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Bennett, Gadarian quoted in NYT on voters' fear for our democracy
There have been other moments of interlocking crises and deep anxiety in America in the past century. But in those moments, the country didn’t have a president seen by many as having "taken a pickax to the tent poles of democratic institutions," says Professor Emeritus David Bennett. According to Shana Gadarian, "There are a couple ways in which the president has chosen an ineffective strategy." The first is that he has tried to tug on personal worries, like falling property values. "The second," she says, "is telling people not to be worried about something that is in fact worrisome." Read more in the New York Times article, "Americans Are Afraid. Not for Themselves, but for the Country."
11/2/2020

Banks discusses election scenarios in AP, Medium, Military Times
According to Professor Emeritus William Banks, sending uniformed troops to the polls, including the [National] Guard, would be unwise. "The overriding point is that we don’t want the military involved in our civilian affairs. It just cuts against the grain of our history, our conditions, our values, our laws," he told the Associated Press. Banks also spoke to Medium, Military Times and the National Interest about possible election scenarios.
11/2/2020

New threats, familiar challenges: Maxwell responds to COVID-19
Last summer, amid the peak spread of the pandemic in the United States, a team of Syracuse University professors led by Professor Colleen Heflin conceived of a new MAX100 course: Interdisciplinary Perspectives of COVID-19, a cross-disciplinary introductory course for undergraduate students considering a major in the social sciences. The class pairs a different Syracuse University professor and Maxwell alumnus each week to examine an urgent challenge—from food insecurity, to education disruption, to health disparities, to the equitable distribution of resources, to relationships between nations.
10/30/2020

Lovely speaks to SCMP about the future of trade, CPTPP
Trump’s vision of a "Fortress America," where US manufacturers produce everything they need domestically, is unrealistic, says Professor Mary Lovely. "The Trumpers have this idea that we‘re going to bring supply chains back home, and that is not going to happen, so where are we going?" Lovely says, "if we want to reduce our dependence on China, the only other game in town, besides the USMCA [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement], is CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership]." Read more in the South China Morning Post article, "Could a win for Joe Biden see the US re-engaging on global trade?"
10/29/2020

Gadarian cited in Atlantic, NY Times articles on perceptions of Trump
"In a threatening environment, Americans reward candidates and parties perceived to hold hawkish positions" and "punish candidates perceived to be dovish," Shana Gadarian told the New York Times. She was interviewed for the article, "Trump Couldn’t Play the Tough Guy This Time." Gadarian was also cited in The Atlantic article, "Why Many White Men Love Trump’s Coronavirus Response."
10/29/2020

Peace Corps, Fulbright evacuees find community, opportunity at Maxwell
Back in March, when Maxwell’s enrollment staff learned of the 7,300 Peace Corps volunteers’ and 2,500 Fulbright grantees’ imminent evacuation due to COVID-19, they saw an opportunity for the school to help. The Department of Public Administration and International Affairs waived application fees and GRE testing requirements for its highly regarded professional degree programs, and offered all admitted evacuees a 50% tuition scholarship. Jeremy Gonzalez and Kelli Sunabe, both Peace Corps evacuees, discuss their experience.
10/29/2020

Ma quoted in SCMP on Trump's efforts to use China as a campaign issue
"Most Americans do not necessarily view their problems with China as having much to do with their problems domestically," says Yingyi Ma, associate professor of sociology. "I attribute this view to their critical thinking skills despite the Trump narrative blaming China." Read more in the South China Morning Post article, "‘The dog that didn’t bark’: Donald Trump’s use of China as a campaign issue never got traction, analysts say."
10/28/2020

Taylor weighs in on US-Russia relations under Biden in RFE/RL article
A Biden administration, analysts say, would deliver a more consistent policy to the Kremlin, potentially enabling the U.S. and Russia to get more done even if his stance or rhetoric is tougher than Trump's. Clearer messaging could mean that "on certain issues, U.S. policy might be tougher than it has been under Trump," says Professor Brian Taylor. "But it also might mean that in certain areas, it's easier to see possible so-called 'win-win' solutions that just aren't on the table now because of how dysfunctional the process has become." Read more in the RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty (RFE/RL) article, "Russia Relations Unlikely To Improve, Regardless Of U.S. Election Outcome."
10/27/2020

McCormick discusses post-election US-Mexico relations with AP, CNN
If Biden wins the presidential election, "It's a return back to normalcy, the status quo, the way in which we knew politics to work across the border," Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations, told CNN. "It would be a lot less volatile, a lot less, 'who the hell knows what happens' when you turn on the TV." McCormick was quoted in the CNN article, "Why Mexico's President might want Trump re-elected," and the Associated Press article, "Low expectations in Mexico as US election approaches."
10/26/2020

Barkun quoted in Wash Post article on the dark mood of the election
"I didn’t take it seriously for a long time, but in the last six weeks, it’s become very concerning," says Michael Barkun, professor emeritus of political science. "This idea that the other side winning the election will produce a precipitous decline and the disintegration of institutions is completely at variance with American history." Read more in the Washington Post article, "The end of democracy? To many Americans, the future looks dark if the other side wins."
10/26/2020

Purser looks at teaching thrift in job readiness programs in new study
"Both sides of the Paycheck: Recommending Thrift to the Poor in Job Readiness Programs," co-authored by Gretchen Purser and Brian Hennigan, PhD student in geography, was published in Critical Sociology. The article documents how job readiness programs—as anchors of the devolved organizational landscape of neoliberal poverty governance in the United States—endeavor to instill within the poor not simply the virtue of work, but the virtue of thrift, and thus orient them to "both sides of the paycheck." Using a comparative ethnographic study of two community-based, government-funded nonprofit job readiness programs, Purser and Hennigan show that this pedagogic focus on budgeting is central to the overall goal of conditioning clients to embrace and endure a degraded labor market.
10/26/2020

Hamersma uses a statistical lens to explore uncertainty in Comment
"The work of statistical analysis in the world of policy is actually to help us do what can be hard to do on our own: identify trade-offs, recognize the uncertainty, and use (formal) inference to help make a prudent judgment," writes Sarah Hamersma. "I delight to think what we can learn if instead of idolizing certainty, we apply a bit more patience and self-control to our use of data. Proper use of statistical analysis does just that—acknowledging future unknowns and conveying even what we learn within careful bounds of uncertainty," she writes. Her article, "Uncertainty: The Beauty and Bedrock of Statistics," was published in the latest issue of Comment.
10/23/2020

Ma examines stigma of wearing masks for Chinese students in new study
"To mask or not to mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic: how Chinese students in America experience and cope with stigma," co-authored by Associate Professor of Sociology Yingyi Ma and sociology PhD candidate Ning Zhan, was published in Chinese Sociological Review. Drawing from stigma theory, Ma and Zhan argue that what Chinese students experience when it comes to mask wearing is an exemplar of how stigma is socially constructed by power.
10/23/2020

Reeher discusses Biden's debate strategy in The Hill
"I think the main thing for Biden at this point is to simply show up and get through the event without a major breakdown of some kind," says Professor Grant Reeher. Most viewers are already locked in with their preferred candidate, Reeher says. "They’re just watching to see the show, or to root on their team, or to see a train wreck, and not to try to figure something out." Read more in The Hill article, "Biden's debate strategy is to let Trump be Trump."
10/22/2020

Montez study on population health, policy trends published in MQ
"US State Polarization, Policymaking Power, and Population Health," written by Gerald B. Cramer Faculty Scholar in Aging Studies Jennifer Karas Montez, was published in the Milbank Quarterly. The troubling trend in US life expectancy and the widening disparities in life expectancy across the United States have deep roots. In the article, Montez posits that both trends are grounded in the dynamic changes in the policy and political landscapes since the 1980s.
10/21/2020

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