Research
The Faculty’s research agendas coalesce in many areas of common interest, some of which are listed below. (This list is not coextensive with the breadth of each Faculty member’s research program; visit individual Faculty pages for complete information.)
American Political Development
- Transformations of welfare state, drug control, labor policy (Bertram)
- Changing conceptions of equality of opportunity and racial inequality (Brown)
- Antidiscrimination law (Meister)
- Congress, politics of military policy (Wirls)
The Social Foundations of Democratic Politics and Democratization
- Prospects for non-aggressive collective political association (Lipschutz)
- Preference formation and transformation (Pasotti)
- Civil society in post-Soviet Russia (Urban)
- Congressional arrangements and conceptions of democracy (Read)
- Emerging civil society organizations in China (Read)
- Transnational NGOs and UN involvement -- global/local connections (Massoud)
Political Economy
The Politics of South and East Asia
- Philippine Electoral Systems (Eaton)
- British Colonial India (Seth)
- Philippine Nationalism (Read)
- Chinese and Taiwanese politics (Read)
The Politics of Latin America
- Territorial conflict (Eaton)
- Federalism and decentralization (Eaton)
- Party and electoral systems (Eaton)
Race and Politics
- Racial inequality since the end of slavery (Brown)
- Rights, recognition and reconciliation (Meister)
- European conceptions of difference (Seth)
The Politics of Language
- Philosophy of language (Mathiowetz)
- Framing and preference formation (Pasotti)
- Natural languages and nationalization (Thomas)
- Ideology and discourse analysis (Urban)
Post-colonial theory and nationalist discourse
- Politics of memory (Schoenman)
- The Americas and India in British colonial imagination (Seth)
- Orientalism and political identity in the Spanish colonial world (Thomas)
- Colonial and postcolonial law (Massoud)
Early Modern European political thought
- Political thought of Thomas Hobbes (Mathiowetz, Seth)
- Emergence of political-economic discourse (Mathiowetz)
- Pre-modern and modern notions of selfhood (Seth)
Informal and Translocal Political Organization
- Constitution and fragmentation of political movements, especially around environment and security (Lipschutz)
- Patronage politics in Southern Italy (Read)
- State-sponsored local associations in China and Taiwan (Read)
Law and Society and the Politics of Law
- Human rights and social movements (Massoud)
- International law and development (Massoud)
- Law in Sudan and unstable states (Massoud)
Methodology