The American Institutions Group (AIG) is a Rackham interdisciplinary workshop for faculty and graduate students that meets twice a month to discuss recent and forthcoming research on American political institutions (e.g. Congress, the presidency, state legislatures and executives, the courts, and the bureaucracy). Our key goals are to offer new and varied perspectives for graduate students to harness in their own dissertation work on American political institutions; encourage conversations that breed new research ideas; and spur innovative collaborations among our participants. AIG participants are scholars in political science, public health, social work, public policy, and economics interested in examinations of American political institutions from the perspective of these disciplines.