Please also see our Professors in the news page
April 2024
Dr. Anson interviewed on WBAL!
Reports show who has deepest pockets in Baltimore City Council president race
Dr. Schaller featured in The Conversation
Why rural white Americans’ resentment is a threat to democracy
February 2024
Professor Schaller Publishes to Massive Acclaim!
White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman
In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States.
Featured on MSNBC’s Morning Joe
Featured in The New York Times
On Chuck Todd’s Podcast “The Chuck Toddcast”
Featured on The Lincoln Project
December 2023
Professor Stokan publishes in The Urban Affairs Review!
Whose Neighborhood Needs? Assessing the Spatial Distribution of Federal Community Development Funds
Local governments must balance their growth ambitions against needs arising from social inequities. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program aims to redress these disparities by directing funds toward disinvested tracts. We ask whether a city’s institutional design, public and private actor composition, and resource availability influence the decision to invest in communities with greater levels of social need. Utilizing a social equity framework, we connect place-level procedural fairness mechanisms with neighborhood-level access equity consequences. Combining U.S. local government survey data over two decades with census tract-level CDBG expenditures, we find that in neighborhood where 51 percent or more of the families are low-to-moderate income (LMI), its likelihood of receiving funds increases with its share of LMI population relative to the city’s, but at a diminished rate compared to non-LMI tracts. Further, city-level factors moderate this relationship (e.g., including community development corporations in planning processes).
November 2023
Governor Wes Moore has appointed Dr. Felipe Filomeno (Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies) to the Governor’s Commission on Hispanic Affairs. The Commission connects the administration with Latino communities in Maryland, advising the government to ensure their economic, educational, health, and social well-being. The appointment is a recognition of Dr. Filomeno’s research and service with Latino communities in the Baltimore area.
October 2023
Professor Stokan publishes an article and participates in a roundtable
Structural drivers of sustainability and resilience strategies in small(ish) cities: a text analysis of comprehensive planning in Indiana
For decades ,the world’s largest and most globally significant cities have been pledging to tackle climate change, resilience, sustainable development and social injustices through a proliferating ecology of plans. Far less is understood about what is happening in smaller communities. This study employs an institutional lens and automated text analysis to examine the resilience and sustainability “shared strategies” embedded in local land-use plans, which are used in many countries to guide the spatial distribution of development in metropolitan regions. We find evidence that communities that are more highly educated and less racially diverse focus more on “quality of life” amenities within their plans, such as pedestrian resources and environmental amenities. By contrast, communities that are more racially diverse focus greater attention on green stormwater infrastructure to address flooding. Plan “quality” is negatively associated with an amenities’ focus. Takentogether,thesefindingssuggestcomprehensiveland-useplanningisbotha meansforreflectingexclusivityaswellaspursuingcommunityneedsorgoals related to specific resilience or sustainability themes.
Administrative Informatics A Roundtable on the Conceptual Foundations of a Public Administration-Centered Data Science Subfield
The purpose of this roundtable is to present, argue, and evaluate the role of administrative informatics in behavioral public administration. This essay is broken up into three sections. The first section introduces the substantive focus of administrative informatics and how it can be studied. The second section introduces the central concepts required to establish a new approach to scientific knowledge production. The final section provides a short overview of the contributions of the roundtable and nests them within the arguments established in this essay.
September 2023
Professor Emeritus Dr. Nicholas Miller published research on Ranked Choice Voting
Ranked-choice voting and the spoiler effect: a supplementary note
This note supplements the recent work of McCune and Wilson (Public Choice 196(1–2):19–50, 2023) by providing a complete analysis of spoiler effects under both plurality voting and Ranked-Choice Voting in the case of three (potential) candidates. The trick for definitively identifying all spoiler possibilities under both voting rules in the three-candidate case is to partition the set of all three-candidate preference profiles into eight types by cross-classifying the candidates in terms of their plurality status and Condorcet relationships. The resulting typology allows us to identify the winners in all possible two-candidate and three-candidate elections under both voting rules and therefore suffices to identify all spoiler effects. It implies, among other things, that the set of profiles that are vulnerable to spoilers under Ranked-Choice Voting is a proper subset of those vulnerable to spoilers under plurality rule
August 2023
Dr. Antkowiak published research on Youth Engagement in Politics and Civic Engagement
Who Substitutes Service for Politics? Assessing the Roles of Youth and Partisan Alienation in Americans’ Forms of Civic Engagement
Political scientists have long expressed concern about citizens who focus their civic activity on community service, seemingly treating it as a substitute for political involvement. Proposed explanations for this phenomenon portray it as popular among young adults. They also speculate that a politics dominated by two ideologically polarized, uncivil, and chronically gridlocked parties may cause citizens who do not feel they have or want a place on those partisan teams to avoid the arenas in which they fight. Few large and representative studies, however, examine how citizens allocate their civic activity between service and political action. Using the 2016 American National Election Study, I find that signs of alienation from the country’s major political parties increase the likelihood that citizens limit their activity to service, making a substitution scenario plausible. More commonly, however, rising partisan alienation predicts a shift in political involvement from electoral to non-electoral forms. Younger citizens are surprisingly less likely than their elders to specialize in service.
March 2023
Dr. Anson’s Book is out March 1st!
Following the Ticker: The Political Origins and Consequences of Stock Market Perceptions.
Following the Ticker explores the complex relationship between stock market performance and political judgments through distinctive patterns of coverage in American news media.
https://sunypress.edu/Books/F/Following-the-Ticker
Be on the lookout for Dr. Stokan’s forthcoming publication
“Rethinking Development and RedistributionPolicy: Testing the Local Expenditure Assumption using the Community Development
Block Grant Program” Journal of Urban Affairs.
September 2022 Highlights
Constitution Day Lecture by Dr. Robinson Woodward-Burns 9/21/22
May 2022 Highlights
Zoe Smith name
d winner of Pi Sigma Alpha Research Conference!!!
Zoe is a junior majoring in political science and computer science. She presented her research project, Decentralization of Power in Transportation Policy, at the Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Research Conference. This poster started as her final paper for POLI 442: Intergovernmental Relations with Dr. Eric Stokan. When researching a topic, Zoe found herself intrigued by how the organization of government entities contributes to the quality of policy they are able to design and implement. By examining the public transportation systems of forty of the most populous cities in the United States, she found that an informal pattern of decentralization that allows stakeholders to retain power could be the most successful as it can encourage greater cooperation between governments.
Rehman Liaqat named Inaugural CCMA Fellow
Rehman Liaqat ’22, Political Science, has received the inaugural Campus Compact Mid-Atlantic (CCMA) Civic Fellowship. He is one of 13 students chosen from institutions across Maryland, Delaware, and Washington D.C. This honor follows Liaqat’s recent recognition as a 2022 finalist for the prestigious Truman Scholarship.
Congratulations to UMBC’s Maryland Student Legislature (MSL) delegation! Over April 30-May 1, its members joined students from other Maryland campuses at the State House in Annapolis for MSL’s culminating Annual Session to debate and vote on their original legislation and conduct other legislative business. On the basis of their number of participants, their success at passing legislation, and the spirit, professionalism, and teamwork that they brought to the Session, UMBC received the Best Delegation Award (shared with McDaniel College)! On top of that, POLI minor Alexxus Richardson received the Maryland Student Legislature’s Best Delegate award, POLI major Jacob Ridgway’s Child Arrest Protection Act won the Best Act award, and POLI major Aurora Quezada was elected as the Maryland Student Legislature’s 2022-23 Secretary of State. The Department of Political Science recognizes Zoe Smith for her highly effective leadership as chair of UMBC’s recently re-launched delegation and is proud of all delegation members, including those who were not able to attend the Annual Session but still played important roles preparing the team all year.
MSL welcomes new members for 2022-23 and offers academic credit via POLI 341! Check out information about MSL and UMBC’s delegation, and contact Delegation Chair Zoe Smith or faculty advisor Dr. Laura Antkowiak if interested.
April 2022:
Thank you to all 11 of our 2022 Undergraduate Research Conference Presenters
These students showcased their dynamic research for faculty and their fellow classmates on April 20th, 2022
Haleemat Adekoya named a 2022 Truman Scholar!
Two Poli Sci students Haleemat Adekoya and Rehman Liaqat made it to the final round of the Truman Scholarship process. We are so proud of our students and their commitment to public service.
Farah Helal named University System of Maryland Student Regent
Farah will represent the student voice in USM meetings and on committees. We are so proud of her achievement and dedication!
Over the last few months several professors have published books and articles including:
Books:
The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies?
Dr. Laura Antkowiak
There is more to the pro-life movement than campaigning against abortion. That, at least, is the logic behind a large and growing network of pro-life pregnancy centers offering “help” to pregnant women. As these centers face increasing scrutiny, this book offers the first social-scientific study of the pro-life pregnancy help movement.
Common Enemies: Georgetown Basketball, Miami Football, and the Racial Transformation of College Sports
Dr. Thomas F. Schaller
In the US, sports and race have always been tightly, if sometimes uncomfortably, entwined. Black athletes who dare to challenge the sporting status quo are often initially vilified but later accepted. The 1980s generation of barrier-busting college athletes took this process a step further. Georgetown and Miami’s aggressive style of play angered many fans and commentators. But in time, their style was not only accepted but imitated by others, both Black and white. Love them or hate them, there was simply no way you could deny the Hoyas and the Hurricanes.
Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence Stability in South Asia
Dr. Devin Hagerty
This book examines the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan, two highly antagonistic South Asian neighbors who recently moved into their third decade of overt nuclear weaponization. It assesses the stability of Indo-Pakistani nuclear deterrence and argues that, while deterrence dampens the likelihood of escalation to conventional—and possibly nuclear—war, the chronically embittered relations between New Delhi and Islamabad mean that deterrence failure resulting in major warfare cannot be ruled out.
Articles:
American Constitutional Faith and the Politics of Hermeneutics
Andrew R. Lewis, William D. Blake, Stephen T. Mockabee and Amanda Friesen
As more debates in American politics become constitutional questions, effective citizens must engage in constitutional interpretation. While most Americans venerate the Constitution as a part of a national, civil religion, levels of constitutional knowledge are also very low. In this paper, we analyze how ordinary Americans approach the task of constitutional interpretation. An analysis of two cross-sectional surveys indicates constitutional hermeneutics are a product of political factors, religious affiliation, and biblical interpretive preferences. We also present the results of a survey experiment where the manipulation of a clergy’s interpretation of a biblical passage affects how respondents interpret both scripture and the Constitution, providing a potential causal mechanism for learning how to engage in hermeneutics.
Sustainability Synergies or Silos? The Opportunity Costs of Local Government Organizational Capabilities
Aaron Deslatte, Eric Stokan
Public managers serve many sovereigns, work within fiscal constraints, and face competing demands for finite resources. This article applies a strategic management lens to local government sustainability capabilities to examine the conditions under which local governments diversify into new areas of service delivery and when they do not. Building on recent efforts to apply resource-based theories to the public sector, the authors distinguish between more and less fungible capabilities and posit that local government officials make such commitments to enhance the competitiveness of their communities.
November 2021: The department’s own Dr. Ian Anson interviewed fellow department member Eric Stokan about Urban Economies on the Retrieving the Social Sciences podcast. Listen below!
https://iganson.podbean.com/e/episode-8-urban-economies-w-dr-eric-stokan/
August 2021: Congratulations to Political Science student and Mock Trial member Maria Kutishcheva was a featured speaker at Convocation this year. Please watch her dynamic speech using the link below.
July 2021: Super congratulations to Political Science 2008 alum Ghazal Rahmanpanah for her wonderful feature in the UMBC Magazine! Ghazal is now Director of Special Projects for The League, a social justice impact collective. Way to go Ghazal!
June 2021: Check out Professor Tom Schaller’s op-ed in the Baltimore Sun about the ratification of the 26th Amendment 50 years ago.
June 2021: Our budgeting expert, Professor Roy Meyers, has been busy! Check out his op-ed, with Doug Criscitello and Steve Redburn, “The Budget Process Is 100 Years Old Today and Its Age Is Showing,” in Government Executive, from June 10, 2021. Click here for a YouTube video of Dr. Meyers’ Point-Counterpoint discussion with Steve Redburn on the Present and Future of Congressional vs. Executive Budgeting, for the AABPA/ABFM/NAPA virtual conference on the centennial of the Budget and Accounting Act, from June 21, 2021, which he helped organize. Also, see here for Dr. Meyers’ presentation and discussion for the American Enterprise Institute, The Budget and Accounting Act at 100: Looking back and forward, from June 25, 2021.
May 2021: SUPERCONGRATULATIONS to UMBC Political Science major Katie Poteet for being named UMBC’s 2021 Class Valedictorian. Way to go Katie! We are all so proud of you!
May 2021: Check out Professor Sunil Dasgupta’s new podcast “I Hate Politics”! And if you like it, please share!! It’s a great source for news and commentary about today’s politics from one of our professors. The most recent episode (included as a link here on YouTube) features commentary from Professor Roy Meyers about budgeting and redistricting. You can find and subscribe to the podcast at Audible, iTunes/Apple, Spotify, Google Podcast, Pandora, iHeart Radio, YouTube, Podcast page. Podcast social media: @ihppod on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Congratulations Professor Dasgupta!
April 2021: THIS JUST IN!!! UMBC MOCK TRIAL WINS THE 36th AMERICAN MOCK TRIAL ASSOCIATION (AMTA) NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT!!! The final round against Yale University on April 18th was extremely close but the Retrievers came through with the win. UMBC also picked up the “Spirit of AMTA Award,” which goes to the team that “best exemplifies the ideals of honesty, civility, and fair play.” The last time the same team won both the tournament and the spirit award was 2009. Way to go, Retrievers! Please join all of us in congratulating the entire team, led by Coach and UMBC alum Ben Garmoe. Competing in the final round were Sydney Gaskins (top row left), Maria Kutishcheva, Lauren Wotring, Thomas Azari, Thomas Kiley (all four in third row), Natalie Murray and Zinedine Partipilo Cornielles (first two in fourth row). Click here for a video of the final trial, including the announcement of the win at the end, and click here for a pdf of the final tally from the tournament! Also, click here for a link to the Baltimore Sun story about “a perfect day to win a national championship”! The story was also picked up by The Washington Post.
April 2021: Political Science Program Manager Mrs. Emma Sellers is featured on the “Humans of UMBC page” highlighting the experiences of First Generation Students!
April 2021: Super congratulations to Katie Poteet for receiving the 2021 Phi Kappa Phi Chapter 22 UM-UMBC Shirley C. Sorensen Award! See here for the UMBC notification of this important recognition.
March 2021: Congratulations to Professor Carolyn Forestiere on the publication of the second edition of her book, Beginning Research in Political Science with Oxford University Press.
March 2021: Major kudos to three of our undergraduates, Haleema Adekoya, Sai Avinash Madala, and Kyle Chandler (pictured from left to right before joining their panels) for presenting the research they completed in their Research Methods in Political Science course at the online Pi Sigma Alpha national conference for undergraduates in Political Science on March 6th, 2021. Well done!
March 2021: More huge news: Political Science Professor Eric Stokan and several of his colleagues at other institutions have been awarded a large HUD grant for their research work: Toward Equity: An Assessment of the Community Development Block Grant and HOME. Congratulations Professor Stokan!
March 2021: EXTRA EXTRA!!! Big news here: Political Science Professor and Sondheim Director Laura Hussey has just been awarded the 2021 University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring!!! Congratulations Professor Hussey!
March 2021: SUPERCONGRATULATIONS to UMBC Mock Trial for their AMAZING performance at their Regional Mock Trial tournament. UMBC’s A team finished the tournament with an undefeated 8-0 record and earned a bid to the National Semifinal tournament for the seventh consecutive year! UMBC Mock Trial continues to demonstrate that the UMBC team is one of the top teams in the country and the highest ranked team in Maryland by a significant margin. Also, a shout out to senior program President Sydney Gaskins for earning double All-Region Attorney awards, winning awards on both sides of the case. In the picture are Thomas Azari, Maria Kutishcheva, Lauren Wotring, Zinedine Partipilo Cornielles, Thomas Kiley, Natalie Murray, and Sydney Gaskins. Congratulations to everyone, including Ben Garmoe, our Mock Trial faculty advisor!
January 2021: See here for a feature on Marly Milic, a POLI major and Sondheim Scholar and now a first generation graduate!
January 2021: Congratulations to Professor Eric Stokan for joining the editorial board for the Urban Affairs Review. See here for details.
December 2020: Congratulations to UMBC Political Science alum Theresa Bruce ’09 for the recognition of her teaching excellence as a middle school social studies teacher in the UMBC Magazine!
November 2020: Very exciting news! Check out Professor William Blake’s new recorded lesson for C-SPAN. He is the first faculty member at UMBC to participate in their Lectures in History series. It will air again on 11/29 at 11:15 am EST.
October 2020: Political Science student Rehman Liaqat is named the UMBC Career Center’s “Intern of the Week”!
October 2020: Professor Devin Hagerty has been appointed a Non-resident Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
October 2020: Congratulations to Professor Laura Hussey on the publication of her book, The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies? by the University Press of Kansas!
August 2020: Political Science student Katie Poteet is named UMBC’s “Researcher of the Week”!
July 2020: A huge congratulations to Nihira Mugamba for being named a 2020 Newman Civic Fellow! Nihira is the 6th UMBC student to receive this honor. See here for an article about Nihira’s work.
July 2020: Congratulations to Professors Susan Sterett (in Public Policy) and William Blake for their article about the legal implications of reopening college campuses.
June/July, 2020: Political Science Professor William Blake was quoted in the AP about the Supreme Court’s move to online during the pandemic. Please click here to see the article.
April, 2020: Super congratulations to Miranda Snyder for her recently published article, entitled “Diplomatic Disarray: Exploring American Brinkmanship in Obtaining Russian Compliance with the INF Treaty” in the UMBC Review! Way to go, Miranda!!!! Check it out here! Miranda’s article begins on page 85.
March, 2020: Congratulations ONCE AGAIN to UMBC Mock Trial! The UMBC A team won seven ballots at the Lancaster, PA Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) and earned a bid to the 2020 National Championship Tournament in Chicago, Illinois! Out of 750 teams, only 48 can go, and UMBC is one of them! More to come. And a special cheer for Sydney Gaskins for earning perfect ranks on BOTH sides of her case, making her a ‘double-sided All National winner’ for the second year in a row. Well done to everyone on the teams! Click here for more information about UMBC’s Mock Trial team.
February, 2020: Click here to see Roy Meyers in action, speaking to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget on CSPAN3.
December, 2019: Super congratulations to Mrs. Emma Sellers, Program Management Specialist for Political Science, for being recognized for 40 years of service to the State of Maryland! Click here for a link to a video of Mrs. Sellers describing her experience at UMBC. Mrs. Sellers: “Learn from your mistakes and keep moving!”
December, 2019: Shout out to Dr. Brian Grodsky for moderating a forum with three European Union Ambassadors from Estonia, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia on December 3rd during their visit to UMBC. It was an engaging and well attended discussion about democratization, shared democratic values, and the current struggles many democracies are facing. Click here for a story about the event.
September, 2019: Check out Tom Schaller’s contribution to Democracy: A Journal of Ideas about his 2006 book, Whistling Past Dixie.
September, 2019: Congratulations to Devin Hagerty on the publication of his new book!
August 2019: Check out Professor Forestiere and the inaugural UMBC Dawg Days Abroad group in Bristol, UK!
May 2019: UMBC’s 2019 CAHSS Valedictorian is Political Science student Samiksha Manjani! Please join all of us in congratulating Samiksha on this tremendous accomplishment. She will speak at this year’s graduation on May 23rd at the UMBC Events Center.
April, 2019: Congratulations to this year’s Political Science Faculty Awards winners! Ian Anson has received the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Mid-Career Faculty Award, Brigid Starkey has received the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award, and Carolyn Forestiere has received the Presidential Teaching Award.
April, 2019: Political Science Major Evan Avila wins a Truman Scholarship!!
Please join all of us in recognizing Evan Avila’s amazing accomplishment!!!!
January, 2019: UMBC MOCK TRIAL TAKES TOP PRIZE AT GEORGETOWN’S HILLTOP INVITATIONAL! See here for more information. Super-Congratulations to the team!!!
January, 2019: Roy Meyers is quoted in the New York Times here and did an interview for “The Takeaway” here about the ongoing government shutdown. Also, click on this link to hear a recent podcast about the shutdown.
January, 2019: Research Professor George LaNoue published an op-ed about the Maryland HBCU case in the Baltimore Sun. See here.
January, 2019: See Carolyn Forestiere’s edited volume of Contemporary Italian Politics.
January, 2019: Click here for Brian Grodsky’s most recent op-ed about Bosnia in The Globe Post.
November, 2018: Check out Eric Stokan and Roy Meyer’s new op-ed in the Maryland Observer about the new Amazon headquarters (HQ2).
November, 2018: Election Night Event at the Commons to hear the midterm election results. We had a great turnout for the student presentations: students in Prof. Anson’s course provided information about their exit polling efforts in Baltimore County and students in Prof. Kobren’s course provided information about the Senate races. Thank you to everyone who came out! Also, see our Twitter feed for more information.
November, 2018: UMBC’s Mock Trial Team wins FIRST PLACE at the Duke University Tobacco Road Invitational Tournament. After a dominant performance and a record of 7-1, UMBC took first place at the tournament! Congratulations to Ben Garmoe and the entire team.
October, 2018: Political Science Professor Roy Meyers wins the Aaron Wildavsky Award from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management. Click here for Professor Meyers’ comments upon receiving the award. Professor Meyers is the third University System of Maryland professor to receive this award, following Allen Schick (UMCP, 1994) and Phil Joyce (UMCP, 2012).
October, 2018: UMBC political science alum Judge Wanda Keyes Heard, ’79, won UMBC’s 2018 Outstanding Alumna in Social Sciences Award. Click here for the story. Also, political science alum Zainab Alkebsi ’09 (pictured below), who currently serves as policy counsel for the National Association for the Deaf, won this year’s Rising Star Award. Congratulations to our wonderful alums!
August, 2018: Elli Liberman’s edited book, Deterring Terrorism, has been published by Routledge
August, 2018: William Blake’s summer moot court course was featured in the Baltimore Sun
July, 2018: Ian Anson’s article on democratic support in America in The Conversation
July, 2018: Jeffrey Davis Discusses Due Process and Family Separations at the United States’ border on The Conversation and with WYPR
June, 2018: Political Science’s Evan Avila Wins Policy Innovation Award. Please join us in congratulating Evan Avila, Political Science (Class of 2020), who won the iOme Challenge with his paper Rethinking Millennial Retirement: Policy Recommendations for a Gig Economy. You can also watch the video summary of his research. Congratulations, Evan!
May, 2018: Click here to see Brian Grodsky’s piece in the Conversation about Russian democracy’s “lost promise”
May, 2018: Brigid Starkey answers why human rights are not a part of North Korea talks. The interview can he found here.
April, 2018: Congratulations to our Department’s award winners! From left to right: Dean Scott Casper, Meghan Lynch, Arnold Adja, Summer Akhtar, Morgan Nelson, Marc Schultz, Carrie Cook, Department Chair Carolyn Forestiere
March, 2018: Roy Meyers and Eric Stokan’s op-ed in the Maryland Reporter about Amazon’s next location can be found here.