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X Lab article on improving SNAP recertification published in JBPA
"Testing behavioral interventions designed to improve on-time SNAP recertification," co-authored by Len Lopoo, Colleen Heflin and Joe Boskovski, was published in the Journal of Behavioral Public Administration. Given the different levels of governance and the abundance of qualifying rules and processes that low-income households must negotiate to obtain and retain Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food assistance benefits, many households fail to recertify for SNAP. The authors found that behaviorally-informed text message reminders are more effective than recorded phone messages in reducing learning costs for SNAP applicants.
9/24/2020

New study by Hammond examines the politics of commemoration in Turkey
"Making Memorial Publics: Media, Monuments, and the Politics of Commemoration Following Turkey’s July 2016 Coup Attempt," written by Assistant Professor of Geography and the Environment Timur Hammond, was published in Geographical Review. Hammond examines two distinct but interrelated forms of commemoration: websites that have been set up to tell the story of the resistance to the coup attempt and a new monument that commemorates the victim-heroes of that night’s fighting. He argues that these commemorative projects work together to create a memorial public in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s position is both naturalized and justified.
9/23/2020

Reeher discusses the media's treatment of Trump in The Hill
"I am not suggesting the media is behaving in the way the president describes or that the media is making anything up or knowingly reporting anything that is false," says Professor Grant Reeher. "But I do think it is also clear, after almost four years of his presidency, that editorial choices — about story selection, story framing and also, in particular, choices of headline — are very clearly very critical of the president." Reeher was interviewed for The Hill article, "The Memo: Media accused of using kid-gloves on Biden."
9/23/2020

Lovely comments on US-China tech war in Axios article
The torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric by the Trump administration recently has been countered by much softer actions, as the administration attempts to "thread the needle" of looking tough heading into the election while having the Chinese continue to purchase U.S. goods, says Professor Mary Lovely. "The tech issue is the big one … for the long term, but for the election it’s not at all clear to me that the tech issue is the big one," she says. Read more in the Axios article, "The tech war between the U.S. and China escalates."
9/23/2020

Keck talks to WAER about the Supreme Court justice vacancy
"For most of the Supreme Court’s history, the process of presidential appointment and Senate confirmation has ensured that the Court’s views broadly track those of the American public," says Professor Tom Keck. "That electoral connection has been sundered in recent decades, as Democrats won the popular vote in six of the past seven presidential elections, while Republicans maintained a lock on the Court." Read more in the WAER article, "Local Praise for Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Caution for Rushing to Fill Supreme Court Vacancy."
9/22/2020

Thompson quoted in AP article on Trump's response to COVID-19
"He sees everything, including the implications of this terrible virus, in terms of his own political and personal success — ‘How does it affect me and my electability and my popularity,’" says Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science. She was quoted in the Associated Press article, "Analysis: US to hit 200K dead; Trump sees no need for regret."
9/21/2020

Burman named to advisory committee within the Commerce Department
Leonard Burman, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics, has been appointed by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis to its Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building within the U.S., a newly formed committee promoting expanded access to federal data. The committee consists of representatives from federal, state, and local governments, and experts in data policy, privacy, technology, transparency, and evaluation and research methodology.
9/21/2020

Jackson wins Tenth Decade grant to study Black Americans, group threat
Jenn Jackson, assistant professor of political science, has been awarded $20,000 for their research project Race, Risks, and Responses: Mapping Black Americans’ Response to Group Threat. The grant is part of a special call to Maxwell faculty offering Tenth Decade Project funding to support research and initiatives that confront systemic racial inequality. Jackson’s project builds on and expands their inquiry into how young Black Americans of different social identities (across gender, class, sexual orientation, embodiment, etc.) experience threats, especially policing, differently based on variations in their social location and orientation to power.
9/21/2020

Sultana talks to Media Sanctuary about divesting from fossil fuels
Farhana Sultana, associate professor of geography and the environment, recently spoke with Media Sanctuary about divesting from fossil fuels. Sultana says "a divestment from fossil fuels signals a commitment to ending climate breakdown, to have climate justice, and to think about equitable and just transitions toward regenerative economies and societies that move away from fossil fuels."
9/18/2020

Gadarian speaks to ABC News about partisanship and people's behaviors
"We've been talking to the same [3,000] Americans since early March, every six weeks or so," says Shana Gadarian. "We had a sense that people would vary on policy beliefs based on their partisanship. What was unexpected was the big, huge difference in health behaviors — like the change in how much they're washing their hands and whether or not they stopped going to social events and whether they were staying home more," she says. Read more in the ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) article, "Coronavirus is the 2020 US election issue. But it's not changing the way Americans see Donald Trump."
9/18/2020

Engelhardt cited in TRD article on COVID's impact on housing costs
Professor Gary Engelhardt notes that a new federal stimulus package would be essential to help prevent more households, particularly renters, from running into difficulties paying their housing costs. "Particularly for renters, the combination of those who missed a payment — or were offered and did not take it — is substantive enough to suggest real risk to their ability to make upcoming payments," says Engelhardt. He was quoted in the Real Deal article, "Landlords lost about $9B in rental payments last quarter: report."
9/18/2020

Keck comments on priority of the Supreme Court in 2020 election in SBG
"The Republican base has been more focused on that issue [Supreme Court] than the Democratic base has from Reagan forward, roughly," says Thomas Keck, professor of political science and Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics. "There’s some evidence that that’s shifting." Keck was interviewed for the Sinclair Broadcast Group article, "As Trump spotlights judicial nominations, Biden offers little insight on his plans."
9/17/2020

Jackson discusses forced sterilizations, criminalization via Truthout
News reports on Monday revealed that gynecologists in an immigrant jail in Georgia have performed high rates of hysterectomies, often without the full awareness of the immigrant women themselves. "The United States’s commitment to eugenics, medical abuse and forced sterilizations depicts the complex nature of perceived criminality in this country," writes Jenn Jackson, assistant professor of political science. "By marking certain people’s bodies as inherently evil, anti-patriotic and outside of the community of citizenship, the state casts a veil over the grave human rights infringements and institutional abuses it enacts against nonwhite, non-wealthy, non-male, non-normative people." Their article, "Forced Sterilization Is Nothing New to Criminalized People in the US," was published on Truthout.org.
9/17/2020

Popp quoted in Bloomberg article on Biden's climate plan
Measures to fight climate change tend to destroy some jobs while creating others, says David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs. "The literature that looks at employment effects says it’s mainly about reallocating jobs from one sector to another," he adds. Fewer coal miners, more solar installers. Popp was quoted in the Bloomberg article "Biden Succeeds in Uniting Climate People and Labor People—For Now."
9/17/2020

Abdelaaty examines attitudes towards refugees in Europe in new study
"Explaining Attitudes Toward Refugees and Immigrants in Europe," co-authored by Assistant Professor of Political Science Lamis Abdelaaty, was published in Political Studies. The study shows that individuals hold different views of refugees and immigrants and are, at times, more receptive to one group than the other. By and large, they found that attitudes toward refugees are more often related to macro-level factors while immigrants are more frequently associated with micro-level economic concerns.
9/17/2020

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