Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics

The Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics (ISCAP) is a non-partisan research institute jointly supported by the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts and Sciences.

Founded in 2003, ISCAP promotes research on public opinion, political psychology, and political communication. Its purpose is to promote research on the many ways in which citizens interact with the political world, broadly construed. 

Much of ISCAP’s research focuses on public opinion, political psychology, and political communication. Additional work involves how citizens relate to one another in an environment of highly diverse political perspectives. The faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates involved in ISCAP studies use social scientific methods to better understand and to potentially improve the quality of citizens’ relationships with government as well as with each other. Although ISCAP’s primary focus is on the United States, cross-national studies have also helped to illuminate how political communication and mass opinion interact in an increasingly globalized world.

Photo Credit (top image): iStock / Vladimir Vladimirov