Edwin Amenta and David Meyer
  • August 13, 2026

  • Title of distinction recognizes the sociologists for achieving highest levels of scholarship

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UC Irvine sociologists Edwin Amenta and David S. Meyer have been named Distinguished Professors, a campus-level distinction that recognizes senate faculty who have achieved the highest levels of scholarship over the course of their careers. With the addition of Amenta and Meyer, who each boast nearly four decades of research in political sociology and on social movements, the School of Social Sciences now counts 26 current and emeritus faculty members among the campus’ Distinguished Professorial ranks.

Edwin Amenta
Edwin Amenta joined the UC Irvine faculty in 2005, following posts as professor and chair of sociology at New York University. He holds a courtesy appointment in political science. Amenta has studied the development of U.S. social policy, the influence of U.S. social movements in politics and culture, and the politics of news media and political organizations. He has a particular interest in historical and formal qualitative methods, especially qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), and has published empirical and methodological articles about their usage. He’s the author of five books, including Rough Draft of History: A Century of US Social Movements in the News (Princeton University Press, 2022), in which he and his coauthor examine how journalists have reported on hundreds of social movement organizations from the 1900s to the present and the consequences of that coverage. Another book - Changing Minds: Social Movements’ Cultural Impacts (Russell Sage, 2025), co-authored with UCI Chancellor’s Professor Francesca Polletta - addresses how and why social movements have changed peoples’ beliefs, values, and everyday behavior. And his first book, Bold Relief: Institutional Politics and the Origins of Modern U.S. Social Policy (Princeton University Press, 1998), won the Distinguished Publication Book Award of the American Sociological Association’s Political Sociology Section. Additionally, Amenta is co-editor of the The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology.

His research has appeared numerous times in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, and Social Forces, among other journals. His work has earned recognition from the ASA Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements and has been supported by several grants from the National Science Foundation, as well as awards from the Russell Sage Foundation, Ford Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, and National Endowment for the Humanities. He has written guest essays for the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Magazine, PBS Newshour, Salon, and others. He was elected to the Sociological Research Association in 2008 and has served as chair of the ASA’s Sections on Collective Behavior and Social Movements and Political Sociology.  Amenta earned his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation won the Susan Colver Rosenberg Award and where he served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Sociology.

David S. Meyer
David S. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in political science at Boston University and served in visiting professorial posts at Tufts University and the University of Michigan before beginning a five-year stint at CUNY City College of New York and Graduate Center in the Department of Political Science where he directed the Rosenberg/Humphrey Program in Public Policy. He joined UC Irvine in 1999 as an associate professor of sociology and currently holds courtesy appointments in political science and urban planning & public policy.

Meyer studies social movements and protest, and their role in peace, war, democracy and public policy. He’s the author or editor of ten books, including his most recent work, How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter (Polity), in which he explores the origins of social movements, how they contrast with revolutionary campaigns, and the influence of activists on politics, policy, culture and the way people live their lives. He’s published well over 100 articles, book reviews and reports that have shaped perspectives on social movements and contentious politics for several decades. Since 2010, he’s run the Politics Outdoors blog, focusing on protest politics and social movements. He’s a frequent op-ed contributor and recognized expert sought by media, with his work appearing in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Conversation, to name a few. His research has been funded by the Carnegie Corporation, National Science Foundation, American Sociological Association, the Urban Child Institute, and UC Irvine Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy, among others. He’s also served as past chair of ASA’s Sections on Collective Behavior and Social Movements and Peace and War, and he’s provided expert testimony and served as a trial consultant on protest, civil disobedience and international law. In 2017, he received the John D. McCarthy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movements and Collective Behavior from the Center for the Study of Social Movements at the University of Notre Dame, an honor recognizing his extraordinary achievements in research and the role he’s played in mentoring successive generations of scholars. And in 2025, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for his work aimed at understanding and addressing political polarization in the U.S.

 

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