David R. Berman is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and a long-time associate with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University where he has served as a Senior Research Fellow. He has written twelve books and over 100 published papers, book chapters, or referred articles dealing with state and local government, politics, and public policy. His work includes studies of state-local relations and several books and refereed journal articles on the Populist/ Progressive period in the United States. Among his books are: Socialist Mayors in the United States: Governing in an Era of Municipal Reform, University Press of Kansas, 2022; Local Government and the States: Autonomy, Politics and Policy, Routledge, 2019, revised edition; Governors and the Progressive Movement, University Press of Colorado, 2019; George Hunt, Arizona’s Crusading Seven-Term Governor, University of Arizona Press, 2015; Politics, Labor, and the War on Big Business, The Path of Reform in Arizona, 1890-1920, University Press of Colorado, 2012; Radicalism in the Mountain West, 1890-1920: Socialists, Populists, Miners, and Wobblies University Press of Colorado, 2007; Arizona Politics and Government: The Quest for Autonomy, Democracy, and Development, University of Nebraska Press, 1998; and Reformers, Corporations and the Electorate: An Analysis of Arizona’s Age of Reform, University Press of Colorado,1992.
Dr. Berman holds a bachelor’s degree from Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, and both a master’s degree and a doctorate from the American University in Washington, D.C. His work has been funded by several research grants and contracts. He has had research/writing contracts with the International City/County Management Association for studies on state‑local relations. Included in his funded work with the Morrison Institute have been studies on redistricting, state-local and urban-rural relations, and direct democracy. Along with this have been several examinations of state governance and policies for the Arizona Town Hall. Other activities have included Case Study Investigator, Joint Project on Term Limits, National Conference of State Legislators and Council of State Governments; Consultant, Office of Government Programs, The University of Arizona on county‑tribal relations project, funded by the Kellogg Foundation; and author of a political culture study supported in part by a Travel to Collections Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities. He also served as an expert witness in case involving voter suppression, Feldman, et al. v. Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, et al. which was ultimately decided by the U.S Supreme Court in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U.S. ___ (2021). He served on the Executive Committee, Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management (SIAM), American Society for Public Administration and Executive Council, Federalism and Intergovernmental Section, American Political Science Association.