DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

During the past 25 years, American policing moved from a focus on responding to crimes in progress or (more often) already committed toward proactive strategies for preventing or deterring future crimes from occurring in the first place. Rather than cleaning up in the aftermath of crime, police have taken responsibility for its occurrence. This seemed to work for a while, as crime declined during the 1990s, but in the mid-2000s violent crime began to grow. Police now had responsibility for crime, and this led almost inevitably to more heavily targeted and aggressive police tactics.

Dara Gaines is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Her dissertation examines how geography and race influence rural African American political attitudes and political behavior prediction. Her study relies on groundbreaking sociological and political science studies, bridging the gap between historical evidence and contemporary politics for African Americans who reside outside of urban areas.

This eye-opening memoir tells the story of a young girl’s life in Syria, her family’s wrenching decision to leave their home, and the upheaval of life in a refugee camp. Though her life had utterly changed, one thing remained the same. She knew that education was the key to a better future—for herself, and so that she could help her country. She went from tent to tent in the camp, trying to convince other kids, especially girls, to come to school. And her passion and dedication soon had people calling her the “Malala of Syria.” Muzoon has grown into an internationally recognized advocate for refugees, for education, and for the rights of girls and women, and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador—the first refugee to play that role. Muzoon’s story is absolutely riveting and will inspire young readers to use their own voices and stand up for what they believe in.

Foreign exile has often served as an important solution to high-stakes standoffs between opposition forces and beleaguered autocrats. I assess the moral status of autocratic exile, by focusing on the tension between exile's contribution to domestic peace and its threat to global deterrence against autocracy. I begin by contending that transitioning societies normally have the moral prerogative of accepting an exile arrangement for their autocrat, even though such an arrangement harms global deterrence against autocracy. I then suggest that, in the absence of clear evidence of majority opposition to an exile arrangement within the transitioning society, foreign countries who have been entangled in an autocrat's rule will normally have a decisive duty to facilitate his exile, despite exile's repercussions for global deterrence.

Public health requires collective action—the public best addresses health crises when individuals engage in prosocial behaviors. Failure to do so can have dire societal and economic consequences. This was made clear by the disjointed, politicized response to COVID-19 in the United States. Perhaps no aspect of the pandemic exemplified this challenge more than the sizeable percentage of individuals who delayed or refused vaccination. While scholars, practitioners, and the government devised a range of communication strategies to persuade people to get vaccinated, much less attention has been paid to where the unvaccinated could be reached. We address this question using multiple waves of a large national survey as well as various secondary data sets.

Out of the more than 21,000 students who graduated from medical school in 2022, only 193 self-identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to the American Academy of Medical Colleges. Financial costs, a dearth of available mentors and a lack of early STEM education pathways, among other factors, prevent Indigenous people from matriculating to and graduating from medical school, Giger said. “It’s a very, very common experience of just the isolation of being the only one and the difficulty of cohort building,” Giger said. “(We should think) about how we can build a cohort across the country across new students at different schools to make some change.” At the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research’s fifth annual symposium Thursday, Giger presented on a community focus group. The study examined the underrepresentation of Indigenous people in medical school.

"I think the challenge for Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson is going to be how does he move successfully from his multi-racial electoral coalition into a multi-racial governing coalition," said Dominguez, "So right now I give him an A in terms of just how he's put this team together. He did say that he's going to put together a team that reflects the city of Chicago and I think so far he's done that." The new City Council will be more diverse with more women including two Asian Americans on the council, LGBTQ-plus members will make up a fifth of the council and there will be 20 Black alderpeople. "As someone that welcomes civic engagement and the inclusion of different voices and perspectives, I think that's great for the city of Chicago," said Dominguez.

“My take is that it's a higher probability it was a staged attack (firecrackers over the Kremlin) as a pretext for a Russian decision to escalate the conflict. That likely would take the form of attacks on Ukraine's political leadership. Putin has threatened such action. These developments are unfolding against a backdrop of what are most certainly Ukrainian aerial attacks on energy infrastructure inside Russia and in Russian-held parts of Ukraine. “My concern is a change in the patterns of Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian targets. This could take the form of targeting Ukraine’s leadership. Or it could mean targeting the shipment of western weapons after they have crossed the border into Ukraine. Either would mark a significant escalation of the conflict, the latter perhaps more so because it would be a step closer to direct contact with NATO forces.”

The Trump-era boarder rule has expired and an influx of migrants is expected in sanctuary cities like Chicago. City leaders are struggling to provide resources to the thousands of migrants already in the area. Political science professor at Northwestern Jacqueline Stevens explains the immediate impacts to follow.

Will Reno, the chairman of the political science department at Northwestern University, told Newsweek that he feels the U.K. missiles "are intended to put all Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory within range of Ukraine's armed forces. That capability would be important to support a Ukrainian counteroffensive on the ground." As for Putin's supposed "red lines," Reno said that the Kremlin has frequently "scaled back the definition of 'victory' to control of Crimea and areas of eastern Ukraine occupied from 2014." "That shift signals weakness to the Ukrainians, as does Putin's failure to respond decisively when red lines are crossed," he added.