarded the Building Better Futures grant for their project, "Laying the Groundwork for Better Futures in Washtenaw County."
The Building Better Futures grant program builds upon OVPR’s RCI supports, created to catalyze innovative research and scholarly inquiry to advance knowledge around complex societal matters. This new program will be jointly administered and advanced in partnership between OVPR and the National Center for Institutional Diversity.
"In partnership with the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners’ Advisory Council on Reparations, this project will be conducted by an interdisciplinary team of faculty from the College of Engineering, School of Social Work, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and LSA. It will illuminate and document a history of race-based policymaking and structural racism in Washtenaw County, offering a contrast to the bulk of historical and social science literature on race in the U.S. North that focuses on large cities. This research will support Washtenaw County’s efforts to craft informed plans for a better future for all its residents."
Professor Mickey's research focuses on U.S. politics in comparative and historical perspective. He is interested in the country's belated (as well as incomplete) democratization by the 1970s, its current democratic backsliding, and the place of racial conflict in each. He is the author of Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972 (Princeton University Press), which won the 2016 J. David Greenstone Prize for the best book on politics & history published in the past two years (American Political Science Association), and the 2017 V. O. Key Award for the best book on southern politics published in 2015-2016 (Southern Political Science Association). Recent articles include an analysis of challenges to democracy in America's states and an exploration with Ashley Jardina (University of Virginia) of the relationship of white racial solidarity to support for democracy. Mickey is writing a book on Americans' relationship of racial attitudes to their support for democracy with Jardina and Vince Hutchings.
