Maxwell School News and Commentary

"If President Trump and his advisers can out-think and out-strategize [Putin] in order to get Russia to provide some useful assistance in changing North Korea’s nuclear program, then it could be a win for the president, but it’s high-risk to say the least," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion, says her findings indicate that places where rates of death due to drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and suicide are high are also places that heavily supported Trump in the election.

"The current struggle over an affirmative message is further compounded by the fact that the negative messaging is taking up all the energy," says Professor of Political Science Grant Reeher. "Everything is about opposing Trump." 

“I think this part of an an escalating war of words between the Saudis and the Iranians, really instigated by Saudi Arabia, but unfortunately [for the Saudis] I don’t think they’re really as strategic as the Iranians are in terms of making these moves of the chessboard of the Middle East,” says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science.

Miriam Elman, associate professor of political science, says that "the current hostility to the Balfour Declaration Centennial tells us a lot about why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains so intractable. It isn’t really about post-1967 settlements or post-1967 borders, but about a very basic and visceral intolerance to Jewish sovereign legitimacy anywhere in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland.”

"When you see a piece of misinformation, even when it’s in the context of being corrected and you believe the correction, it can still have lingering effects on your attitudes," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science.

"I would never underestimate the Japanese military," says Robert Murrett, deputy director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. "In terms of just sheer military proficiency — unit for unit, person for person, they’re the best military in Asia."