Faculty Achievements: Early Spring 2024

Prof. Beth Ginsberg (accompanied by Prof. Jane Gordon) took several POLS students to New Hampshire in January after receiving a generous grant from UCONN Provost Anne D’Alleva. The purpose of this trip was to explore and better understand the 1st in the country presidential primary process in NH. The group was able to meet with many political leaders including the NH Secretary of State and the director of the NH Democratic party. The students also visited the University of NH and met with the director of its Survey Research Institute and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics and met with its director. Finally, the students were able to attend rallies of several of the Republican candidates running for office. 

Prof. Yonatan Morse has two new publications: “Democratic Contestation, Organized Labor, and Pension Reform in Ghana and Malawi” was published in Social Policy & Administration 57:6 (2023) and “Autocratic Legalism, Partisanship, and Popular Legitimation in Authoritarian Cameroon” was published in Public Opinion Quarterly 87:4 (2023).  

Prof. Lyle Scruggs has a new publication with co-authors J. Sowula, F. Gehrig, M. Seeleib-Kaiser & G. Ramalho Tafoya, entitled “The end of welfare states as we know them? A multidimensional perspective” in Social Policy & Administration (2023):1–15. 

Prof. Matt Singer has a paper forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies. In coauthored work with Ryan Carlin, Timothy Hellwig, Gregory Love, Cecilia Martinez-Gallardo, entitled “Executive Approval Dynamics in Presidential and Parliamentary Democratic Regimes” Prof. Singer looks at how patterns of public support differ for presidents and prime ministers. 

Prof. Jeremy Pressman and Dr. Carol J. Gray (‘22 PhD) published a book chapter, “The Impact of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on Israel’s Foreign Relations,” in Joel Peters and Rob Geist Pinfold, editors, Routledge Handbook on Israel’s Foreign Relations (Routledge, 2024).  The book is currently available electronically and will be released in print in late February 2024. 

Prof. Jeremy Pressman spoke at UConn-Waterbury to about 50 people concerning the history and current status of Israel-Palestine (January 31). He also published two blog posts recently; one at JuanCole.com (Informed Comment) entitled, “Greater-Israel Advocates see Gaza Crisis as Opportunity for Expansion.”(February 6) and another one at The Good Authority entitled Can the U.S. pressure Israel to end the war?” (February 12) 

Prof. David Richards presented “Gender-Based Violence as Torture: A Survey Experiment”, written with POLS alumna Alexandra Kapell (CLAS ‘23), at the 2024 Southern Political Science Association meeting in New Orleans.  

Prof. Elva Orozco Mendoza was awarded a 2023-2024 Provost’s Common Curriculum Grant in the amount of $6,500 to develop a new course: WGSS 2256W: Latin American and Latinx Feminist Theory and Praxis. 

Prof. Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat discussed the relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights today from a feminist perspective at the symposium “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 75 Years Later,” organized by Rutgers International Law and Human Rights Journal, held on November 16 at Rutgers Law School, Newark, NJ. Prof. Arat also gave a UConn Humanities Fellowship talk, “Human Rights Norms in Turkey: A Historical Analysis of Political Party Programs,” and discussed the preliminary findings of her book project research on January 31.