DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

"Syria’s 13-year civil war came to a stunning end on Dec. 8, 2024, when rebel fighters led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled the Assad regime. With the country now deeply fragmented and impoverished, what lies ahead under the transitional government of Ahmad al-Sharaa? Rana B. Khoury, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Ibrahim Al-Assil, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, joined “Baker Briefing” to discuss the regional reaction to Dec. 8, the structural challenges facing the rebuilding process, and prospects for the return of refugees and internally displaced Syrians. This conversation was recorded on April 29, 2025, prior to a Baker Institute event featuring Khoury, Al-Assil, and Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow Natasha Hall on Syrian displacement. Watch it here."

"Northwestern administration sent an email on May 1 saying an Arab cultural performance left it “shocked and appalled.” Students are now divided on whether the University’s attempt to protect them from “unwelcome and inappropriate political expression” represses Arab, specifically Palestinian, heritage. The school-sponsored event took place at Sargent Dining Hall on the evening of Tuesday, April 29, wrapping up Northwestern’s third annual Arab American Heritage Month celebration. Compass, Northwestern’s independent dining vendor, hired Firket Al Azdeekah Entertainment to perform in a campus dining hall for the second consecutive year."

"Wearing a colorful Native American outfit that she made herself, 81-year-old Hilda Marietta Williams could barely walk through the crowd at Welsh-Ryan Arena without hearing greetings from her fellow members of the Indigenous community. She was a familiar face at the fourth annual Traditional Spring Pow Wow, where many other attendees also dressed in traditional handmade outfits. The beat of drum circles on the court below nearly drowned out Williams’ words as she walked to get an Indigenous dish from the food station. She told me, raising her voice above the loud rhythms, about the eagle staff and headdress she inherited from her father – one of the founders of the American Indian Center in Chicago. These items hold cultural and symbolic significance, she explained, and she is preparing for the rituals that will return them to her father’s resting place before she passes away.

"Will Reno, a professor at Northwestern University, said the images out of Kabul’s airport were a stark representation of America’s frantic departure from a country it occupied for 20 years. “That first day or two was chaos when there were people on the airfield grabbing onto the landing gear of the aircraft — that got that very bad, politically, pictures like that,” said Reno, who was a contractor for the Department of Defense while the U.S. was involved in Afghanistan. Reno said in the days following the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover, there was a rush to get high-priority groups such as military intelligence and Afghan special forces that trained American soldiers onto evacuation aircrafts.

This study measures the effect of partisan and polarizing social media messages on political trust and trustworthiness in Brazil and Mexico. We implemented two survey experiments with approximately 2,300 respondents each, using a modified “trust game” to measure the effects of polarizing social media messages on two dimensions: trust (the belief that others will fulfill their pledges) and trustworthiness (fulfilling the pledges made to others). Among users exposed to polarizing partisan messages, findings show a statistically significant decline in trust (i.e. we perceive others will not keep their promises) and a null effect on trustworthiness (i.e. we keep the promises made to others). The decline in trust is larger if respondents actively “like,” “share,” or “comment” on the message.

"Reports indicate that India used Israeli-made drones, including IAI Harop loitering munitions for precision strikes and Heron drones for reconnaissance. Pakistan “probably employed a mix of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci drones, along with Chinese-made Wing Loong II and CH-4 drones,” said Jahara Matisek, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. (Matisek noted that his views are his own and not that of the U.S. government or Defense Department.) India used loitering munitions such as the Harop to target what it said was militant infrastructure in Pakistan, which is “in line with [India’s] doctrine of surgical precision,” Matisek said. Pakistan, meanwhile, leaned on “relatively cheap systems” that enabled fast, flexible strikes and helped offset India’s conventional military superiority."

The far right is a global phenomenon, and a successful one lately. As the APLICA Cooperative writes in this issue of AJPH (p. 873), it is also bad news for public health. There is no definition of public health that can accept the far right’s “authoritarianism, injustice, racism, misogyny, LGBTQIA+phobia, divisive rhetoric, and … propensity for violence.” Fortunately, political science research can help us address the rise of the global far right—and show us how adhering to the ethical commitments of public health is also a wise political strategy. This editorial highlights some especially relevant consensus findings from political science research on the topic.

Peneliti Lembaga Survei Indonesia Yoes Kenawas membaca ada kesan PSI mengandalkan figur Jokowi dan keluarga. Pengamat yang fokus pada kajian dinasti politik ini mengatakan, PSI ingin membangun citra sebagai partainya Jokowi sejak Kaesang menjadi ketua umum. Namun, menurut Yoes, rentang waktu penetapan Kaesang sebagai ketua umum dan kontestasi politik Pemilu pada Februari 2024, tidak cukup.

The changes wrought by Donald Trump’s second administration have already been momentous, and the changes in global health are among the biggest: The United States has withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), and US global health policy is being destroyed—as seen in the closure of USAID and the anti-HIV initiative known by its acronym PEPFAR. Global health, dramatically improved by what may be the most successful international aid effort ever mounted, will be gravely harmed, with serious death tolls attributable to US policy changes. The WHO will suffer from the withdrawal of US resources and is likely to become a less effective and more European-led institution. The world will, overall, face greater health risks, have less resilience, and be less able to mount an effective response to health threats.

While inter-party conflicts and polarization are central for understanding policymaking, salient intra-party conflicts remain. We explore one lens into these conflicts—interest groups scoring votes at odds with party leaders. We examine how often and under what conditions party-aligned interest groups oppose the positions of party leadership and whether this disagreement is associated with heightened intra-party conflict. We find that disagreement is more common for the majority party compared to the minority party and, for both parties, disagreement is associated with reduced voting cohesion. We also identify salient differences between Democrats and Republicans during this time period. Disagreement on scored votes shines a valuable light into the competing pressures on both parties and interest groups, including those to govern and message.