Michael Donnelly

Michael Donnelly is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Munk School. He is the Director of Professional Master’s Programs at the Munk School. His research and teaching focus on issues at the intersection of public opinion and public policy in North America and Europe. He asks questions about what people think about welfare states, immigration policies, and their relationship, and studies how these preferences, in turn, shape policy outputs. Michael came to U of T in 2014 from the European University Institute, where he worked following his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He recently published a book on regional and ethnic inequalities as determinants of welfare state support and an SSHRC-funded project on the effect of interest groups on support for immigration.

Research Projects

Donnelly has three ongoing research projects. First, a set of papers around interest groups and immigration attitudes. He is interested in the effect of position-taking by interest groups (business, labour, & churches) on the attitudes of their members and others with whom they have some credibility. This involves work in Canada, the US, UK, and Germany, and may be extended to France and Italy. The second project is a series of papers on the extent to which policy outputs reflect the preferences of people at various points on income distribution. This focuses on a wide range of issues, including immigration. Finally, he is extending his book’s focus on political identities to study LGBTQ+ identity in the US and Canada.