Adrien Degeorges

Adrien Degeorges' research focuses on U.S. citizens’ distrust toward the federal government. He is a former doctoral research fellow at Sciences Po Paris and a former teaching fellow (ATER) at Sciences Po Bordeaux. He has held a Fulbright Fellowship and a fellowship from Sciences Po’s Center for the Americas. He spent two years at Princeton University as a Graduate Fellow and also as a Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School, under the supervision of Larry Bartels. He was also affiliated with Princeton’s European Program and was a Visiting Fellow at Vanderbilt University.

Adrien holds a master’s degree in political science from Sciences Po Paris and graduated from Sciences Po Strasbourg with a Bachelor's in Public Administration.

He has worked in Washington, D.C. for an educational nonprofit and for the U.S. mission of the French Policy Planning Staff (CAPS) at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. He also spent two years in Barcelona during the Catalan independence movement, where he learned Catalan in order to teach French and English. He later lived for a year in São Paulo, Brazil, where he developed an interest in electoral campaigns.

Adrien’s current research examines the changing meaning of citizens' distrust toward the federal government among the U.S. public. Using nearly seventy years of survey data from 1958 to 2024, he investigates the political consequences of citizens' perception of federal power as wasteful, corrupt, and captured by private interests.

Building on historical analyses of U.S. institutions and political ideas that shaped the young republic—including liberalism, republicanism, inegalitarian ideologies, and religion—his dissertation theorizes and empirically tests how distrust toward the federal government can paradoxically coexist with, and sometimes reinforce, stronger demands for state action in the U.S. public (e.g., social protection, law and order). His research also models how this distinctive relationship between demand for government and distrust has shaped vote choice over time. Finally, he shows the implications of his findings for democratic theory, especially for the republican tradition, which allows us to move beyond the usual opposition between a strong state and a weak state.

The Politics of Distrust in the United States: Power, Identity, and Change in U.S. Public Opinion (1958-2024). Superviser: Nonna Mayer

• “The Politics of Distrust in a Polarized Age” (Main instructor) – Automne 2025
• “Public Policy in Practice”(Ecole d’Affaires publiques) – Printemps 2024
• “U.S. Elections and Political Behavior: An Introduction” (Main instructor)  – Printemps 2023