Kristin A. Goss, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science and Director, Duke in DC Program; Faculty Affiliate, Center for Strategic Philanthropy; Faculty Affiliate, Hart Leadership Program  

Office Location: 234 Sanford Bldg
Office Phone: (919) 613-7331
Duke Box: 90245
Email Address: kgoss@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise

  • American Government and Politics, Political Participation
  • Philanthropy and Nonprofits
  • Social Policy
    • Gender
    • Violence

Education:
PhD, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 2003
A.M., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1999
Master of Public Policy, with faculty award, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1996
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., 1987

Current projects: The shifting politics of gun reform, Guns in American Society - What Everyone Needs to Know, Role of mega-philanthropy in public agenda-setting and policy , Duke in DC - Public Policy , Scholars Strategy Network of the Triangle Area

Research Description: Civic and political participation; role of voluntary associations and foundations in public policy; women and politics; politics of animal welfare; politics of gun control; agenda setting; public opinion

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. K.A. Goss. The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women's Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice. University of Michigan Press, 2012.  [abs]
  2. K.A. Goss. Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America. Princeton University Press, September, 2006,2009.
  3. K.A. Goss, M.T. Heaney. "Organizing Women as Women: Hybridity and Grassroots Collective Action in the 21st Century,." Perspectives on Politics 8.1 (March, 2010). [K.A. Goss & M.T. Heaney, "Organizing Women as Women"] [abs]
  4. K.A. Goss. "Civil Society and Civic Engagement: Towards a Multi-Level Theory of Policy Feedbacks." Journal of Civil Society 6.2 (2010): 119-143.
  5. K.A. Goss. "Never Surrender? How Women’s Groups Abandoned Their Policy Niche in U.S. Foreign Policy Debates, 1916–2000." Politics & Gender 5.4 (December, 2009): 453-489.  [abs]
  6. K.A. Goss. "Foundations of Feminism: How Philanthropic Patrons Shaped Gender Politics." Social Science Quarterly 88.5 (December, 2007): 1174-1191.
  7. K.A. Goss, D. Gastwirth, S. Parkash. "Research Service Learning: Making the Academy Relevant Again." Journal of Political Science Education 6.2 (2010). [Pre-Publication Manuscript] [abs] [author's comments]
  8. K.A. Goss and S.L. Shames. "Political Pathways to Child Care Policy: The Role of Gender in Statebuilding." Women and Politics around the World: Comparative History and Survey. ABC-CLIO, 2009
  9. K.A. Goss and Theda Skocpol. "Changing Agendas: The Impact of Feminism on American Politics." Gender and Social Capital. Ed. Brenda O'Neill and Elisabeth Gidengil New York: Routledge, 2006
  10. K.A. Goss. "Rethinking the Political Participation Paradigm: The Case of Women & Gun Control." Women & Politics 25.4 (2003): 83-118.
  11. K.A. Goss. "Policy, Politics, and Paradox: The Institutional Origins of the Great American Gun War." Fordham Law Review 73.2 (2004): 681-714.
  12. K.A. Goss. "Volunteering and the Long Civic Generation." Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 28.4 (December, 1999): 378-415.
  13. K.A. Goss. Good Policy, Not Stories, Can Reduce Violence.  Chronicle Review (Chronicle of Higher Education) (May 4, 2007).
  14. K.A. Goss. "Better Together: Report of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America." Cambridge, Mass.. (December, 2000).

Bio/Profile
Kristin Goss joined the Sanford School of Public Policy in 2005. She serves as Director of the Duke in DC Program for undergraduates and as co-director of the Triangle Area chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network, which aims to amplify the voice of university-based academics and their research in important public policy debates.

Goss's work focuses on why people do (or don’t) participate in political life and how their participation or non-participation affects public policymaking. Her current projects focus on the role of philanthropic billionaires in setting social reform agendas and on the emergence of animal welfare as a policy priority.

Goss is the author of The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women's Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice (forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press). The book documents and explains the surprising rise -- and even more surprising fall -- of American women's groups on the national stage. Systematically examining these groups' policy endeavors over the last century, the book argues that public policy has profoundly shaped the nature and magnitude of women's collective voice in important national debates.

Goss is also the author of Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America (Princeton University Press, 2006, 2009), which examines the strategic and political barriers to mass mobilization for stricter firearms regulation. The book is based on her doctoral study, which won the American Political Science Association’s 2003 Harold D. Lasswell Award for the nation’s best dissertation in policy studies.

Goss has published articles in Perspectives on Politics, Social Science Quarterly, Politics & Gender, Women & Politics, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and the Fordham Law Review, as well as several book chapters. She is author of Better Together, the report of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America.

Before her appointment at Duke, Professor Goss spent three years at Georgetown University, where she taught courses on the U.S. political system, political participation, the media’s role in politics and the politics of the policymaking process. Her Duke master’s thesis explored the challenges facing voluntary associations seeking to stop the epidemic of gun violence in Washington, D.C., in the 1990s.

Goss grew up near Denver, where she developed a passion for figure skating and animal welfare. Before entering academe, she was a Washington-based journalist for six years covering non-profit organizations and foundations for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has served as a consultant to two government agencies: the U.S. Agency for International Development (San José, Costa Rica, 1995); and the Corporation for National and Community Service (Washington, D.C., 2002-2003). Her earliest political memory is of Watergate, which her parents defined as “a hotel in Washington.”

Goss splits her time between Durham and Arlington, VA. She serves as a board member of the League of Women Voters of Arlington.

Kristin A. Goss