Department of Politics

Department News

November 8, 2022

A Brandeis Magazine story was written by politics Professor Zachary Albert. Professor Albert writes on his perspective that Republican-led efforts to limit voting access could weaken election turnout and, ultimately, democracy.

June 13, 2022

Since 2006, professor Jytte Klausen has led the Western Jihadism Project, which studies and closely tracks the movements and behavior of individuals associated with terrorist groups.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building, Klausen broadened her scope beyond legally defined terror groups to include domestic extremist organizations that were connected to the events of that day, such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

May 17, 2022

Politics and International and Global Studies major Joseph Coles, '22, will hold a fellowship at The King’s College of London's International Security and Intelligence Programme this summer before heading to Texas A&M to work toward a master's program in international security in the fall. Coles' path toward a career in foreign diplomacy was solidified and nutured through working in Prof. Jytte Klausen's Western Jihadism Project lab as a researcher and ultimately as lab coordinator. 

Of his experience in the lab, Coles states, "Working with Professor Klausen has been incredible. She's so knowledgeable, but also so accessible, and she cares so much about students. It's not just her telling us what to do, it's her consulting with us, asking us what makes sense. She wants us to be able to have an informed conversation." he said. "Looking to my future, I absolutely believe my experience in her lab has given me a leg up."

May 6, 2022

Prof. Jill Greenlee is among six members of the Brandeis faculty to be honored this year for their excellence in teaching, mentoring, and service. The Neubauer Prize is awarded to an individual involved in the co-curricular and extracurricular life of campus who has also made a significant impact on students' lives as an exceptional teacher, mentor, advisor and friend.

July 29, 2021

Eyewitnesses say that GIs were killed in a riot in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1942, but the official record says otherwise. Quoted in Atlas Obscura, Professor Daniel Kryder helps shed light on a mystery-shrouded event.

May 9, 2021

Writing in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog, Jill Greenlee and co-authors, Ivy AM Cargile and Sarah Hayes, summarize the political science research on what women want from public policy.

April 6, 2021

Professor Catherine Z. Worsnop, PhD’16, discusses her ongoing book project looking at the challenges of international cooperation during cross-border disease outbreaks.

April 1, 2021

In his article, "The People Cannot Choose a Constitution: Constituent Power's Inability to Justify Ratification Referendums," published in The Journal of Politics, Jeffrey Lenowitz argues against the common justification given for the ratification referendum — that it provides a means for the popular sovereign, the constituent power to take part in the constitution-making process and make the constitution its own.

Lenowitz argues that this argument, taken seriously, requires that constituents have a high level of technical and complex knowledge about constitutional design that we should in no way expect them to have. Moreover, common attempts to bypass voter ignorance, by appealing to heuristical shortcuts and education campaigns, are uniquely unhelpful in the constitution-making domain. As such, this common ratification process should be dropped or an alternative justification should be given. Please click here or on the headline above to access the full article.  

January 28, 2021

Funded by Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company founded by Melinda Gates, Jill Greenlee and colleagues were recently awarded a CAWP research grant for, "Conceptualizing Caregiving and its Consequences for Attitudes and Engagement." Their research is intended to shed light on how the pandemic has influenced the caregiving responsibilities (e.g., childc, elder and sibling care) that largely fall to women and whether or how those responsibilities, and their anticipation, structure womens' political engagement and policy attitudes. 

January 8, 2021

Politics professor and terrorism expert Jytte Klausen discusses the siege of the United States Capitol.

September 22, 2020

Kelly Stedem recently defended her dissertation, which argues that political services in Lebanon operate on a “clientelistic” basis, meaning that the exchange of goods and services from the government are conditional on things like political support from citizens. In this interview, Kelly discusses the political implications of the recent explosion in Beirut and its aftermath.

June 15, 2020

Amber Spry offers commentary for WBUR's Cognoscenti.

May 20, 2020

Thank you to Renee Korgood, Politics major Class of 2020, for her exceptional service to the Politics Department and its students as an Undergraduate Departmental Representative for the past two years. And, congratulations for this well-deserved honor.

April 24, 2020

In a Q&A in futurity.org, Zachary Albert discusses the findings from his and his co-authors' research examining how much influence voters feel party insiders should wield in selecting the nominees.

April 15, 2020

Zachary Albert's research is cited in the Brookings Institution's FIXGOV blog.

March 6, 2020

Titled, "Electoral Management, Partisan Strategic Interaction, and Civic Engagement: Lessons from Latin America and Africa," Prof. Trelles' talk will be held at noon March 10, CGIS South, S250, 1730 Cambridge Street.

February 7, 2020

Ryan LaRochelle (PhD '16), lecturer at the Cohen Institute for Leadership and Public Service at the University of Maine, publishes in Washington Monthly. Ryan co-leads the Maine Scholars Strategy Network Working Group on Social Policy and the Safety Net, along with his co-author Luisa S. Deprez.

February 5, 2020

Jill Greenlee's and her co-authors' work is featured in "Gender on the Ballot," a nonpartisan project to examine and contextualize gender dynamics in the 2020 election cycle. Their research analyzed depictions of women as political leaders in TIME for Kids and found that elementary school children learn about women as political leaders, and see women represented in TIME for Kids at levels that exceed women's actual representation in elected offices; however, those women leaders are also presented in gender stereotypic ways. While there is good news in these results, there is also room for improvement.

February 3, 2020

Jill Greenlee and co-authors in The Conversation.

January 3, 2020

The Crown Center's Gary Samore, a veteran U.S. arms negotiator, weighs in.

December 12, 2019

Nationwide poll conducted by Brandeis politics students makes a number of surprising findings of American electorate

December 4, 2019

Dr. LaRochelle, lecturer in Leadership Studies at the University of Maine's Cohen Institute for Leadership and Public Service, researches the history and development of the Community Action Program, a central component of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. He is also interested in the erosion of trust in American politics and its effects on leadership and governance. In addition to winning the 2019 John C. Donovan Prize, Ryan holds the unique distinction of having won both of the Best Paper prizes offered by the NEPSA. While at Brandeis, he was the recipient of the NEPSA's 2014 Robert C. Wood Prize for Best Paper Written by a Graduate Student. 

November 19, 2019

Gary Samore, the new head of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, led U.S. efforts to halt nuclear proliferation over a decades-long career.

October 28, 2019

With the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump well underway, politics professor Amber Spry offers up her expertise in political attitudes and polling in BrandeisNOW.

September 27, 2019

In their article, TIME for Kids to Learn Gender Stereotypes: Analysis of Gender and Political Leadership in a Common Social Studies Resource for Children, Jill Greenlee and her co-authors evaluate the presence of women political leaders in the children's magazine TIME for Kids and rate whether the leaders are described as possessing gender-stereotypic traits. Their results show that although TIME for Kids covers women leaders in greater proportion than their overall representation in politics, the content of the coverage contains gendered messages that portray politics as a stereotypically masculine field. Portrayals of women political leaders in stereotype-congruent ways is problematic because early messages influence children's views of gender roles.

July 23, 2019

Amber Spry is quoted in The Boston Globe.

July 2, 2019

By Shai Feldman in the latest issue of The National Interest.

June 16, 2019

Jill Greenlee is quoted in The New York Times.

June 6, 2019

By Jytte Klausen in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.

May 20, 2019

Jill Greenlee is quoted in NBC News article.

Politics Majors Renee Korgood ('20) and Sagie Tvizer ('19) receive "Heroes" award from the Waltham Democratic City Committee

April 3, 2019

The Waltham Democratic City Committee (WDCC) has recognized Sagie Tvizer and Renee Korgood with their "Heroes" award for their dedicated efforts and involvement with the "Yes On 3" phone bank. Last November, Massachusetts became the first state to uphold transgender protections at the ballot box. This victory for human rights was due in no small part to volunteers across the state, exemplified by students such as Sagie and Renee, who gave so much of their limited time to educate the public and ensure people got out to the polls to send a strong message against discrimination. 

Scott O'Neil, Chair of the Waltham Democratic City Committee praised the efforts of these two Brandeis students: "The membership of the WDCC was impressed with Renee and Sagie's consistent efforts to grow the phonebank and make it a real community so that people would want to come back week after week. The number of volunteers grew each time, forcing them to move from two small rooms the first few weeks to two large ones (and spillover into the hallways) the last few phonebanks."

February 4, 2019

In American Politics Research, Jill Greenlee and co-authors examine the limits of paternal identity on congressional behavior in the era of polarization.

February 1, 2019

Eva Bellin and co-author David Pion-Berlin examine the political crisis in Venezuela in The Washington Post's "Monkey Cage."

January 31, 2019

Jeffrey G. Karam (PhD '16) is an assistant professor of political science at the Lebanese American University and is an associate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Middle East Initiative. His news analysis on Lebanon's new government appeared in The Washington Post's "Monkey Cage."

January 25, 2019

Amber Spry reviews "Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics" in Science (26 Oct 2018).

January 20, 2019

Amber Spry is quoted in Business Insider article.

Politics Major Jonathan Goldman receives a Karpf & Hahn Peace Grant, sponsored by the PAX Program.

December 5, 2018

Jonathan, along with Victoria St. Jean, founded The Right to Immigration Institute (TRII) which assists immigrants to navigate legal issues through consultation, workshops, and legal representation. The Karpf & Hahn Peace Grant will enable them to continue to grow their outreach efforts and services.

Banu Eligur (PhD '06) was awarded the inaugural Bernard Lewis Memorial Prize at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of ASMEA (Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa)

November 16, 2018

November 13, 2018

Research by Alejandro Trelles referenced in the Washington Post's "Monkey Cage"

Karim Elkady (PhD '15) is awarded the Smith Richardson Strategy and Policy Fellowship

November 2, 2018

This fellowship will support his current book project, "Alliances that Matter: Why America Succeeds in Rebuilding States after Military Intervention."

June 8, 2017

Catherine Worsnop ('16) has published "Provoking Barriers: The 2014 Ebola Outbreak and Unintended Consequences of WHO’s Power to Declare a Public Health Emergency" in a special issue of the journal Global Health Governance titled "Reform of the World Health Organization."

January 20, 2017

In an interview with GSAS, Ryan LaRochelle analyzes President Trump's inauguration speech.

January 18, 2017

Writing in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog, Ryan LaRochelle explains why the GOP-led efforts to turn Medicaid into a block grant could result in funding reductions and program atrophy.

January 8, 2017

Jeffrey G. Karam (PhD '16) publishes article, "Missing Revolution: The American Intelligence Failure in Iraq, 1958," in the journal Intelligence and National Security

This article asks the question, "Why were American officials caught by surprise with the military coup and later revolution in Iraq on 14 July 1958?" And argues, drawing on American intelligence and diplomatic records as well as multilingual sources, that the U.S. intelligence failure is the product of two factors: the collection of information from too few and too similar human sources of intelligence in Iraq’s ruling regime, and the unreceptivity of U.S. officials to assessing new information and their unwillingness to update assessments of local Iraqi developments. It revisits America’s intelligence failure in Iraq and suggests important lessons for the study of intelligence.

Jeffrey Karam is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, and a Lecturer as the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University.

Ellie Driscoll wins prestigious Doris Brewer Cohen Award for senior thesis

December 14, 2016

Ellie Driscoll '16 received the Doris Brewer Cohen Award in Justice and Public Life for her senior thesis in politics titled, "Locked Out: How a Criminal Record Restricts Employment Opportunities for African-Americans." 

Ellie's thesis was selected from among nominations received from all of the Social Sciences departments and includes a monetary prize of $2,500. This campus-wide award is highly prestigious and the politics department, along with her thesis committee (her adviser Professor Dan Kryder, Professor Kerry Chase, and Interim President Lisa Lynch) congratulates Ellie for this well-deserved honor!  
Ryan LaRochelle receives Experiential Teaching and Learning grant

November 16, 2016

Ryan LaRochelle (Visiting Lecturer in Politics) has received an Experiential Learning and Teaching grant to integrate an exit poll assignment in his fall 2016 course: POL105a – Elections in America. The assignment requires students to write a set of clearly worded survey questions, devise a sampling strategy informed by the scholarship on survey research, collect responses at precincts in Waltham on Election Day, and analyze and present the results of their poll in class. The grant, provided by the Experiential Learning and Teaching office at Brandeis, will help pay for student transportation to the polls as well as materials and supplies necessary to complete the assignment.

October 17, 2016

Professor Marty Levin's original paintings are on display as part of the JustArts Faculty/Staff exhibition.  The exhibition, located in the Dreitzer Gallery inside the Spingold Theater ran through Nov. 13, 2016.  A review and slideshow can be found in the BrandeisNow article.

September 30, 2016

Professor Jill Greenlee and co-authors Grace Deason and Carrie Langer wrote the chapter, "The Impact of Motherhood and Maternal Messages on Political Candidates" which appears in the edited volume, The Political Psychology of Women in U.S. Politics. (Routledge). 

September 29, 2016

Adam Smith has a terrific piece entitled, "'Getting things done': It's overrated," in the Sept. 29, 2016, issue of Times Higher Education.

Kerry Chase presents paper at the Annual APSA Conference

September 1, 2016

Professor Kerry Chase presented a paper at the annual American Political Science Association (ASPA) conference held in Philadelphia on Sept. 1-4, 2016. An abstract to the paper titled, "Globalized Entertainment and Trade Conflicts in the World Trade Organization," is below:

Conflicts over trade and culture are among the oldest and most contentious in the trading system.  Although these conflicts have not ceased, several states in the Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations have grown more open to placing entertainment and culture under binding trade rules.  "Globalized Entertainment and Trade Conflicts in the WTO" analyzes changes in the positions states have taken on this issue in the past 25 years and proposes an explanation for these political shifts — lower entry barriers into entertainment production and resultant export growth in certain countries in the digital age.