Lauren Cohen Bell

Lauren C. Bell is the inaugural James L. Miller Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, Virginia. She is a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow (1997-98) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and a former U.S. Supreme Court fellow (2006-07) at the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC.

Bell’s scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Legislative Studies, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Social Science Quarterly, Judicature, and the Journal of the Society for American Music. She is also the author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books, including Transatlantic Majoritarianism: How Migration, Murder, and Modernity Transformed Nineteenth Century Legislatures (2025), Filibustering in the U.S. Senate (2011), Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money, and the New Politics of Senate Confirmation (2002) and Slingshot: The Defeat of Eric Cantor (2015).