What does it mean to be a model citizen?
Calling all current Duke undergraduate, graduate, and professional students with an interest in politics, democracy, and public service!
Polis: Center for Politics is committed to increasing our understanding of politics locally, nationally, and globally.
We aim to promote powerful politics research, to foster rich political discourse, and to help a new generation of leaders find on-ramps to public service.
Projects & Programs
The Civil Discourse Project (CDP) sponsors courses, events, and scholarship that promote civil discourse through modeling or teaching the capacities and virtues necessary to engage in healthy exchange across difference. At CDP, we aim to create, both inside and outside the classroom, intellectually diverse communities of friends who will both support and challenge each other in a collective pursuit of truth and knowledge—enabling all to become better thinkers, people, community members, citizens, and leaders. We maintain that such community requires freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression for faculty and students alike.
The Polis Distinguished Fellows Program honors extraordinary leadership in politics and public service. Fellows are prominent figures who bring expertise and experience from their roles as practitioners in politics and governance, campaigns, activism, journalism, media, etc.
The AY25-26 Polis Distinguished Fellow is Michael S. Regan, former EPA Administrator; Danny Werfel, former Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); John Hillen, former US Assistant Secretary of State.
The Polis Student Committee (PSC) is a community of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at Duke University who share an interest in politics, democracy, and public service. The PSC aims to promote greater understanding of—and engagement with—politics at the local, state, national, and global levels. PSC members are official members of the Polis community who participate in the center’s events and activities, gain access to special perks and unique opportunities, and play a valuable role in helping to shape Polis’s programs.
Polis: Center for Politics serves as the Campus Partner for Project Citizen, an Experiential Orientation program designed to give students the skills to be informed, active, and compassionate citizens within Duke campus and our local, national, and global communities.
Distinguished Fellow Congressman David Price on The Challenges of Creating Policies in Democracy
“What makes creating policy in a democracy challenging? We asked Congressman David Price, who helped start Duke’s public policy program and represented North Carolina’s Fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years. He is now a Professor Emeritus at Duke and a Distinguished Fellow with Polis, Duke’s Center for Politics…”
Student Voices: Attorney General Jeff Jackson Shines a Light on Communication, Leadership, and Public Service
“Attorney General Jackson came well-prepared for his November 12th Sanford Distinguished Lecture, considering he brought with him a book that contained addresses from the former North Carolina Governor, Senator, and Duke President Terry Sanford. He utilized the tome to point out that then-Governor Sanford was cognizant of the dangers of gerrymandering in the future, something Jackson fought to counteract while in the state Senate…”
Danny Werfel on The Price of Democracy, Brookings Institution
“In a Brookings Institute panel on Democracy, Danny Werfel highlighted how America’s tax system reflects the country’s growth and hard-earned lessons, noting, “we have an internal revenue service and not an external revenue service not because we just thought of it one day…”
Political scientists at Duke University draw upon a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to produce cutting-edge research that enhances our understanding of politics. Polis is committed to showcasing political science research at Duke and to facilitating its creation.
Check out valuable student insights from Professor Deondra Rose's Political Analysis for Public Policymaking (PUBPOL301) on Medium.
The Lemur provides a forum for intellectually ambitious and curious Duke students who wish to share ideas about history, philosophy, politics, art, religion, science, and culture with the broader university community while honing their writing skills with the aid of superb mentorship from Duke faculty and affiliates.
Latest Research
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Research
Cutting-edge research on the politics of public policy
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Promoting student voter participation
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