Lauren RubensteinPeter Rutland, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, has won an $85,000 grant from the Leverhulme Trust to serve as a visiting professor at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom in 2016. There, he will be working on a research project titled, "Visualizing the Nation" with Manchester professors Vera Tolz and Stephen Hutchings. The Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Manchester is a leading institution in the study of Russian television and mass media. Rutland is also professor of government, professor of Russian and Eastern European studies, tutor in the College…
In this Q&A we speak with Emmakristina Sveen from the Class of 2017. Q: How and when did you form the Wesleyan Republican Committee (WRC)? A: Meghan Kelly ’17 and I founded the Wesleyan Republican Committee this fall. The previous Republican student group on campus, which was started in 2009, gradually deteriorated after the 2012 elections and after their senior leadership graduated. We wanted to establish a club that served as a vehicle in which students with any level of affiliation with the Republican Party could discuss their political views in a safe environment. With the help of Meghan’s brother,…
Olivia DrakeProfessor Peter Rutland is the author of an article titled "Petronation? Oil, gas and national identity in Russia," published in Post-Soviet Affairs, Volume 31, Issue 1, January 2015. Rutland is professor of government, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, professor of Russian and Eastern European studies and tutor in the College of Social Studies. The article was written as part of the research project “Nation-Building and Nationalism in Today’s Russia (NEORUSS),” financed by the Norwegian Research Council. Based on survey research, elite interviews, and an analysis of media treatment, Rutland's article explores the place of oil and…
A book by Marc Eisner, the Henry Merritt Wriston Chair of Public Policy, was selected as a winner of the Outstanding Academic Titles by Choice in 2014. Eisner's book, The American Political Economy was published in 2014. In this innovative text, he portrays the state and the market as inextricably linked, exploring the variety of institutions subsumed by the market and the role that the state plays in creating the institutional foundations of economic activity. Through a historical approach, Eisner situates the study of American political economy within a larger evolutionary-institutional framework that integrates perspectives in American political development and economic sociology. Eisner also is chair…
Wesleyan recently received two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The awards will support research by Wesleyan faculty Mary Alice Haddad and Sanford Shieh. Mary Alice Haddad, associate professor of government, received a $33,600 grant for the NEH Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan project titled, "Environmental Politics in East Asia: Strategies that Work." “Japan has experienced some of the world’s most intense environmental crises and taken leadership roles in finding solutions," Haddad said. "The Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan will enable me to examine the ways that Japan’s experience has served as a model for…
Professor of Government James McGuire is the author of a book chapter titled "Democracy, Agency and the Classification of Political Regimes," published in Reflections on Uneven Democracies: The Legacy of Guillermo O'Donnell by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Guillermo O'Donnell (1936-2011) was widely recognized as the world's leading scholar of Latin American politics. During his doctoral studies, McGuire worked closely with O'Donnell in both Argentina and the United States, translating from Spanish to English O'Donnell's Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Argentina, 1966-1973, in Comparative Perspective (University of California Press, 1988). McGuire's chapter in this new volume commemorating O'Donnell's life and work argues that schemes for classifying…
Alton Wang '16 is a sociology and government double major who plans to enter public service after graduation, advocating for the rights of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Q: Welcome to Wesleyan, Professor Matesan! Can you please tell us a little about your background? A: I’m originally from Romania. I came to the U.S. for undergrad in 1998, and earned a degree in economics and political science from Monmouth College in Illinois. Coming from Romania, I had no sense of differences in states. I got together with a couple friends, and we looked at the admission of international students and amount of aid for them at different colleges, and we applied to the colleges with the most aid per international student. It was very much a cost-benefit analysis.…
Erika Franklin Fowler, assistant professor of government and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, recently joined the Campaign Finance Institute's (CFI) Academic Advisory Board. Fowler was one of 16 academics appointed to the board, which advises CFI as it plans and works through its research agenda. Also appointed was Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project and a professor at Bowdoin College. Founded in 1999, CFI is a campaign finance policy think tank. According to the website, its original work is published in academic journals, and is regularly used by the media and policymakers. Its tools are made available to…
Assistant Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, Project Manager in the Government Department Laura Baum, and four students presented a paper titled, "A Messenger Like Me: The Effect of Ordinary Spokespeople in Campaign Advertising" at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association Conference, Aug. 30 in Washington, D.C. The student authors are P. Marshal Lawler '16, Michael Linden '15, Eliza Loomis '15 and Zachary Wulderk '15. The paper considers the effects of using non-elite spokespeople (ie. "the everyman") in political advertising. The authors draw upon the Wesleyan Media Project's vast database of political advertising, as well as original…
Sonali Chakravarti, assistant professor of government, is the author of Sing the Rage: Listening to Anger after Mass Violence, published by University Of Chicago Press on April 23. In Sing the Rage, Sonali Chakravarti examines the relationship between anger and justice through a careful look at the emotionally charged South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Between 1996 and 1998, the commission saw, day after day, individuals taking the stand to speak—to cry, scream, and wail—about the atrocities of apartheid. Uncomfortable and surprising, these public emotional displays, she argues, proved to be of immense value, vital to the success of transitional justice and…
The Wesleyan Media Project received a grant of $74,851 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to track and analyze campaign ad spending in the 2014 midterm election cycle. The project is directed by Assistant Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, along with Michael Franz of Bowdoin College and Travis Ridout of Washington State University. A resource for journalists, policymakers, scholars and voters, the project has worked to increase transparency in federal elections since it was established in 2010 with support from the Knight Foundation.