David PesciIn this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask 5 Questions of Giulio Gallarotti, professor of government and author of several books and scholarly articles, including The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics. Lately he has turned his attention to the U.S.-China relationship and its place in the geo-political world. Q: Your recent work has taken you to the transition in much of the world from a Cold War stance to the coming “cold co-existence” between the U.S. and China. How would you define “cold co-existence”? A: The future U.S. relations with China will be far different than…
Olivia DrakePeter Rutland, professor of government, authored an opinion piece in the Dec. 29 Moscow Times titled "A Cold War Could Turn Hot in the Korean Peninsula." Rutland writes: "Much of the commentary about North Korea after the death of Kim Jong Il has sidestepped the question of reunification. While the nations of Germany and Vietnam were united, Korea remains split into two. In this part of the world, the Cold War is not over, and there is a real danger that it might turn into a hot war. North Korea is committed to unifying the nation by military means. Its…
Elvin Lim, associate professor of government, provided a political analysis on "Why Republicans Can't Find their Candidate" in the Nov. 10 Faster Times. He discusses politicians Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. "It is far from clear, then, that 2012 will be a Republican year," he writes."Conservatives have yet to explain away a fundamental puzzle: if government is so unnecessary, so inefficient, and so corrupt, why seek an office in it? This is possibly why the very brightest and savviest would-be candidates are in Wall Street, and can’t be bothered with an address change to Pennsylvania Avenue.…
This issue we ask "5 Questions" of Anne Mariel Peters, assistant professor of government who specializes in the Middle East. Her research interests include the durability of Middle Eastern Authoritarianism. Q: We all saw the stirring images from Egypt in the spring, but there’s been very little coverage of what is happening there since. What happened in the days and weeks after the protest ended? A: The Egyptian protesters were a diverse group of people with varying levels of policy goals and political sophistication who all coalesced around the need to remove the President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. That we now…
James McGuire's recent book Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2010) was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2010 and won the 2011 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research. McGuire is professor and chair in the Department of Government and a member of the Latin American Studies Program at Wesleyan. The Stein Rokkan Prize is awarded annually by the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), and the University of Bergen (Norway), in memory of Professor Stein Rokkan, who was an eminent social scientist at the…
An article by Brian Glenn, visiting assistant professor of government, was published on salon.com July 4. In the piece, titled "What is a 'constitutional conservative' anyway?," Glenn writes, "For conservative politicians, the name signals that they are identifying as Tea Party members, which means limiting government, balancing the federal budget, lowering taxes, ending redistribution from the wealthier to the poor, assigning a central position for God in the lives of Americans, even in courthouses and public schools, and asserting the right to bear arms. While God will always be given top billing, one gets the sense that lowering taxes and…
(more…)
The 2010 campaign season was the most negative in recent years, but, current political rhetoric aside, that actually may not be a bad thing. These are among the findings and conclusions from a recent journal article published by Erika Franklin Fowler, assistant professor of government and director of The Wesleyan Media Project, and her co-researchers in The Forum, a Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics. “Advertising Trends in 2010” by Fowler and Travis Ridout, associate professor at Washington State University and co-director of The Wesleyan Media Project, examined the data and trends in television campaign advertising from all Federal and…
James McGuire, professor of government, is the author of "Mortality Decline in Chile, 1960-1995," published in Living Standards in Latin American History: Height, Welfare, and Development, 1750-2000, Cambridge, Mass: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2010; and "Political Factors and Health Outcomes: Insight from Argentina's Provinces," published in the United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2010, September 2010.
On a recent episode of WNPR’s ‘Where We Live,’ Giulio Gallarotti, professor of government, and Michael Nelson, assistant professor of government, discussed China’s rising national profile and the Western perceptions of Chinese power. According to the WNPR broadcast, China reports a $20.8 billion trade surplus for December, $191 billion for the year and the world is cowering in fear of China’s rapid rise to power. Goldman Sachs predicts China’s and U.S. economies will be equivalent in size around 2027. As a result, recent polls show that Americans think the U.S. is in a downward spiral and China is the new…
James McGuire, professor of government, delivered four invited lectures in 2010. These include: "Politics, Policy, and Mortality Decline in Chile: The Pinochet Paradox" on April 17 at Carleton College, Foro Latinoamericano; "Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America" on Nov. 3 at Brown University, Center for Latin American Studies; "Social Policies in Latin America: Characteristics and Consequences" on Nov. 11 at the University of California, (more…)
Hosting a symposium to discuss new research findings is a rather common event for universities today. However, the symposium “Rethinking Insurgency” held at Wesleyan this fall was unique in one important way: the vast bulk of research was done by undergraduates. Their research was the final product of an intensive 10-week summer internship held under the auspices of Wesleyan’s Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research (PTIR), which is directed by Assistant Professor of Government Erica Chenoweth. Chenoweth says that undergraduates are often overlooked in many research institutions, but that Wesleyan’s tradition of embracing undergraduates as participants in active research helped…