Matthew Green's Publications

Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership

Yale Press. A study of how and why speakers since the 1940s have exercised legislative influence in Congress

Washington 101

Washington, DC is much more than a city of politicians, cherry blossoms, and national landmarks. Washington 101 offers a comprehensive academic introduction to the richness and diversity of the nation's capital. Each of the book's ten chapters explores key features of Washington from both past and present perspectives that make it unique as a symbolic city, a political city, and as a living city. Topics covered in the book include Washington's urban design and architecture, its memorials and museums, local and national politics, the regional economy, and the neighborhoods and people of the city and surrounding suburbs. This book draws upon a variety of intellectual approaches and a wealth of academic research to explain Washington in a manner that is clear, accessible, and engaging.

Underdog Politics

In the first comprehensive study of the subject in decades, Green disputes the conventional belief that the minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives is an unimportant political player. Published by Yale University Press

Living in an Age of Mistrust: An Interdisciplinary Study of Declining Trust and How to Get it Back

Trust is a concept familiar to most. Whether we are cognizant of it or not, we experience it on a daily basis. Yet trust is quickly eroding in civic and political life. Americans’ trust in their government has reached all-time lows. The political and social consequences of this decline in trust are profound. What are the foundations of trust? What explains its apparent decline in society? Is there a way forward for rebuilding trust in our leaders and institutions? How should we study the role of trust across a diverse range of policy issues and problems?

Given its complexity, trust as an object of study cannot be claimed by any single discipline. Rather than vouch for an overarching theory of trust, Living in an Age of Mistrust synthesizes existing perspectives across multiple disciplines to offer a truly comprehensive examination of this concept and a topic of research. Using an analytical framework that encompasses rational and cultural (or sociological) dimensions of trust, the contributions found therein provide a wide range of policy issues both domestic and international to explore the apparent decline in trust, its impact on social and political life, and efforts to rebuild trust.