Karen Orren

Karen Orren (born 1942) is an American political scientist, noted for her research on American political institutions and social movements, analyzed in historical perspective, and for helping to stimulate the study of American political development.

Orren graduated with a B.A. from Stanford University, majoring in anthropology and political science. She then attended graduate school at the University of Chicago, completing her M.A. in political science in 1965 and her PhD degree in 1972. Her doctoral dissertation examined life insurance politics in Illinois. Orren is presently a professor of political science at UCLA, where she has taught since 1969.

Orren’s research considers political questions in broader historical settings and in the context of institutional change. In her first book, "Corporate Power and Social Change" (1974), she studied corporate investment in housing over a century to illuminate the range of possible authority relations between government and business and account for the prevailing form. In "Belated Feudalism" (1991), Orren overturned the Hartzian proposition that American history is characterized by the “absence of feudalism,” through an investigation of the labor movement’s prolonged confrontation with ancient master-and-servant laws.

Orren has often collaborated with Stephen Skowronek, including founding the academic journal Studies in American Political Development in 1986, and writing the book "The Search for American Political Development" (2004). Through their work, Orren and Skowronek have significantly fostered the growth of American political development (or APD) as a distinct subfield within the discipline of political science.

In 1993, "Belated Feudalism" won the J. David Greenstone Prize for the best book in politics and history, awarded by the American Political Science Association (APSA). In 1998, Orren won the Franklin L. Burdette Award for the best paper presented at the previous year's APSA annual meeting. Orren was president of the Politics and History Section of APSA for 1995-1996 and from 2007 is a co-editor of the American Political Science Review.

elect Publications

*"Corporate Power And Social Change: The Politics Of The Life Insurance Industry". 1974. Johns Hopkins University Press.
*"Standing to Sue: Interest Group Conflict in the Federal Courts." 1976. "American Political Science Review" 70(3): 723-741.
*"Belated Feudalism : Labor, The Law, And Liberal Development In The United States". 1991. Cambridge University Press.
*"Beyond the Iconography of Order: Notes for a New Institutionalism" (with Stephen Skowronek). 1994. In "The Dynamics of American Politics", eds. L. Dodd and C. Jillson. Westview Press.
*"Labor Regulation and Constitutional Theory in the United States and England." 1994. "Political Theory" 22(1): 98-123.
*"The Primacy of Labor in American Constitutional Development." 1995. "American Political Science Review" 89(2): 377-388.
*"Officers' Rights: Toward a Unified Field Theory of American Constitutional Development." 2000. "Law and Society Review" 34(4): 873-909.
*"The Search for American Political Development". 2004. Cambridge University Press (with Stephen Skowronek).