Linda Fowler

Linda L. Fowler is Professor of Government and Frank J. Reagan Chair in Policy Studies, Emerita, at Dartmouth College, where she continues to teach and conduct research. She directed the Dartmouth’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences from 1995-2004. Previously, she was Professor of Political Science in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She holds her B.A from Smith College and her MA and PhD from the University of Rochester. Prior to obtaining her PhD, Fowler worked at the Environmental Protection Agency and for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Fowler specializes in American politics and has published books on congressional elections, including: Political Ambition: Who Decides to Run for Congress (Yale 1989) and Candidates, Congress and the American Democracy (Michigan, 1993). She has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on American politics, including articles on presidential primaries. In 2005-2006, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study congressional oversight of defense and foreign policy by the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. She published the resulting book, Watchdogs on the Hill: The Decline of Congressional Oversight of U. S. Foreign Relations, with Princeton University Press in 2015. Her current research addresses the phenomenon of veto-proof majorities in a polarized age and the transformation of the House Rules Committee from 1979-2010.