David Bateman is Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University. His research focuses on American politics, often from a comparative or historical perspective. His current projects include a manuscript on the development of voting rights in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, with particular attention to periods of disfranchisement; analyses of preference formation, change, and measurement in the U.S. Congress; the collection and analysis of legislative behavior in 19th and early 20th century American states; a study of the development of American state constitutions and their formation in constitutional conventions, referenda, and state legislatures; and a co-authored book manuscript assessing the role of the South in American Political Development. The projects aim to integrate literatures on American political institutions with a close attention to the substance of political conflicts and the meanings that have been conferred on these by participants.