Campbell Institute News

"Obama can say things that will be heard differently from the Democratic candidates for president," says Professor Grant Reeher. "He has the role of former president and that de facto gives you a statesmanlike role. And he fills that role in the way he expresses himself."

In the wake of President Trump's recent tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color, Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science, assesses that coded racial language began to be used as a political strategy under President Richard Nixon.

"We're seeing some really, really inventive entrepreneurs with grand visions that are basically just getting started to move towards that same pattern that we saw for commercial aviation that made traveling around the globe a relatively easy proposition," says Sean O'Keefe, University Professor and former NASA administrator.

Former NASA Administrator and University Professor Sean O'Keefe spoke with several media outlets about the July 20, 1969, landing of Apollo 11 on the moon and the possibility of future space exploration. "It is a common aspirational goal as big as what we saw in the 1960s," O’Keefe told the Gazette. "Could we see convergence around a common goal that could benight this era? Absolutely." 

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, says that Governor Cuomo's signing of new legislation that allows Congressional committees to acquire President Trump's New York tax filings "represents a new escalation in the level of political polarization that we're seeing."

According to Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, it can be difficult to measure how much a lawmaker worked behind the scenes to advance legislation, because the paper trail isn’t always clear.

"Corrections of misinformation are constantly being amplified," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science. People are trying to do something good by correcting the misinformation but in the process they're "pushing it out to more people and potentially causing more belief echoes to arise."

"It sets up an incentive for candidates to get some attention by throwing out something that will get the media’s attention,” Professor of Political Science Grant Reeher says about the crowded Democratic field. 

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, says that while too crowded a field leads to a lack of meaningful conversation, restricting the debate stage too extensively is also not ideal because it creates "a self-fulfilling prophecy" in which dark horse candidates never get the chance to emerge.

Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science, defines "belief echoes" as "effects on attitudes that persist even when you know that a piece of information is false."

“He is deeply dug in on this,” said Grant Reeher, professor of political science, about President Trump's immigration policy. “There are things that candidates and office-holders are particularly known for and they stake their identities on. He is clearly one of them, on this issue.”

“What is clear from conversation with our alumni and fellow scholars is that public administration—as a field of practice and academic study—in nations around the world is in a time of revolutions, and that it is going to take a cadre of well-trained, committed people to help us deal with the challenges of the 21st century,” said Tina Nabatchi, Joseph A. Strasser Endowed Professor in Public Administration.

Grant Reeher discusses the state politics behind abortion access in the TIme article, "Trump Keeps Talking About Second-Trimester Abortions. Here's What He Gets Wrong." As efforts heat up to ban abortion on a national level, blue states are looking to strengthen their abortion laws, while red states are attemtping to dismantle them. Reeher says these restrive efforts are meant "to be tested in courts."

"It’s too early to tell what the implications may be," says Sean O'Keefe, University Professor, about the SpaceX crew capsule accident setback.

Thomas M. Keck, professor of political science and the Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics at Maxwell, is a leading expert on the Supreme Court, American constitutional development, and the use of legal strategies by movements for social change. The Carnegie Fellows program is the most generous initiative of its kind, awarding researchers in the humanities and social sciences significant time to research, write, and publish.