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Geoffrey C. Layman

Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science

Man with graying hair and a goatee smiles, wearing a blue plaid blazer and light blue shirt.
Office
2084 Jenkins and Nanovic Halls
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone
574-631-0379
Email
glayman@nd.edu

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Biography

Geoff Layman is the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and a faculty fellow in the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. His research focuses on political behavior, political parties, and religion and politics, with a particular emphasis on long-term changes in the parties and their electoral coalitions. The primary focus of his current research is long-term change in the parties’ activist bases and its implications for American political polarization and democracy. His most recent book (with David Campbell and John Green) is Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics (Cambridge, 2021). He also is the author of The Great Divide: Religious and Cultural Conflict in American Party Politics (Columbia, 2001) and has published numerous articles in the discipline's leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, and the Annual Review of Political Science. Layman is a past editor-inchief of the journal Political Behavior and was a long-term member of the American National Election Studies Advisory Board.  

On leave Fall 2026 and Spring 2027

Research Interests

American Politics, Political Parties, Public Opinion, Voting Behavior, Religion and Politics, Survey Research

Affiliated Centers and Institutes

  • Rooney Democracy Institute
  • Ansari Institute for Global Engagement With Religion

Awards/Honors/Grants

  • Distinguished Book Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2022)
  • Jack L. Walker, Jr. Outstanding Article Award, APSA Political Organizations and Parties Section (2012)

Publications