Campbell Institute News

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.

"The longer the Democrats stay on this [Julian Assange's extradition], the more it’s helping the president [Donald Trump]," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

"With the technology we have today, returning to the moon is within reach in five years. As we keep rediscovering, exploration really is a journey. It only gets longer when we take a break," writes Sean O'Keefe, Howard G. and S. Louise Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership.

"I’d argue that much of the dysfunction we see in online interactions is just a symptom of much larger and older social problems, including but not limited to racism and misogyny," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science.

On presidential candidate John Delaney's suggestion that if elected, he would debate Congress four times a year, Professor Grant Reeher opines: "I can see that this is an effort to change the political culture by requiring direct engagement, but the participants have to agree to take the exercise at face value, in front of TV cameras, and the political disincentives against doing that right now are strong."

“The UPA program in Washington is a great two-way learning experience,” said Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. “I easily learn as much from the participants as they glean from me.”