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Thomas Medvetz

Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies

Tom Medvetz received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. Before joining the UCSD faculty, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Institute for the Social Sciences at Cornell University. His research on think tanks, the American conservative movement, and the public role of intellectuals has appeared in journals such asActes de Recherche en Sciences Sociales, the Annual Review of Sociology, Politics & Society, and Qualitative Sociology. His first book,Think Tanks in America, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2012.

Thomas Medvetz. 2012. “Murky Power: ‘Think Tanks’ as Boundary Organizations.” Pp. 113-33 in David Courpasson, Damon Golsorkhi, and Jeffrey J. Sallaz, eds. Rethinking Forms of Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets. Bradford, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Thomas Medvetz. 2012. “‘Scholar as Sitting Duck’: The Cronon Affair and the Buffer Zone in American Public Debate.” Public Culture 24(1): 47-53.

Gross, Neil, Thomas Medvetz, and Rupert Russell. 2011. “The Contemporary American Conservative Movement.” Annual Review of Sociology 37: 325-354.

Medvetz, Thomas. 2010. “‘Public Policy is Like a Having a Vaudeville Act’: Languages of Duty and Difference Among Think Tank-Affiliated Policy Experts.” Qualitative Sociology 33(4): 549-562.

Medvetz, Thomas. 2010. “Terra Obscura: Vers une Théorie des Think Tanks Américains.” [“Terra Obscura: Toward a Theory of American Think Tanks.”] Pp. 139-157 in Yann Bérard and Renaud Crespin, eds. Aux Frontières de L’expertise: Dialogues Entre Saviors et Pouvoirs. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

Medvetz, Thomas. 2009. “Les think tanks aux États-Unis: L’émergence d’un sous-espace de production des savoirs.” [“Think Tanks in the United States: The Emergence of a Subspace of Knowledge Production.”] Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 176-177: 82-93.

Medvetz, Thomas. 2008. “Think Tanks as an Emergent Field.” New York: Social Science Research Council.

Medvetz, Thomas. 2006. “The Strength of Weekly Ties: Relations of Material and Symbolic Exchange in the Conservative Movement.” Politics & Society 34(3): 343-368.