After the 2008 economic collapse, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations launched a series of inquiries aimed at exposing the rot underlying the financial services industry. During one memorable hearing, then-Sen. Carl Levin grilled Goldman Sachs executives on their sale of investment products they knew to be dubious in order to increase their already eye-popping compensation. An exchange in which Levin used internal emails to show how Goldman Sachs officials sold products they knew to be "s—-ty deals" went viral.

Simulations have forecast disastrous consequences before. Here’s how to act on the lessons of wargames before they come to pass.

Robert Blair: The UN is intimately involved in efforts to restore the rule of law in conflict and postconflict settings. Yet despite the importance of the rule of law for peace, good governance, and economic growth, evidence on the impact of these efforts is scant.

If political scientists’ warnings about the poisonous effects of partisanship may have seemed a bit overwrought before, they certainly don’t at present. Viewing the reality of the coronavirus pandemic through the cockeyed lens of American politics can now be lethal.

On the morning of Dec. 22, 1944, German soldiers waving white flags approached American troops defending the Belgian city of Bastogne against the Nazi counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge. The German army had the American defenders completely surrounded and outnumbered, and the Americans were rapidly running out of supplies by five to one.

In this article, we show that domestic violence public policies are implemented inconsistently across states under federalism. Using original survey data of public defenders across 16 states, with data on domestic violence laws, we demonstrate that there are differing policies and implementation practices regarding domestic violence cases depending on where they are adjudicated. State level domestic violence laws, such as mandatory arrest and firearm access restrictions, combined with structural elements of the judicial system, and public defender personal characteristics, exert significant influence in determining the outcomes of domestic violence cases. Overall, our analysis shows that the lack of uniformity in the implementation of domestic violence policy creates inequality in the criminal justice system’s treatment of domestic violence and makes personal security for women contingent on where they live.

Waiting for John Kelly? He cannot save the Republic from what ails it.* Bonnie Honig   In the New Yorker, John Cassidy refers to the story that Trump routinely refers to deceased and injured members of the US military “suckers” and “losers” as a “controversy” and calls on John Kelly, the General who served as […]

Last week the Republican Party held its national convention to nominate Donald Trump as their candidate for the 2020 presidential election. Bonnie Honig writes that the convention gave us another look at what power can look like if unchecked and unbalanced.

Political Science International Relations faculty published many articles about the field this summer. 

Jeff Robbins, Visiting Professor of the Practice of Political Science, writes about U.S. politics in Creators Syndicate.

A top Senate Republican said Wednesday he is “more optimistic today than I have been” about Congress passing another coronavirus stimulus package before the end of the month, and he cautioned both parties could face political consequences in November if a stalemate over relief funding continues.

“Here. Don’t say I never gave you anything,” Trump sneered when he tossed a candy at Angela Merkel early in his presidency. (This was at a 2018 G-7 meeting, though Trump may have mistaken it for a Middle School lunchroom.) Last night he tossed a candy at the American people while he took everything else away. Impeach this! he all but said as he strode down a long staircase (no escalator to be had) and then strutted around a White House turned from a symbol of public government into a stage for his Republican campaign for the Presidency.

Congratulations to Cory Manento, PhD candidate, on receiving a Dirksen Congressional Research Grant which funds research on congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress.

Experts say Biden would take a more science-focused approach with better long-term results, but a new administration would come at the cost of short-term disruption.

No one has ever accused Abe Foxman of being derelict in defending Israel or soft when it comes to protecting the Jewish people. A Holocaust survivor who only narrowly escaped the fate suffered by 6 million Jews, Foxman served the Anti-Defamation League for a half-century, including 28 years as its national director. A force of nature, he became the face of the endless battle against anti-Semitism, melding bluntness and fearlessness with legendary tirelessness.

Steven Calabresi is not what you'd call a "leftist." The co-founder of conservative legal group the Federalist Society worked for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and has only voted for Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. Now a law professor, Calabresi adamantly opposed last year's impeachment of President Trump on constitutional grounds.

What went wrong? Many books have attempted to tackle that question since 2016, when the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential victory threatened to upend the global economic order. Replies tend to fall into two broad categories. One is hand-wringing by anxious liberals, who lament the unravelling of a system that has brought so much peace and prosperity. The other is hand-waving by more conservative writers, who welcome electoral revolts as an overdue reassertion of national sovereignty.

The Wall of Moms in Portland, Oregon, are mostly dressed in yellow to stand out and make it easier to find one another in case they get separated in a melée. On their first recorded night out as a unit, July 19, the women linked arms and chanted “Feds steer clear, Moms are here.” One of them was visibly pregnant. All were brave, as they faced anonymized federal police forces wielding tear gas, pepper bombs, and truncheons. Someone on Twitter called the women Momtifa, which is an excellent coinage. Moms against fascism and with antifa helps to undo the associations Trump and Barr have constructed. No longer thugs and anarchists, antifa becomes someone’s beloved sons and daughters. Those watching from afar may feel their sympathies start to shift.

In just over two months, the Northeast has gone from the country’s worst coronavirus hot spot to its most controlled. “It’s acting like Europe,” one expert said.

Corey Brettschneider with Jeffrey Tulis: Properly understood, the commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence is unconstitutional.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonstrates how to de-escalate a conflict while also saving face.

While comfortable Americans are passing the pandemic studying their favorite restaurants' takeout schedules and strategizing Zoom techniques, tens of millions of our countrymen dramatically less fortunate are desperately trying to keep their families from being tossed into the street.

The recent murders of innocent Black people have galvanized individuals to fight against the oppression of Blacks in this country. The Race and Capitalism Project, along with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, has organized a panel featuring historians, activists, and political theorists, Juliet Hooker (Brown), Barbara Ransby (University of Illinois), Vesla Weaver (Johns Hopkins), and Megan Ming Francis (University of Washington) to discuss "Anti-Black Violence and the Ongoing Fight for Freedom."

After the mid 20th century, a democracy is not a proper democracy unless it safeguards minorities. And if the minorities are also poor, the protection becomes even more necessary.

Polls, betting odds and pundits are all pointing toward a substantial victory for Joe Biden. The New York Times poll showed Biden leading President Trump by a staggering 50 percent – 36 percent, a 14-point margin. The Real Clear Politics polling averages show a 9-point lead for Biden. He leads Trump even more among women voters. The Times poll also indicated strong leads in critical swing states Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina, ranging from 6 to 11 points. These results point to an overwhelming Electoral College victory.

It isn't easy being Donald Trump these days: so many people to silence and so little time. Muzzling those who have damaging evidence on you can be exhausting in the best of circumstances, and keeping a lid on so much incriminating information springing from so many different sources would make anyone cranky.

In June 2020 Jeff Colgan co-wrote, "Asset Revaluation and the Existential Politics of Climate Change," a piece focused on a dynamic theory of climate politics based on the present and future revaluation of assets that accelerate climate change, such as fossil fuel plants.

A look at war through the lens of the performance enhancers that help make it possible.

"You just get a much bigger fiscal bang for the buck," says Mark Blyth, the economics professor and author of "Angrynomics."

It's been another bad stretch for Donald Trump. The president's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week began with his labored shuffle down a short, modestly inclined ramp after giving an even more labored speech at West Point, one eliciting an audience response somewhere between tepid and silent. It was an event commandeered by Trump himself.

Join Watson Director Edward Steinfeld for a conversation with Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance Director Mark Blyth about his new book, Angrynomics (co-authored with Eric Longeran).

Listen now (85 min) | Escaping household chaos, a car-bound Jonah talks prisons with Brown University’s David Skarbek. Bolivian jails and Soviet gulags are just two choices in this long game of Where’d-You-Rather: Incarceration Edition. Skarbek takes us through the highlights of his upcoming book and touches on the delicate subject of policing.

The inhabitants of Chelsea, Massachusetts, have known tough times for a long time, long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit them hard. Almost half of Chelsea's population consists of recent immigrants, largely from Latin America, and almost 1 in 5 lived below the poverty line even before the virus struck and wiped out the economy.

When the late film producer Julia Phillips published her 1991 expose of Hollywood's depravity in the 1970s and 1980s, she chose a title that correctly forecasted the movie establishment's retributive response. "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again" was summed up by one Hollywood power broker as "the longest suicide note in history."

It wasn't the best of weeks for President Donald Trump. On Friday, he proclaimed it a "great day" for George Floyd, who had been murdered by Minneapolis police the week before. "Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying 'This is a great thing that's happening to our country,'" said Trump as Americans took to the streets in all 50 states to protest the persistence and scope of American racism, and as tens of millions remained jobless.

One of the most terrifying aspects of pathogens like the novel coronavirus is that they do not respect borders. Yet borders determine our vulnerability to infectious diseases. Today, governmental efforts have meant that citizens within certain national boundaries—like New Zealand or Vietnam—are much less likely to suffer from COVID-19.

Juliet Hooker, Professor of Political Science, discusses Black Lives Matter protests, asymmetrical perceptions of violence, and the role that images play in our politics.

In the Amereican Political Science Association's Comparative Politics 2020 Spring Newsletter, Professor Prerna Singh gives her take on COVID-19 and intergroup relations. Singh compares the impact of the ongoing pandemic to those of the past, specifically focusing on the evident increase in xenophobia. Read the full Q&A.

In a country claiming to be the first in the world to be founded on equality, why have black lives been so cheap? Can black Americans ever be treated with equality and dignity, instead of being brutalised?

Congratulations to all of the 2020 Political Science graduates

Until recently, it had been Sen. Joseph McCarthy who was the poster child for the thuggish impulse that occasionally rears its head in America — ebbing here, flowing there, but always present. If he has accomplished nothing else, President Donald Trump has supplanted McCarthy as the embodiment of the American thug, rising and reigning with the help of those who either thrill to his bullying or lack the courage to challenge it.

On March 13, following the U.S. House of Representatives passage of emergency relief legislation to support those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recessed the Senate so he could fly to Louisville to celebrate the installation of one of his proteges, 37 year old Justin Walker, as a federal judge in Kentucky.

Doctor of Philosopy

Poverty in Pakistan may more than double, from 23% to 57%, as a result of the Covid-19 shock, according to one estimate from the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. This is a dire picture and has the potential to undo much of the progress in poverty reduction that has occurred in Pakistan, particularly over the past two decades, unless urgent action is taken by the federal government.

The analogy of the COVID-19 crisis as war is inescapable. At first, the comparison seems apt: the disease’s global reach, the death toll, the active “threat” of the virus, and the public sacrifice required to fight it seem more similar to a global war than to a geographically confined natural disaster, constitutional crisis, or another form of sudden, transnational change.

In 1967, an unknown 38-year-old civil rights activist from New York took it upon himself to change the world, and then he did. Allard Lowenstein, a Yale-educated lawyer who had steadfastly avoided practicing law and was proud of having done so, was already a master of the quixotic. He had smuggled searing evidence about apartheid out of South Africa, managing to present it at the United Nations and forcing the United States to distance itself from its South African ally. Calling upon his credibility on campuses across America, he had spearheaded Freedom Summer, which drew hundreds of volunteers to Mississippi to register black voters in 1964.