“It’s a generational thing,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment. “A lot of younger generations are really fixated on climate and understand that nuclear is one our best options to deal with climate, so we gotta keep it on the table.”

"Simply put, secession is a political solution for an ethnonational problem among regionally concentrated populations. The problem in America is one of political polarization," writes Ryan Griffiths, associate professor of political science.

The One University Awards Ceremony, an annual event to honor members of the Syracuse University community who are making a difference through academics, scholarship, creative work and dedicated service, will be held Friday, April 21.

Erin Hern, associate professor of political science, has written “Explaining Success in Africa: Things Don’t Always Fall Apart” (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023). The book focuses on normalizing the success of countries and analyzing their progress amid adverse circumstances. 

“This is not the end of what may happen,” says Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science. “It may in fact be the beginning. We've never seen this before, and I don't think we can dismiss it as a partisan political act. Certainly, there have been other presidents who have had strong opposition in the past and yet they have not faced this kind of jeopardy.”

The associate professor of political science will examine what constitutes a refugee crisis in her second book.

“Wagner was a very useful stopgap in that period between when [Russia] had so many of their regular forces attrited and Putin came around to the realization that he had no choice but to bring in hundreds of thousands of more people. That may, in some sense, prove to be that Wagner is at its sort of height of influence,” says Brian Taylor, professor of political science.

"Putin’s War of Recolonization," co-authored by Maxwell professors Renée de Nevers and Brian Taylor, was published in the Journal of Democracy.

The fact that the costs of compliance are typically borne by workers and consumers is a fundamental flaw of carbon pricing programs, says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment. It’s one that, he suggests, has led to the Biden administration’s relatively skeptical stance on cap-and-trade programs.

"Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees" (Oxford University Press, 2021), written by Associate Professor of Political Science Lamis Abdelaaty, received the Distinguished Book Award from the International Studies Association's Ethnicity, Nationalism, & Migration Studies section.

Buzard, associate professor of economics, is part of a three-member team that will explore the extent to which mothers are more likely than fathers to be contacted by their child’s school.

Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history, says Mexico already has a significant police and military presence on its side of the border and efforts to confront the cartels militarily have not solved the problem. “It’s been tried and it has failed colossally,” McCormick says. “So the idea to sort of try it again to me sounds utterly irresponsible.”

Ryan Griffiths, associate professor of political science, has contributed to and co-edited “The Routledge Handbook of Self-Determination and Secession” (Routledge, 2023). It investigates debates surrounding issues of self-determination and secession as well as the legal, political and normative implications they give rise to.

As we pass the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine, numerous factors such as the Russian military’s poor performance, Putin’s botched mobilization, mounting casualties, economic challenges resulting from sanctions and export controls, and increasingly visible elite fissures are raising questions about the political stability of the Russian regime. Brian Taylor, professor of political science, weighs in.

"Nikki Haley has to negotiate the very thin line between differentiating herself from Donald Trump and still appealing to—or not alienating herself from—his supporters, who still constitute the vast majority of CPAC activists and GOP primary participants," says Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science.

“When you can’t adapt to climate change at all and face interconnected issues surrounding loss and damage, the unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality is worsened,” says Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment. “This means destruction, devastation and loss are so profound that one can’t finance one’s way out of it.”

“They capture the attention of management in a much more dramatic way than other forms of action and negotiation,” says Gretchen Purser, associate professor of sociology. “They’re showing the capacity for the workers to take collective action.”

“Those processes, they’re hard to pull off. You need to have both sides in agreement. It just doesn’t happen that much,” says Ryan Griffiths, associate professor of political science. “The thresholds for success are just too high to make it work.”

For Brian Taylor, professor of political science, the biggest take from the one-year anniversary is Ukraine is still standing. "A year ago a lot of people might not have expected that, given Russia’s size, the size of the population, the size of its army, the size of its economy," Taylor says.

The concentration of troops in the east of the country shows that the Russian president has not given up on his goal of enslaving Ukraine despite multiple setbacks since the launch of the invasion, says Brian Taylor, professor of political science.