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.
August 3, 2022
Professor Jill Greenlee quoted.
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.
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.
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.
November 16, 2018
November 13, 2018
Research by Alejandro Trelles referenced in the Washington Post's "Monkey Cage"
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."
February 24, 2017
Jytte Klausen publishes, "The Myth of Homegrown Terrorism," in a special issue of the The Georgetown Studies Review: What the New Administration Needs to Know About Terrorism and Counterterrorism.
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.
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."
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.
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.