Ruth Bloch Rubin

Ruth Bloch Rubin studies American politics, with a substantive focus on legislative institutions, political parties, and American political development. Combining archival and interview data, her current work explores how divisions within political parties drive congressional development and structure lawmaking. Challenging existing theories of party power in Congress, she highlights the role of intraparty organizations in shaping both substantive and procedural change. Asst. Prof. Bloch Rubin is also working on a project that examines Congress’s provision of health services to American Indians in the early nineteenth century.

She is the 2018 recipient of the Alan Rosenthal Prize for her book, Building the Bloc: Intraparty Organization in the U.S. Congress (2017), which traces the strategic logic, organizational development, and policy consequences of intraparty factions in Congress over the past century.