» Dr. John Compton
Associate Professor

Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; Department of Political Science

Education: William Jewell College, Bachelor of Arts
Syracuse University, Master of Arts
University of California, Los Angeles, Ph.D.

Biography: Dr. Compton joined the Chapman political science faculty in 2011 after completing his Ph.D. at UCLA. His teaching and research interests include American political development, constitutional law, and religion and politics. In 2012, he was awarded the Law and Society Association’s annual dissertation prize. His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution, was published by Harvard University Press in 2014. In 2015, he received the Cromwell Book Prize for excellence in scholarship in the field of American legal history by a junior scholar (for Evangelical Origins). Dr. Compton’s articles have appeared in the Review of Politics, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History. He is currently at work on a new book project examining American evangelicals’ impact on domestic policy in the period between the industrial revolution and the 1980s. Prior to beginning graduate school, he worked as a legislative aide to a member of Congress.

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications: “Easing the Shoe Where It Pinches: The Lottery Case and the Demise of Dual Federalism.” Journal of Supreme Court History 40, no. 2 (2015).

Read More...; “Evangelical Reform and the Paradoxical Origins of the Right to Privacy.” Maryland Law Review 75, no. 1 (2015)

Read More...; “What Is Originalism Good For?” (Review Essay) Tulsa Law Review 50, no. 2 (2015).

Read More...; The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014)

Read More...; “Political Theory in Institutional Context: The Case of Patriot Royalism.” (with Karen Orren) American Political Thought 3, no. 1 (2014).

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