Dr. David A. Bositis, (BA, Northwestern, MA, PhD, Southern Illinois University), who has been at the Joint Center since 1990, is the author, co-author or editor of six books, including the recently released Voting Rights and Minority Representation; in addition, he has authored eleven monographs, and numerous scholarly articles, analyses, and reports. Prior to working at the Joint Center, he taught political science at the George Washington University and SUNY-Potsdam.

Since 1992, Dr. Bositis has designed and managed 22 national surveys for the Joint Center, which have included more than 25,000 respondents. These surveys include studies done for the U.S. Army, HBO, Fortune, and U.S. corporations. These surveys have included national surveys of the African American and Hispanic populations and the general population, as well as specialized national surveys of black elected officials, young adults, black churches, minority owned businesses, and black professionals. The most recent publications from these surveys are Black Churches and the Faith-Based Initiative, Diverging Generations: The Transformation of African American Policy Views, and Changing of the Guard: Generational Differences Among Black Elected Officials.

Dr. Bositis is a voting rights and redistricting expert, who has published widely in this area, and has appeared as an expert witness in both state and federal court. Dr. Bositis worked with the late Judge A. Leon Higgenbotham, Jr. in defending majority-minority districts following the U.S. Supreme Court's Shaw v. Reno decision. Dr. Bositis' research was cited by Justice Stevens in the Bush v. Vera case.

Dr. Bositis is also a scholar of political parties and representation and has written extensively on those topics, including the Congressional Black Caucus. Since 1992, he has written the popular monograph series, Blacks and the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. In 2000, the U.S. State Department sent Dr. Bositis to Tanzania, Zanzibar, Zambia, and South Africa to speak on issues of representation. Dr. Bositis traveled to Benin several times in the mid-1990s to provide training and to work with NGOs that were conducting presidential election studies.

Dr. Bositis is also a scholar of black politics and voting, and the Joint Center has published his election analyses following each national election since 1992. Since 1997, Dr. Bositis has also been the author of the yearly Joint Center series on black elected officials entitled 'Black Elected Officials: A Statistical Analysis'.

Speaking Topics

Black Elected Officials
Elections and Politics
Public Opinion Polling
Redistricting and Voting Rights

Recent Discussions

July 16, 2007
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Analyst David Bositis Offers Analysis on Recent Data. - NPR "Military Recruitment Sees Decline" - Listen to Audio

Selected Published Works

• 2002 National Opinion Poll: Education (Joint Center, 2003)
• 2002 National Opinion Poll: Politics (Joint Center, 2002)
• Black Elected Officials: A Statistical Summary, 2000 (Joint Center, 2002)
• Changing of the Guard: Generational Differences Among Black Elected Officials (Joint Center, 2001)
• Diverging Generations: The Transformation of African American Policy Views (Joint Center, 2001)
• Blacks and the 2000 Democratic National Convention (Joint Center, 2000)
• Blacks and the 2000 Republican National Convention (Joint Center, 2000)
• The Black Vote in 2000 (Joint Center, 2000)
• Redistricting and Minority Representation: Learning from the Past, Preparing for the Future (Joint Center, 1998)
• African Americans and the Republican Party, 1996 (Joint Center, 1996)
• The Congressional Black Caucus in the 103rd Congress (Joint Center, 1994)