Spring 2023 Edition
The small conference is having a big impact on the Department of Political Science. This annual event brings together students and nationally known scholars for a day of in-depth discussions and networking.
Department of Political Science hosts WUSTEPS, a new summer pipeline program
New research from Margit Tavits is among the first to provide concrete evidence that paternity leave policies can lead to more gender-equal attitudes — especially among those directly impacted by the policy.
Another exciting academic year has drawn to a close, and I’m happy to share with you another issue of our Newsletter. This will be my last one as the department chair. It has been a pleasure working with Betsy Sinclair as associate chair this spring semester and I’m looking forward to all of the great things she will accomplish as chair when she takes over on July 1, 2023.
A lot has happened this spring! We are celebrating many important promotions. Congratulations to Taylor Carlson for receiving tenure and being promoted to the rank of associate professor! Congratulations to Dino Christenson and Jacob Montgomery for their promotion to the rank of full professor! Congratulations to Diana O’Brien for being the inaugural recipient of the Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professorship! This professorship was endowed by Noémi Neidorff, a longtime benefactor of Washington University in St. Louis and other cultural and educational institutions locally and beyond. Neidorff’s endowment is in recognition of her uncle, an acclaimed author, historian, and journalist from Hungary. I’m very proud of my colleagues for these great achievements.
We owe thanks to esteemed colleagues who are completing their long-term service to the Department and the university. Randy Calvert and Steve Smith are retiring and assuming the positions of emeritus professors. Their work has shaped our understanding of political institutions, and will continue to be impactful for decades to come. We thank them for being dedicated scholars and teachers, and tireless leaders in the department and on campus!
Our department continues to grow. I am very glad to announce that on July 1, we’ll be doubling our international relations faculty! Amy Pond and Timm Betz will be joining our department as associate professors and Xiaoyan (Christy) Qiu as assistant professor. Dr. Pond is a highly impactful scholar of international and comparative political economy, and will also contribute to our formal theory field. Dr. Betz is an expert on the politics of trade and finance and has also made important methodological contributions. Dr. Qiu studies rebel strategies and state formation, relying on tools of formal theory. We also welcome two new teaching-track faculty: Zoe Ang and Stephanie Shady! Dr. Ang started already in March and is teaching courses in American politics. Together with the Director of Undergraduate Studies, she is also supporting our undergraduate program. Dr. Shady will start in the fall, and she will offer courses in comparative politics and international relations. Together with the Director of Graduate Studies, she will also be supporting our graduate program. We are so excited to welcome all of these amazing new colleagues!
We are proud to continue our junior visitor program, which we started last year. We are saying goodbye to our inaugural visitors this year, Lisa Argyle and Mayya Komisarchik. We are welcoming Princess Williams from Amherst College, who will be visiting us for the 2023-24 academic year. Her research focuses on behavior, geography, race and ethnic politics, and American political development. We are looking forward to hosting Professor Williams!
The department is also welcoming several new staff members! On May 1, Dan Callihan started as the administrative and academic supervisor for political science. On May 8, Autumn Dennis started as the administrative coordinator supporting the chair, faculty, and department communications – and is the new editor of our Newsletter! On May 16, Ellen Huppert started as the academic coordinator supporting our undergraduate and graduate programs. We are lucky to have this impressive team help us move the department forward!
I hope you all have a fun and productive summer, full of new discoveries. Please stay in touch!
Yours sincerely,
Margit Tavits, Dr. William Taussig Professor
Congratulations Class of 2023! This year we are delighted to award degrees to 61 Political Science Majors, 13 Political Science Minors, and 5 Environmental Policy Majors. Eleven of our graduating majors have joined Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honors Society. Next year our graduates will venture into a huge range of fields—from consulting firms to think tanks, congressional offices to nonprofit groups, public service and graduate school. There is good reason for this diversity: few other programs insist on rigorous methodological training for all majors while providing compelling opportunities to apply this training to original research. This spring, eleven of our strongest students completed original honors thesis research projects, on topics as varied as conspiracy theories in American politics, trade dependence on authoritarian states, language barriers to political participation, state sponsorship of terrorism, and others. Another fourteen rising seniors have proposed honors projects for next year! We aim to deliver not only first-rate instruction in Political Science, but also to build community among our faculty, students, and alumni. Our Events Forum has featured visits from alumni, practical how-to sessions on applying to graduate school, and invited guest speakers on current events. One recent highlight was a coffee break with faculty member Ted Enamorado. To find out about department new and events, job and internship postings, and academic opportunities, connect with us on Instagram at @WashUPoliSci! Moving into summer, our focus will be on strengthening student advising and thesis mentoring. We will compile a comprehensive advising handbook for faculty: this handbook will not only provide a detailed overview of our program requirements, but also answers to common questions and suggestions for best advising practices. Our goal is to ensure that every student who comes to Political Science receives strong and consistent guidance and support from declaring their major right through to graduation.
We have wrapped up another successful academic year for the Washington University Political Science graduate program. First, we had a successful year placing doctoral graduates in academic positions. These included: Jordan McCallister will start a post-doctoral fellowship at the Innovation in Population Health Center, University of Kentucky. Afiq bin Oslan will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute, Munich. Patrick Rickert has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professorship at St. Lawrence University. Benjamin Noble will commence a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at the University of California, San Diego. Second, the admissions season concluded successfully with the enrollment of a diverse cohort of 16 new doctoral students for the upcoming fall. We are all very excited to welcome these students in the Fall. Third, our graduate students continued to accomplish great things over the last academic year. Some of our graduate students’ publications and achievements this academic year included: Zoe Ang who published “Partisanship, Economic Assessments, and Presidential Accountability” in the American Journal of Political Science alongside WashU faculty member Andrew Reeves and others. Jordan McAllister and Afiq bin Oslan’s work “Issue Ownership and Salience Shocks: The Electoral Impact of Australian Bushfires” was published in Electoral Studies. A collaborative effort from Taylor Damann and Jeremy Siow, with WashU faculty member Margit Tavits, resulted in “Persistence of Gender Biases in Europe,” accepted by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ruilin Lai’s co-authored paper “Political Institutions and Global Project Finance Loans" was accepted by International Studies Quarterly. Masanori Kikuchi’s work “How does War Affect Cultural Tolerance? Evidence from Concert Programs, 1900–60” was featured in the Journal of Peace Research. Jordan McAllister's co-authored work “Measuring Time Preferences in Large Surveys” was published in Political Science Research and Methods. Benjamin Noble, alongside WashU faculty member Andrew Reeves and a coauthor, published “Crime and Presidential Accountability: A Case of Racially Conditioned” in Public Opinion Quarterly. Jeremy Siow received an American Political Science Association Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant for his dissertation work. Fourth, this year also marked the launch of the new Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) WUSTEPS program. This free 6-week training program aims to equip undergraduates from diverse backgrounds for political science Ph.D. programs, offering mentored research opportunities, introductory research methods training, and professionalization seminars. The WUSTEPS program takes place from May 22nd to June 30th of this year. The momentum of this past year will continue into an exciting fall semester here in the department.
By analyzing social media content generated across the globe, political scientists seek to understand the current wave of populist rhetoric flooding the internet and its threats to democracies.
Congratulations to David Carter, Dino Christenson, Matthew Gabel, Jacob Montgomery, and Betsy Sinclair on receiving seed grants from the Transdisciplinary Institute in Applied Data Sciences!
Joseph Silagi, May 2023 graduate with a degree in political science and in mathematics and computer science from Arts & Sciences, shares his passion for data and running
Get to know Prof. Betsy Sinclair, Professor of Political Science and incoming Chair of the department.
Get to know Prof. Diana Z. O'Brien, Professor of Political Science and inaugural recipient of the newly established, endowed Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professorship.
Dino Christenson and Jacob Montgomery received promotions to full professor, and Taylor Carlson received tenure.
Prof. Randy Calvert retires after 30+ years of scholarship at WashU
Prof. Steven Smith retires after 20+ years of scholarship at WashU
Grant Taylor Carlson and Carly Wayne, both assistant professors of political science, have won a two-year National Science Foundation grant to support their project “Interpersonal Pathways to Radicalization and Deradicalization.”
Read the StoryGrant Congratulations to Matthew Gabel, David Carter, Dino Christenson, Jacob Montgomery, and Betsy Sinclair on receiving seed grants from the Transdisciplinary Institute in Applied Data Sciences (TRIADS)!
Read the StoryAward Congratulations to David Carter, Professor of Political Science, and Luwei Ying (PhD '22), for being awarded the American Political Science Association's Outstanding Article in International History and Politics for their article "Historical Border Changes, State Building, and Contemporary Trust in Europe", co-authored with Scott Abramson.
Read the StoryAward Margit Tavits and Efrén Pérez have been selected as the winners of the Robert E. Lane Award for their book Voicing Politics: How Language Shapes Public Opinion. This award is given by the APSA Political Psychology Section for the best book in political psychology published in the last year.
Read the StoryBook Frank Lovett, Professor of Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies, published "The Well-Ordered Republic" through the Oxford University Press last fall.
Read the StoryArticle Margit Tavits, Taylor Damann, and Jeremy Siow were published in PNAS on the persistence of gender bias in Europe. Doctoral students Taylor Damann and Jeremy Siow conducted research and co-authored the paper with Dr. Tavits, the Dr. William Taussig Professor and Chair of the department.
Read the StoryAward Graduate student Ben Noble's paper "How Presidents Persuade Facts, Feelings, and the Language of Presidential Power" has been selected as the Presidents and Executive Politics Best Graduate Paper for 2023.
Read the StoryArticle Dan Butler's article "Top-Four Primaries Help Moderate Candidates via Crossover Voting: The Case of the 2022 Alaska Election Reforms" has been published in The Forum.
Read the StoryArticle James L. Gibson’s article “Losing Legitimacy: The Challenges of the Dobbs Ruling to Conventional Legitimacy Theory” has been accepted for publication in the American Journal of Political Science. This is the first of a series of papers on popular reactions to the Supreme Court’s abrogation of abortion (and perhaps privacy) rights.
Read the StoryAchievement At the 28th Annual Graduate Research Symposium, graduate students Jeremy Siow won 1st place and Ben Noble won 2nd place, both in the social science category.
Read the StoryPrize Mike Olson's article “Franchise Expansion and Legislative Representation in the Early United States” (co-authored with Stephen Ansolabehere and Jaclyn Kaslovsky) was awarded the 2023 Kenneth A. Shepsle Prize for the best article in volume 3 of the Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy.
Read the StoryFellowship Jeremy Siow was selected as a SEAREG (Southeast Asia Research Group) Fellow for his dissertation research.
Read the StorySteve Smith and Randy Calvert's work has shaped our understanding of political institutions and it will for decades to come. Support the research of graduate students in the Department of Political Science with a gift in Steve or Randy's honor.
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