Maxwell School News

“The Iranians have indicated...that they are willing to have a deal. What they want are their rights to enrich uranium that are guaranteed under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that any country who signed on the the NPT has. But the Trump administration is insisting that there be no enrichment at all,” says Osamah Khalil, professor of history.

The death of El Mencho may trigger a much wider onslaught of violence, says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations. “He was a key leader of one of the most violent criminal groups in Mexico. As with the captures or killings of other drug cartel kingpins, we are likely to see violence in response to the sudden power vacuum.”

“This EU-level response is being replaced by individual country responses, which is withdrawing support,” says Lauren Woodard, assistant professor of anthropology. “In Poland, where many people live, the Polish government this month announced that they would not be extending that temporary protection status to Ukrainians.”

“Because the parties are weaker, when candidates run, they don't anymore try to please the party and to stay in good graces with the party, because the party can't give them as much as they used to in terms of helping of helping forward their political careers,” says Johanna Dunaway, professor of political science and research director of the Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship.

”The president’s decision to shrug off dollar depreciation fits within a broader pattern, suggesting that the White House is comfortable with a weaker dollar because they view it as a tool to address global trade imbalances. However, this strategy carries risks: it could help rebalance the U.S. trade deficit but would also likely erode returns for foreign investors,” says Daniel McDowell, professor of political science.

“The key factor driving this interest in secession is polarization. Whether it is the Red-State secessionists, the BlueExiters, the California Independence Party or the Texas Nationalists, they all point to unstoppable polarization and political dysfunction as the reason secession is necessary,” says Ryan Griffiths, professor of political science.

“The recent surge in election-related activities of big tech companies such as Palantir and OpenAI can be understood as preemptive measures against potential fallouts from the election,” says University professor Hamid Ekbia. “Palantir, in specific, is in a vulnerable position because of recent revelations about its heavy involvement with ICE activities.”

Today’s election is “the first genuinely competitive national vote in nearly two decades,” making it a “historic” moment for Bangladesh, and today's polls “mark a real break from the era of contested, non-credible polls and authoritarian entrenchment,” under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, says Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment.

The U.S. is placing tariffs on other countries for making successful products—not because they’re acting unfairly toward the U.S., says Andrew Wender Cohen, professor of history. “Imagine there's a country that's producing something very inexpensively that people make a lot of use out of. You're basically saying, ‘Well, we want to punish you for that.’”

Maxwell School alumnus and Assistant Teaching Professor Richard Barton ’15 M.A. (PSc) has co-edited a book that examines how primary elections have changed over the past decade and why they often yield extreme or unpopular candidates. 

“Now she [ Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi] doesn't have to worry about any elections until 2028, when the next upper house elections will take place,” says Margarita Estévez-Abe, associate professor of political science. “So the best scenario for Japan is that Takaichi kind of takes a deep breath and focuses on amending the relationship with China.”

“Defining our mission objectives will be key for any use of force again Iran, that is, one which can credibly lead to meeting a strategic end state,” says Vice Adm. Robert Murrett (Ret.), professor of practice of public administration and international affairs.

There’s been “a real rupture in the way we think about how the world order, if we want to call it that, functions,” says Daniel McDowell, Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of International Affairs. In moments of instability, he explains, buying gold has historically been a sort of “psychological reaction” for some hoping to find a safe place for their money.

“I was very confused,” says Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs, about Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins’s three-dollar meal claim. “USDA has several established meal plans that they estimate the cost of each month. And none of those comes out to $3.”

“The guard's role in law enforcement is unclear. The guards training in law enforcement across America is minimal at best...The vast majority of these people have absolutely no training or understanding in law enforcement, but they do know what the law of war is, and they're trained in the law of war,” says Alex Wagner, adjunct professor in Maxwell's Washington programs.

“For Bangladesh, water is far more than a resource; it is the vital pulse of our ecological resilience and the primary determinant of our human vulnerability. Yet, in the high-stakes geopolitical landscape of South Asia, our rivers are increasingly being reconfigured from lifelines into instruments of hydro-coercion,” writes Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment.

“Any mass sale of Treasurys like that would likely cause severe disruptions that not only impact the U.S., it would also impact European banks and the entire global economy,” says Daniel McDowell, Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of International Affairs.

The study, authored by Professor of Geography and the Environment Farhana Sultana, was published in Human Geography.