Autumn Quarter 2013

From the Chair

With the start of another academic year, we are reminded of the remarkable talents of our faculty, graduate students, and staff that make for exceptional undergraduate and graduate programs.  This newsletter highlights some of these with features about the department's Honors Program, innovative graduate student research, insights from a new faculty book about the Tea Party, and a profile of our newest faculty member.
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Departmental Honors Program Offers Unique Experience

Courtesy of UW Admissions

What do the American dream in 1920s literature, the evolution of America’s policy of constructive engagement with South Africa, and India’s educational programming have in common? They are all topics of departmental honors theses authored this past year by participants in the Department of Political Science’s Honors Program. Created in 1979 by Professor Daniel S. Lev the program provides a unique educational opportunity for both faculty and students characterized by individual attention and....
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UW Graduate Students Conduct Research Around the Globe

During one's time as a student in political science, he or she most likely encountered graduate students as the teaching assistants who offered quiz sections and answered questions during office hours. Yet there is much more to graduate students’ careers that few undergraduates think about.  A critical concern of any graduate student is the research that will lead to their PhD.  Our graduate students are conducting innovative research across the discipline and globe.  Small research grants (ranging from $1,000 – 2,000), established four years ago with various endowments funded through the generosity of former faculty members and alumni, provide graduate students the ability to engage in research in locations near and far.  The destinations include California, New York, Peru, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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Is the Tea Party like the Klan?

Is the Tea Party like the Ku Klux Klan? Tea Party sympathizers would reject the comparison out of hand. Tea Partiers claim they’re about core conservative issues such as small government and fiscal responsibility. Thus, they resist the policies of the current president and his administration on ideological grounds – the government is too big and spends too much money – not on racial ones. Critics of the Tea Party reject this claim and believe that Tea Partiers are, indeed, motivated by racism. Simply put, some critics charge that Tea Partiers cannot abide the image of a black man in the White House.
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Faculty Spotlight - James D. Long

The UW Department of Political Science is excited to welcome James D. Long as a new Assistant Professor this fall. Long will teach courses in African politics, comparative politics, and field research methods. He joins the UW faculty from Harvard, where in 2012-13 he was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Long completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 2012. Long’s research examines many aspects of elections in emerging democracies, including why citizens turn out and vote, why voters choose certain candidates over others, the strategies that politicians use to rig the vote, and patterns of election violence.
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