Moynihan Institute News, Research and Commentary

“If you can invest the capital to drill a deep well that can get deep into the groundwater supply, then you can really pump as much as you want,” says Natalie Koch, professor of geography and the environment. “This was appealing to the Saudis as well to go [to La Paz County], where they’re not being charged for water they extract because there’s no measuring of it.”

"China wants to get a sense, are you really serious about figuring out some way of turning down the heat or not," says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science. "And they have reason to be suspicious on where we're going with the electoral cycle in the U.S. and how risky it is."

"Returns to Scale in Property Assessment: Evidence from New York State’s Small Localities Coordination Program," co-authored by Maxwell professors Yilin Hou and John Yinger, was published in the National Tax Journal.

Michael Williams, associate professor of public administration and international affairs and director of the master of arts in international relations program, has been elected to the Governing Council of the International Studies Association and the Executive Committee of the Governing Council for 2023-24. 

“Wagner was a very useful stopgap in that period between when [Russia] had so many of their regular forces attrited and Putin came around to the realization that he had no choice but to bring in hundreds of thousands of more people. That may, in some sense, prove to be that Wagner is at its sort of height of influence,” says Brian Taylor, professor of political science.

"Putin’s War of Recolonization," co-authored by Maxwell professors Renée de Nevers and Brian Taylor, was published in the Journal of Democracy.

Recent retiree Margaret ‘Peg’ Hermann greatly expanded the institute’s global reach and served as a mentor to countless students.

Timur Hammond, assistant professor of geography and the environment, has written “Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul” (University of California Press, 2023). 

“The U.S. has always been promoting and setting up this entire thing,” says Natalie Koch, professor of geography and the environment. “It’s not like the Americans are passive in this. We have absolutely helped sow the seeds for that Saudi agricultural industry that has come back to us now.”

Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science, has contributed to and edited "New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia" (Columbia University Press, 2023). 

"Putin has always known that NATO poses no credible security threat to Russia itself. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO’s force posture and the U.S. military presence in Europe have greatly declined, reducing any potential military threat to Russia. What really scares the Russian elite is the spread of democracy," argues Michael John Williams, associate professor of public administration and international affairs.

Ryan Griffiths, associate professor of political science, has contributed to and co-edited “The Routledge Handbook of Self-Determination and Secession” (Routledge, 2023). It investigates debates surrounding issues of self-determination and secession as well as the legal, political and normative implications they give rise to.

As we pass the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine, numerous factors such as the Russian military’s poor performance, Putin’s botched mobilization, mounting casualties, economic challenges resulting from sanctions and export controls, and increasingly visible elite fissures are raising questions about the political stability of the Russian regime. Brian Taylor, professor of political science, weighs in.

“They capture the attention of management in a much more dramatic way than other forms of action and negotiation,” says Gretchen Purser, associate professor of sociology. “They’re showing the capacity for the workers to take collective action.”

“Those processes, they’re hard to pull off. You need to have both sides in agreement. It just doesn’t happen that much,” says Ryan Griffiths, associate professor of political science. “The thresholds for success are just too high to make it work.”

For Brian Taylor, professor of political science, the biggest take from the one-year anniversary is Ukraine is still standing. "A year ago a lot of people might not have expected that, given Russia’s size, the size of the population, the size of its army, the size of its economy," Taylor says.

The concentration of troops in the east of the country shows that the Russian president has not given up on his goal of enslaving Ukraine despite multiple setbacks since the launch of the invasion, says Brian Taylor, professor of political science.

Natalie Koch, professor of geography and the environment, argues that state lawmakers need to update the state’s 43 year old water law and create more active management areas to regulate water use across Arizona. “There needs to be some way of monitoring and regulating who is drawing what from the aquifers,” says Koch.

"Offshoring barriers, regulatory burden and national welfare," co-authored by Professor of Economics Devashish Mitra, was published in Indian Economic Review.