Dr. Glen Krutz

Oklahoma NSF EPSCoR Researchers:
Exploring Socio-Ecological Systems' Adaptation to Climate Variability

Dr. Glen Krutz joined the Department of Political Science in 2002. He is a political science professor and associate director of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma. Before joining OU, he served on the faculty of Arizona State University and helped run two large-scale National Science Foundation projects as a doctoral student at Texas A&M University.

Dr. Krutz is the co-author (with Jeffrey Peake, Bowling Green University) of Treaty Politics and the Rise of Executive Agreements: International Commitments in a System of Shared Powers ( Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2009). Krutz is also the author of Hitching a Ride: Omnibus Legislating in the U.S. Congress ( Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2001). His research has also appeared in the discipline’s top general and specialty journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Review of Policy Research, Journal of Legislative Studies, Electoral Studies, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Party Politics, Canadian Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, and American Review of Politics. and as scholarly book chapters in volumes from the University of Chicago Press, Congressional Quarterly Press, and Lexington Books.

In 2007, Dr. Krutz received (with co-authors Jon Bond and Richard Fleisher) the Patrick Fett Award of the Midwest Political Science Association for the best paper on Congress or the presidency. Also in 2007, he was named the Outstanding Political Scientist of the Year by the Oklahoma Political Science Association. In 2000, Krutz won the American Political Science Association’s E.E. Schattschneider Award for the nation’s best dissertation in American government and politics. The Legislative Studies Section of the APSA that same year awarded Glen the Carl Albert Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the area of legislative studies. He also received the 1999 George W. Kunze Prize, which is given annually to the outstanding graduating Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University.

Prior to pursuing an academic career, Dr. Krutz worked in politics and policy. He served as a campaign assistant and then Capitol Hill aide to U.S. Senator Richard H. Bryan. He also served as research analyst (and federal liaison), then Special Assistant to the Chancellor of the University of Nevada System (now called the Nevada System of Higher Education).  These practical experiences included work in policy and institutional analysis, constituent and customer service, strategic planning and organizational assessment, governmental relations, and budgeting.

Professor Krutz’s research probes questions of public policy agenda-setting in democratic political institutions (especially Congress). His research is highly varied in terms of institutional topics, but there is an intellectual core; he explores the inter-play between political institutional structure and public policy. His various projects relate to two sets of research questions.  The first is “How do democratic political institutions process policy issues?”  More specifically, why are some issues seriously considered while others fall by the wayside?

Projects on issue processing:

• a series of articles on “winnowing” in the U.S. House and Senate.
• a series of articles on the effect of institutional structure on environmental policy discussions in congressional committees and the federal bureaucracy

But that (issue processing) represents only half of theoretical picture.  Institutions are not static.  They are not ex ante bargains struck before the game begins.  They evolve, and this evolution may affect the processing of policy issues.  Therefore, a second question he studies is “how and why do institutions change the way in which they process issues?”

Projects on institutional change in the processing of issues:

• a book (with Jeff Peake) on the rise in the presidential use of executive agreements
• an article on the changing nature of the Senate confirmation process of presidential nominees for administrative and court positions
• a series of articles on devolution in the United Kingdom (with Rob Bohrer)
• a book on the evolution of the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee

Dr. Krutz's work on the Oklahoma EPSCoR RII award addresses two significant research objectives, including:

1. Establishment of a first-of-its-kind, statewide, socio-ecological observatory;
2. Development of a fully integrated socio-ecological modeling and prediction system that is designed to integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches and to systematically examine insights from both disciplinary and integrated perspectives.