About P3

The P3 Lab is a research lab is based at the University of California Santa Barbara (beginning in July 2019, it will move to Johns Hopkins University). We are a group of social scientists focused on understanding how to make the participation of ordinary people Possible, Probable, and Powerful in a way that helps realize democracy in the United States and around the world, and equips us to create sustainable, just, and equitable futures.

We are an inter-disciplinary group that uses a broad range of social science methods and works on issues ranging from the environment to race to economic inequality (and the intersections therein). Several core principles guide our work:

A Commitment to Both Relevance and Rigor: We believe that the best social science meets the twin goals of relevance (creating usable knowledge for the political actors, communities, and leaders engaged in democratic action and practice) and rigor (meeting the highest standards of academic rigor). We reject the notion that rigor and relevance cannot be simultaneously pursued; instead we seek to do research in partnership with the field that also generates testable hypotheses and theories that broaden our understanding of democracy.

A Commitment to Co-Created Knowledge: We believe true advances occur when knowledge is co-created between academics and practitioners, such that knowledge in one domain is not privileged over knowledge in another domain. We seek to work in partnership with the field so that we can mutually learn from the expertise and knowledge that we each bring.

A Focus on Strategic Agency: Our lab is focused particularly on research that helps identify and sharpen the strategic choices political actors can make. We build on existing work that shows the power of structural factors in determining political outcomes, but seek to better understand the places that actors can exercise agency, given a set of socio-political conditions.

A Commitment to Centering Inequality: Our work centers historical legacies of inequality and power differentials.

Our lab consists of faculty, post-docs, undergraduate, and graduate students. There are many ways to get involved in our lab! See below for a list of past and present lab members and check out our "Resources" page for more information on ways to get involved.