Rate My Professor John Dinan

John Dinan is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. He earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1990, an M.A. in 1994, and a Ph.D. in 1996 from the same institution. Dinan's areas of expertise encompass federalism, state constitutionalism, state politics, and American political development. His research centers on these themes, exploring the intricacies of state constitutional amendment processes, intergovernmental relations, and the historical evolution of state constitutional traditions.

Dinan has authored four books that have shaped scholarly understanding of state constitutionalism and federalism: Keeping the People’s Liberties: Legislators, Citizens, and Judges as Guardians of Rights (University Press of Kansas, 1998), The American State Constitutional Tradition (University Press of Kansas, 2006; paperback edition 2009), The Virginia State Constitution, second edition (Oxford University Press, 2014), and State Constitutional Politics: Governing by Amendment in the American States (University of Chicago Press, 2018). He has published extensively in prestigious journals, including numerous articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism such as 'Implementing Health Reform: Intergovernmental Bargaining and the Affordable Care Act' (2014) and 'Shaping Health Reform: State Government Influence in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act' (2011). Other key publications include 'The Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendment Doctrine in the American States' (Rutgers Law Review, 2020), 'The Institutionalization of State Resistance to Federal Directives in the 21st Century' (The Forum, 2020), and 'Explaining the Prevalence of State Constitutional Conventions in the 19th and 20th Centuries' (Journal of Policy History, forthcoming 2021). Dinan also co-authored articles like 'Don’t You be My Neighbor: Support for Racial-Exclusion Constitutional Provisions in Mid-19th Century Indiana and Illinois' with Jac Heckelman (American Politics Research, 2021). He contributes an annual review of state constitutional developments to The Book of the States. As editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Dinan advances research in federalism studies, and he previously chaired the Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations Section of the American Political Science Association. His work informs debates on state sovereignty, constitutional reform, and federal-state dynamics.