Department/College/UnitSocial Sciences Division

TitleProfessor

AffiliationFaculty

Other UCSC Campus AffiliationLegal Studies

Primary Office LocationMerrill College Academic Building
117

Office HoursSpring 2025: Thursdays 2:00-4:00 (117 Merrill) and by appointment (& Zoom can be arranged on other days)

Mail StopMerrill/Crown Faculty Services

Biography, Education and Training

B.A. Haverford College, 1982
PhD Cornell University, 1988
Congressional Fellow, American Political Science Association, 1993-4.

Summary of Expertise

American politics and political history. U.S. military policy. The Senate and Congress.

Research Interests

Daniel Wirls’ research interests range across American politics, institutions, public policy, and political history. He has published work on the founding period and the early Senate, antebellum representation in the Senate and House, the Seventeenth Amendment, Cold War and post-Cold War military policy, and contemporary political transformations. His most recent books are The Senate: From White Supremacy to Government Gridlock (University of Virginia Press, 2021); The Federalist Papers and Institutional Power in American Political Development (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015) and Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).

Teaching Interests

Congress, the President, and Court in American Political Development
The Politics and Policies of American Defense
Congress: Representation and Legislation
American Political Development
Politics: Power, Principle, Process, and Policy

Selected Publications

• Gender Neutrality Made Easy and Constitutional: Why We Call Members of the House “Congressman” and “Congresswoman,” and Why We Should Not, Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2023-24.

• The Senate: From White Supremacy to Government Gridlock (University of Virginia Press, 2021)
• The Federalist Papers and Institutional Power in American Political Development (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015)
• Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)
• The Invention of the United States Senate (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)
• Buildup: The Politics of Defense in the Reagan Era (Cornell University Press, 1992)