Maxwell School News and Commentary

“When we don’t measure things, it makes it much harder to claim that there is a problem and that the government has some kind of responsibility to help alleviate it,” says Sarah Pralle, associate professor of political science.

In the rush to develop Kashmir, Professor of Anthropology Mona Bhan explains, the government and developers lost sight of the region’s geological stability. In an active seismic zone with increasing investment into what she calls “an infrastructure dump”, the colonization of Kashmir is actually adding geological pressure onto an already volatile region. 

Omar Cheta, assistant professor of history, has written How Commerce Became Legal: Merchants and Market Governance in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2025). The book explores Egypt’s adoption of a new infrastructure of commercial laws and institutions following the country’s opening to private capital in the 1840s. 

Co-authored by Associate Professor of Sociology Selina Gallo-Cruz, the article was published in Local Environment.

“I do think it's the case that this kind of political violence has been rising. ...There's just been a number of shootings and attacks, attempted assassinations in recent years, and it really, to be honest, it reminds me in a way of the 1960s. And I think in each instance there's probably similar forces behind it,” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science.

The article, co-authored by Odlanyer Hernández de Lara, Ph.D. candidate and part-time instructor in anthropology, was published in Post-Medieval Archaeology.

Brian Taylor, professor of political science, contributed a chapter to the recently published book Failure. Russia Under Putin (Bloomsbury, 2025). He is one of multiple authors who share their views on Russia’s failures under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. 

One safe bet is advanced manufacturing, where specialized roles still require human oversight despite growing automation on factory floors, says Baobao Zhang, Maxwell Dean Associate Professor of the Politics of AI. “They're not traditionally considered prestigious industries,” she says. “But it's these back-to-basics jobs that are harder to automate.”

“Poland is a NATO member state. The United States is a member of this alliance and Poland is asking for consultations among the alliance. Several other countries sent aircraft to help down some of the drones. So this is at least a potential escalation here in the war beyond the Russia-Ukraine war,” says Brian Taylor, professor of politcal science.

The current policy responses to old age food insecurity are complex, costly, and not nearly effective enough. Based on the book, Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adults Food Insecurity, this brief summarizes five policy recommendations to improve food insecurity among U.S. older adults.