DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

"Elections are getting bigger. 2024 was a blockbuster year in campaign spending, shattering the previous record—set just four years prior—as donors across the nation and the economic spectrum swooped in to pull control of every branch of government their way. And they have a newly-powerful tool at their disposal: joint fundraising committees."

"Northwestern receives just over $1 billion in research funding each year, according to a 2024 audited financial report. The Trump funding freeze could wipe out nearly all of it. “There are grants to help teachers develop better middle-school math curricula. And those stop. There are grants to run medical tests in the medical school on a potential new drug — that test has to stop halfway through,” said Ian Hurd, a political science professor and president-elect of the Northwestern Faculty Senate. “The research [projects] of the university … are really investments in the future that everybody benefits from — medicines and cellphone batteries and cleaning up coal plant emissions.”"

In an era defined by rapid technological advancement, the United States faces an unprecedented strategic challenge: maintaining its technological edge in the face of China’s accelerating capabilities. This is not merely a competition for economic prosperity but a contest that will fundamentally alter global security, governance structures, and the values embedded in technologies that will shape tomorrow’s world. As China pursues increasing technological self-sufficiency and primacy through its dual-circulation strategy and military-civil fusion, the United States must respond with policies that both protect its innovations and accelerate its development.

"PHOENIX — Almost 4,000 voters ditched their party affiliations in favor of the “other” label in March alone, according to a Monday announcement from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. Additionally, over 1,200 Republicans and 1,901 Democrats chose to leave their respective parties, officials said. However, just because voters are becoming unaffiliated with political parties doesn’t mean their mindsets are changing, according to Dr. Samara Klar, a political science professor at the University of Arizona, says just because voters are unaffiliating doesn’t mean their mindsets are changing. “The vast majority of independents do prefer one of the two parties, and they do vote for that party every year,” Klar told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Wednesday."

"This award, sponsored by Kurdish Political Studies Program at the University of Central Florida, recognizes the best article in Kurdish Studies published in the previous calendar year. For this award cycle, articles published in 2024 will be considered. All articles published in English-language peer-reviewed journals addressing questions and covering issues related to Kurdish politics, broadly defined, will be considered for the award. The award is open to all disciplines under social sciences and humanities. The primary author of the article must be an untenured scholar (graduate student, post-doc, independent scholar, assistant professor, or equivalent) at the time of the publication. The winner will be awarded $1000."

How does a politician’s gender shape citizen responses to performance in office? Much of the existing literature suggests that voters hold higher expectations of women politicians and are more likely to punish them for malfeasance. An alternative perspective suggests that voters view men politicians as more agentic and are, therefore, more responsive to their performance, whether good or bad. Using an online survey experiment in Argentina, we randomly assign respondents to information that the distribution of a government food programme in a hypothetical city is biased or unbiased, and we also randomly assign the gender of the mayor. We find that respondents are more responsive to performance information – both positive and negative – about men mayors. We find little evidence that respondents hold different expectations of malfeasance by men versus women politicians.

The 37-hour censure debate against Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra last week served as a powerful reminder that, despite Move Forward’s 2023 election triumph on a reformist platform, Thailand remains trapped in Thaksin’s political legacy. The paradox lies in the fact that the more the debate rekindled the pro- and anti-Thaksin divide that had polarised Thai politics for nearly two decades, the more it obscured Thailand’s deeper structural challenges. Given the coalition’s comfortable House majority, it was no surprise that Paetongtarn emerged unscathed, securing 319 votes in her favour versus 162 against and seven abstentions.

Syria's best asset for an inclusive, transparent, and participatory political transition is its civil society. During years of uprising and war, citizens built diverse initiatives to achieve political change, raise awareness, pursue justice, and provide humanitarian relief. Today, organizations inside and outside the country have the capacity, experience, and will to push for democracy. They are already doing so by mobilizing pressure to demand accountability; cultivating democratic citizenship; channeling expertise to resolve key state challenges; and helping to alleviate the population's dire material needs. International parties must follow the lead of the Syrian grassroots and support their priorities and work.

"Samara Klar If you ask a scholar of American politics what best predicts people’s opinions, they will probably say it is partisanship — the party that you identify with. Identifying as a Democrat or Republican has a profound effect on what Americans think about politics. This process is called partisan-motivated reasoning: we feel motivated to justify our partisan identity as we interpret the world. A Democrat might dismiss weak economic numbers to defend the economy during a Democratic administration because this protects their in-party identity; Republicans do the same. We know about this process thanks to Ziva Kunda. Kunda was a psychologist who studied the motivations behind how people think. She distinguished accuracy motivations from directional motivations18.

Public health infrastructure varies widely at the local, state, and national levels, and the COVID-19 response revealed just how critical local health authority can be. Public health officials created COVID policies, enforced behavioral and non-pharmaceutical interventions, and communicated with the public. This article explores the determinants of public health capacity, distinguishing between formal institutional capacity (i.e., budget, staff) and informal embedded capacity (i.e., community ties, insulation from political pressures). Using qualitative data and interviews with county health officers in California, this article shows that informal embedded capacity—while difficult to measure—is essential to public health capacity. It concludes by relating public health capacity to broader issues of state capacity and democracy.