- Professor Evan Perkoski’s New Book Examines how Armed Groups Break Apart and Splinter.
- Kim Bergendahl was named to the inaugural cohort of CLAS Accessibility Fellows and will work on projects related to accessibility issues around campus for the CLAS Dean’s Office.
- Thomas Hayes’ co-authored paper entitled “Elite Mobilization: A Theory Explaining Opposition to Gay Rights” has won the APSA’s LGBTQ Caucus Bailey Award ,bestowed annually on an exceptional paper on LGBTQ issues presented at the previous year’s annual meeting. Joining him on the paper were award-winning co-authors Benjamin Bishin, Matthew Incantalupo, and Charles Anthony Smith.
- Evelyn Simien has been selected as a 2022-2023 UConn Office for Diversity and Inclusion Fellow. ODI Faculty Fellows are expected to participate in bi-monthly meetings with ODI representatives as well as training and development opportunities hosted by ODI.
- Jeremy Pressman was awarded the Graduate Faculty Career Mentor of the Year award from the UConn Center for Career Development. The award is presented annually to a graduate faculty member nominated by students, who has served as a career mentor and has performed great service for UConn students and their career development. Additionally, Dr. Pressman was interviewed for an Alumni Profile on the MIT Security Studies program website.
- Miles Evers has received an advance contract from Cambridge University Press to publish his co-authored manuscript, The Price of Empire. Dr. Evers also received an OVPR scholarship facilitation fund grant to study antiracism in U.S. trade policy. The project is entitled “The Color of International Trade.” Finally, his article entitled “Discovering the Prize: Information, Lobbying, and the Origins of U.S.-Saudi Security Relations” has been accepted for publication by the European Journal of International Relations.
- Virginia Hettinger received a letter of appreciation from UConn’s Honors Program acknowledging her important service on the Honors Board of Associate Directors this past year. Her term will continue through May of 2023.
- Brian Waddell was mentioned in an August 24, 2022 article posted on the website of UConn’s School of Public Policy. The article, entitled “MPP Student Looks Forward to Law Journey Ahead,” features an interview with Brittany LaMarr, who hopes to use her School of Public Policy skill sets to address systemic inequities. According to LaMarr, “I would be remiss not to say how Professor Brian Waddell, a professor I had throughout my undergrad years, played a significant role in how I have gone on to pursue my education. The material, education, and knowledge that I received in his classes strongly shaped my curiosity of public policy and desire to learn more.”
- Stephen Dyson’s article, “Nightmares at the End of History: Francis Fukuyama’s Encounters with Science Fiction,” has been accepted for publication at Extrapolation.
- Several members of the faculty led by Director of Undergraduate Studies Oksan Bayulgen hosted a virtual town hall for anxious undergraduate students this past April. Devin O’Brien ‘24 (CLAS) reported that he “really enjoyed the opportunity to speak with … professors and political science students about some of the difficulties we have all faced recently … I am writing to thank you for hosting this event, but also to voice support for potentially having another town hall next year!”
- Oksan Bayulgen’s recent book, Twisting in the Wind: The Politics of Tepid Transitions to Renewable Energy will be published by the University of Michigan Press later this month.
- Additionally, Oksan Bayulgen, Beth Ginsberg, and Jane Gordon all received recognition for their service on UConn’s General Education Oversight Committee this past year.
- David Richards taught a session for the NEAG School of Education’s Young Scholars Senior Summit this summer and some of the high school seniors he taught produced an article in the August 9, 2022 issue of the CT Mirror entitled “Clean Air in Schools is a Human Right.” Finally, some research David Richards conducted with alumnus Ben Carbonetti ‘15 Ph.D. back in 2012 was referenced in a recent Washington Post column entitled “Hello there! Some personal news(letter).”
- Shareen Hertel presented a co-authored paper on “Teaching Engineering for Human Rights: Lessons learned from a case study-based undergraduate class” at the American Society for Engineering Education 2022 Annual Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota this past June. A version of this work will be forthcoming in Teaching Business and Human Rights, Anthony P. Ewing, ed. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. She also has a chapter forthcoming (“Who Cares? Exclusion, Empathy, and Solidarity”) in Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformations through Addressing New Challenges, edited by Anthony Tirado Chase, Sofia Gruskin, and Pardis Mahdavi, eds. Finally, Dr. Hertel has published a chapter on “International Relations and Economic and Social Rights,” for The Oxford Handbook of Economic & Social Rights co-edited by Malcolm Langford and Katharine Young (2022).
- Charles Robert Venator will serve as co-chair of the 2023 Law and Society Annual Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- Matthew Singer was recently reappointed to a second three-year term as Alan R. Bennett Honors Professor in Political Science.
- Meina Cai’s proposal entitled “The Art of Negotiations: Legal Discrimination, Contention Pyramid, and Land Rights Development in China” has earned her a $13,000 grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. She also received an award from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Finally, Dr. Cai has published two new co-authored articles: (1) “Individualism, Economic Freedom, and Charitable Giving” in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization; and (2) “Government by Code? Blockchain Applications to Public Sector Governance” in Frontiers in Blockchain.
- Elva Orozco Mendoza, Bhakti Shringarpure and Sherry Zane received $32,768.00 in funding from the CLAS Summer 2022 funding Initiative. Their collaborative project, titled “Insurgent Murals: Women’s Art Activism in Buenos Aires, Khartoum and Belfast,” looks at revolutionary murals in three cities to explore the ways in which it propels women’s activism.
- Dr. Orozco-Mendoza, Hind Ahmed-Zaki and Sandy Grande were each awarded fellowships from the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute for the 2022-23 academic year.
- Zehra Arat was invited by Germany’s International Leibniz Research Project on “Historicity of Democracy in the Muslim and Arab Worlds” (HISDEMAB) to discuss “Human Rights and Democracy in Class and Identity Politics,” in April 2022. She presented two papers – “No More Tolerance: A Case for Forsaking a Problematic Human Rights Tool” and “Promoting Human Rights in the Age of Neoliberalism: The UN’s Balancing Act” – at the City College of New York’s Second Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Conference in New York City. She discussed women’s rights in Afghanistan at a panel on “Afghanistan and Human Rights Issues” organized by the Human Rights Section of the APSA. Additionally, Dr. Arat and Ph.D. student San Lee presented their paper, “Intersectionality in Feminist Theory: Its Radical Origins and Demand for Transformative Change,” at the hybrid conference on “Remapping the Feminist Global: A Multi-Vocal, Multi-Located Conversation,” co-sponsored by the International Feminist Journal of Politics and the Asian Center for Women’s Studies Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Finally, Dr. Arat and Shareen Hertel presented their paper, “Rights Beyond Words: Mapping Human Rights Scholar-Organization Partnerships,” at the workshop, “Just Telling it Like It Is: Descriptive Work & Social Science Research,” held at the University of Massachusetts-Boston on April 22-23, 2022. The paper has been accepted for publication at Human Rights Quarterly.
- Yonatan Morse was featured prominently in a June 28, 2022 UConn Today article entitled “Senegal’s National Agency for Universal Health Coverage Visits UConn Health.” Morse was credited with coordinating the visit by a delegation from Senegal’s National Agency for Universal Health Coverage to UConn Health. According to Morse, “The goal of universal health coverage is challenging in the developing world, but not unattainable. What the ANACMU is trying to achieve is quite remarkable …”
- Arthur House, an adjunct who teaches in the department, wrote an editorial in the Hartford Courant this past summer entitled “Brittney Griner shouldn’t be in prison. What price can the U.S. pay for her freedom?”
- Hind Ahmed Zaki co-organized (along with Miriam Cooke of Duke University) an international conference entitled “Body, Medicine, and Feminism: the Life Work of Nawal El Saadawi” held at Duke University on April 7-8, 2022. She also presented a working paper entitled “Egypt’s #me too Movement and the Politicization of Women’s Rights amid Authoritarian Politics” at the University of Wisconsin as part of a March 25, 2022 conference on “Who is Afraid of Democracy? New Wave of Transformations in the Middle East and North Africa.” Finally, Dr. Ahmed Zaki participated in a panel entitled “Democracy and Gender Equality in the Middle East and North Africa” at Drexel University this past May.
- Paul Herrnson published an article, “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Election Administration, Voting Options, and Turnout in the 2020 US Election” (with Michael J. Hanmer, Matthew Weil, and Rachel Orey) in Publius: The Journal of Federalism. His most notable media appearances included (1) “US Democracy Under Pressure: Election Liars On The Rise,” (ARD German Public Radio, Aug 22, 2022); and (2) “NBC‘s Face the Facts: UConn Professor Provides Insight on Congressional Race (September 5, 2022).
- Michael Morrell was elected Vice-President of Initiatives for the International Society of Political Psychology. He also presented his paper, “In Defense of Empathy,” at the University of Manchester (UK) Centre for Political Theory’s Workshop on Empathy, Democracy & Justice: Reassessing the Political Roles of Empathy.
- Beth Ginsberg was recently recognized by the UConn Center for Career Development for her contributions as a member of the Center’s Career Champion Program, the Career Champion Advisory Board, and the Career Champion Faculty Subcommittee. The Career Champion Program connects and engages faculty, staff, alumni, and employer partners who are actively assisting students in determining and reaching their career goals. Members of the Advisory Board have met with each other and the Center for Career Development staff three times this past academic year to provide insight and aid in strategic planning for the Career Champion Program.
- Evan Perkoski received a grant of $514,000 from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE). His successful proposal was titled “Understanding the Link Between the Recruitment and Operational Behavior of Terrorist Organizations.”
- Elizabeth Hanson, faculty emerita, has donated an additional $25,000 gift to grow her endowment for the Elizabeth C. Hanson Fund for International Studies.
- Frederick Turner, faculty emeritus, recently ended his long standing service as the department’s Early College Education liaison to schools across the state. One of the high school teachers Dr. Turner helped support is Katie Boland, a Trumbull High School government teacher who recently won an American Lawyers Alliance 2022 Teacher of the Year Award. The winners of the award receive $3,000 and a $1,000 travel stipend to attend the American Bar Association annual meeting in August. Boland has been a teacher for nearly 20 years, and has been at Trumbull High School since 2010.
- David Yalof’s book manuscript, tentatively titled George Washington and the Two-Term Precedent, has been accepted for publication at the University Press of Kansas, and is forthcoming in the summer of 2023. Meanwhile, Dr. Yalof recently accepted a new position as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the College of William & Mary. (This new position takes effect January 1, 2023).