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James S. Fishkin

American political scientist (1948-)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ1681065
Source-derived summary

James S. Fishkin (born 1948) is an American political scientist and communications scholar. He holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, where he serves as a professor of communication and, by courtesy, political science. He also acts as the director of Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab. Fishkin is widely cited for his work on deliberative democracy, with his proposition of Deliberative Polling in 1988 being particularly influential. Together with Robert Luskin, Fishkin's work has led to over 100 deliberative polls in 28 countries.

Career

Fishkin earned his BA and Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, and his second Ph.D. in philosophy from King's College, Cambridge University. He currently leads the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University (formerly known as the Center for Deliberative Democracy). He has held numerous fellowships, including a Guggenheim fellowship, a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a visiting fellow commoner role at Trinity College, Cambridge. Fishkin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

Deliberative polling

The deliberative opinion poll, a concept proposed by Fishkin, involves gathering a representative random sample of people to deliberate on a specific issue.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “James S. Fishkin” as american political scientist (1948-). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Fishkin and American.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 1988, 2014—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with James, Fishkin and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “James S. Fishkin”, the useful work is to connect “american political scientist (1948-)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1681065. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1988 and 2014.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James S. Fishkin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James S. Fishkin primary sources, James S. Fishkin archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from James S. Fishkin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.