Hank Jenkins-Smith earned BAs in economics and political science from Linfield
College (1979) and a PhD in political science from the University of Rochester (1985). He
has been employed as a policy analyst in the DOE Office of Policy Analysis (1982-83), has
been on the faculty of Southern Methodist University, the University of New Mexico, and
Texas A&M University. In August, 2007, he joined the faculty in the Center for
Applied Social Research at the University of Oklahoma. He is also a Professor in the
Department of Political Science at OU. Professor Jenkins-Smith has published books and
articles on public policy, risk perception, and nuclear issues. His most recent book
(with Dr. Kerry Herron) is Critical Masses and Critical Publics: Evolving Public Opinion
on Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism and Security (Pittsburgh University Press 2006). He has
served on National Research Council Committees focused on policies to transport spent
nuclear fuel and dispose of chemical weapons. In his spare time, Professor Jenkins-Smith
engages in personal experiments in risk perception and management via skiing, scuba
diving and motorcycling.

Security Policy

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Public Perspectives on the Nuclear Future (with Kerry G. Herron) (2009)

Policy experts have traditionally relegated public opinion to the sidelines where US nuclear weapons policy...

 

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United States Public Response to Terrorism: Fault Lines or Bedrock? (with Kerry G. Herron), Review of Policy Research (2005)

We test traditional assumptions about the volatility of mass opinion in times of national crises...

 

Science and Technology Policy

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The Precautionary Principle in Context: US and EU Scientists’ Prescriptions for Policy in the Face of Uncertainty (with Carol L. Silva), Social Science Quarterly (2007)

Objective. Our objective is to explain how scientists interpret less-than-certain scientific findings to inform policymakers’...

 

American Politics

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Micro and Macro Level Explanations of the Presidential Expectations Gap (with Carol L. Silva and Richard Waterman), Journal of Politics (2005)

The idea that the public expects more from its presidents than they are able to...