Maxwell School News and Commentary

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, says without key people pushing the administration’s agenda, "the government is going to have a tendency to kind of trundle along in the same direction it was beforehand."

"We're at a point now where I would think that the pressure to not be seen as toeing the party line for the White House would probably be more powerful than the pressure to protect the president in some way," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

"Trump’s proposal — at least what we know of it so far — reveals a plan that rests not on privatization but on public-private partnerships," writes David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School.

Eric van der Vort '13 M.A. (PSc), Ph.D. candidate in political science, explains the lessons that LGBT movement history can teach social movements. He says the four key lessons are to acknowledge difference, pursue and provide education, build informal policy networks, and turn networks into durable coalitions.

"How legislators and court systems promote or prohibit justice-enabling policies is vitally important. Civil courts are a venue through which citizens pursue substantive rights when no other authority exists," writes Ph.D. candidate Eric van der Vort '13 M.A. (PSc).

William Banks discusses the legality of a congressman serving in Congress if convicted of assault. Banks tells that the U.S constitution does not stop " a convicted member of Congress from continuing to serve, even for felony convictions, short of treason." 

"I'm not sure that WikiLeaks has made people more critical consumers of news as much as less trusting in authority," says Shana Gadarian, associate professor of political science.

"The supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] might have the ultimate say on all major decisions," says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science. "But he’s not a leviathan that everyone obeys without question."