Maxwell School News and Commentary

"Now, Russia’s World Cup has come and gone, but stability has given way to stagnation," says Brian Taylor, professor and chair of political science and author of The Code of Putinism.

"My sense is that [Ayatollah] Khamenei is throwing [President] Rouhani under the bus, in a number of ways,” says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science and expert on Iranian politics.

"The companies that use steel, like aluminum can manufacturers, or companies that make steel vats for pharmaceuticals or the dairy industry, they're going to be hurt by this," says Mary Lovely, professor of economics.

"The idea that the Portuguese have never been in Africa is completely false," says Christopher DeCorse, professor of anthropology. "In fact, it was the Portuguese who opened Africa to the Atlantic world." 

According to Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, the push for a single payer health system has gained traction as a "symbolic" issue for some Democrats who want to have a "positive alternative message" to efforts by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to dismantle Obamacare.

"If jobs and wealth are the metric for 'winning the trade war,' China, not America, will emerge the victor," says Mary Lovely, professor of economics.

"If President Trump really wants to cut taxes on capital gains, he should go to Congress with a plan to do so directly, and not through a poorly designed back-door regulatory scheme," writes Leonard Burman, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs.

Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor of Geography, notes that the group of west-oriented maps of Virginia could simply have come about because people copied [John] Smith, whose map was early and famous.

Professor Emeritus of Political Science Michael Barkun weighs in on the mystery of "Q" and the history of conspiracy theories in America in the Washington Post. "These ideas never completely die,” says Barkun, who studies conspiracy theories and political extremism. “They get recycled every generation, and in America, some of the most powerful conspiracy ideas deal with an enemy inside the government who is really pulling the strings but cannot be identified.”

“We all want stories that make sense of the world,” Barkun says. “When we can’t find them, we look around in strange places."