I am Silver Professor of Politics at New York University, specializing in political theory; I am also affiliated faculty in the Department of Classics and at the NYU School of Law. My primary research interests are in the historical origins and normative logic of democratic institutions.
Details about my projects are available via the links. My current major projects are as follows:
Democratic Deals: A Defense of Political Bargaining, co-authored with Jack Knight, will appear from Harvard University Press in early 2024.
I am currently writing another book, Sheep May Safely Graze: Juries and Local Knowledge, which has been supported most recently by the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council for Learned Societies.
Finally, No-Bullshit Democracy, co-authored with Henry Farrell and Hugo Mercier, is a cheekily titled project analyzing the conditions under which democratic decision-making may yield good solutions to certain problems, and when it is more likely to fail.
My best-known work, by far, is a fun educational video on Athens created with a team at Ted-Ed:
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-did-democracy-really-mean-in-athens-melissa-schwartzberg
Melissa Schwartzberg 