Political Programming: 2020

The Interdisciplinary Workshop on American Politics (IWAP) is a forum for the presentation of ongoing interdisciplinary research in American politics. Most of our presentations are given by graduate students. Each graduate student presenter is assigned a faculty and student discussant. IWAP circulates the work beforehand and the student presents it briefly at the start of the meeting. After discussant feedback, the bulk of the time is reserved for group discussion among all workshop participants. This format leads to informal yet highly interactive and productive conversations.

RSVP is NOT required.

This event will feature a conversation between noted Russian journalist and scholar Yevgenia Albats and Ambassador Susan Elliott, a recently retired U.S. diplomat, on the role of media and information in the evolving relationship between Russia and the United States. Ambassador Melvyn Levitsky, professor of international policy and practice at the Ford School, will moderate.

Speaker information can be found here. 

RSVP is NOT required for this event. 

The Interdisciplinary Workshop on American Politics (IWAP) is a forum for the presentation of ongoing interdisciplinary research in American politics. Most of our presentations are given by graduate students. Each graduate student presenter is assigned a faculty and student discussant. IWAP circulates the work beforehand and the student presents it briefly at the start of the meeting. After discussant feedback, the bulk of the time is reserved for group discussion among all workshop participants. This format leads to informal yet highly interactive and productive conversations.

RSVP is NOT required for this event. 

Free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided beginning at 11:30 am: Please RSVP. Dessert reception to follow.

This event will be livestreamed. Please check fordschool.umich.edu just before the event for viewing details.

Join us for an arm-chair conversation between Ambassador Susan Rice and Michael Barr, Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, as they discuss Ambassador Rice's distinguished career and her book, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. Recalling pivotal moments from her dynamic career on the front lines of American diplomacy and foreign policy—as National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations—Ambassador Rice's memoir delivers an inspiring account of a life in service to family and country.

Please join P3E as we host the Ginsberg Center Research Assistant, Kari Rae, MPP '20, for a session to train students, staff & faculty to be able to assist in the voter registration process.

RSVP is required for this event.  

Brown bag lunch - we'll supply drinks and dessert.  You'll learn about voter registration processes, recent changes in Michigan voter laws, and upcoming opportunities to get involved in turnout efforts. 

The trilateral relationship among China, Japan and the United States has generally been stable, and it explained the regional order in East Asia since the 1970s. Now, however, the fundamental conditions of the trilateral relationship are changing because of a shift in the balance of power, a loss of confidence on American diplomacy, US-China competition and the overwhelming importance of the Chinese economy. How will a change in the relationship between Japan, the United States and China affect the order of Asia? What does improving Japan-China relations mean? Is the Japan-U.S. relationship still strong?

Ryo Sahashi is an Associate Professor of International Relations, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo. Dr. Sahashi specializes on international politics in East Asia. He serves as Research Fellow, Japan Center for International Exchange, and has been Visiting Associate Professor, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. He received his BA from International Christian University and his PhD from the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics at the University of Tokyo. He also studied at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please reach out to us at least 2 weeks in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.

RSVP is NOT required for this event. 

The Interdisciplinary Workshop on American Politics (IWAP) is a forum for the presentation of ongoing interdisciplinary research in American politics. Most of our presentations are given by graduate students. Each graduate student presenter is assigned a faculty and student discussant. IWAP circulates the work beforehand and the student presents it briefly at the start of the meeting. After discussant feedback, the bulk of the time is reserved for group discussion among all workshop participants. This format leads to informal yet highly interactive and productive conversations.

RSVP is NOT required for this event. 

States in Asia and the Pacific have been talking about “hedging” and “not choosing sides” between the United States and China since the 1990s. Their aim was to moderate potential tensions between Washington and Beijing and promote cooperation, but this has not appeared to work. Instead, these disparate efforts to find a middle way between the two major powers resulted in greater levels of uncertain that have exacerbated security dilemma dynamics between the United States and China and created greater incentives for rivalry rather than cooperation.

Chong Ja Ian is an Associate Professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 2008 and previously taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research covers the intersection of international and domestic politics, with a focus on the externalities of major power competition, nationalism, regional order and security, contentious politics, and state formation. He works on US-China relations, security and order in Northeast and Southeast Asia, cross-strait relations, and Taiwan politics. Chong is author of "External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation: China, Indonesia, Thailand, 1893-1952" (Cambridge, 2012), a recipient of the 2013 International Security Studies Section Book Award from the International Studies Association. His publications appear in the China Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, International Security, Security Studies, and other journals. At the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Chong will examine how non-leading state behavior collectively intensifies major power rivalries, paying particular attention to the US-China relationship. He has concurrent projects investigating how states react to sanctions on third parties by trade partners and the characteristics of foreign influence operations.

If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to attend this event, please reach out to us at least 2 weeks in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.

In 2018, journalist Davey Alba traveled to the Philippines to investigate Facebook’s breakneck proliferation in that country and President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to power. She revealed how the politician’s incendiary style aligned perfectly with the tech company’s algorithms that reward entertaining, inflammatory content. From maligning opponents to espousing hardline policies to combat the drug trade, Duterte’s operatives created memes, propaganda and egregious libel that flourished on Facebook. Join Alba and Ceren Budak, associate professor, University of Michigan, for an examination of how demagogic political campaigns worldwide have weaponized the social media platform.

Information about the speakers can be found here. 

RSVP is NOT required for this event. 

The Democrats have begun winnowing their original field of 20+ candidates down to the one who will eventually be their nominee for the 2020 presidential election.

Jeffrey Bernstein will evaluate the candidates and assess their standings as we enter the 2020 election cycle. He’ll review the evolution of the nomination process and examine the transfer of power from the parties to the voters over the last half century. As he discusses our evolving system, he’ll focus on one big question: has the shift to a voter-centric process been a good thing for American politics? This lecture will coincide with the general time-frame of the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses.

Jeffrey Bernstein is an award-winning Professor of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University. His areas of interest are U.S. political parties, campaigns, and elections, voting behavior and public opinion, as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Please note the new start time for this event.

RSVP is NOT required to attend this event; $5 entry fee.

RSVP is required through the "REGISTER" button below. Space is limited, and lunch will be served. 

Learn about the University's policies when it comes to campus events, particularly around controversial and/or political speakers or issues. 

The Interdisciplinary Workshop on American Politics (IWAP) is a forum for the presentation of ongoing interdisciplinary research in American politics. Most of our presentations are given by graduate students. Each graduate student presenter is assigned a faculty and student discussant. IWAP circulates the work beforehand and the student presents it briefly at the start of the meeting. After discussant feedback, the bulk of the time is reserved for group discussion among all workshop participants. This format leads to informal yet highly interactive and productive conversations.

RSVP is NOT required for this event. 

Marlous van Waijenburg is a comparative economic historian working on the long-term development of African economies, with a specific focus on the nature and legacies of colonialism.

RSVP is NOT required.

Register to vote with the Ginsberg Center as part of the Big-Ten Voting Challenge! This will take place on February 4th, 11th, and 18th, from 12-2 p.m in the UMMA Cafe and inside Cullen Washington Jr.'s exhibition, The Public Square.

For more information about your options to register to vote, visit the Ginsberg Center's website.

To register to vote from home, visit TurboVote, which is a quick, customizable registration tool. You can use TurboVote to: Start the registration process in any of the 50 states. Update existing voter registration. Request an absentee ballot. Receive election day reminders.

RSVP is NOT required. 

Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.  This event will be livestreamed. Check the event webpage for viewing details. 

From the speaker's bio:

From 2001-11, Michael Copps served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission, where his tenure was marked by a consistent embrace of the public interest. As a strong voice in opposition to consolidation in the media, he dissented in the FCC vote on the Comcast-NBC Universal merger. He has been a consistent proponent of localism in programming and diversity in media ownership. Though retired from the Commission, he has maintained a commitment to an inclusive, informative media landscape. In addition to his work at Common Causes, Michael sits on the boards of Free Press and Public Knowledge.

Before joining the FCC, Michael served as assistant secretary of commerce for trade development at the Department of Commerce and chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) from the early 1970s to 1983. He has a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

RSVP is NOT required. 

Learn about how to manage politically-charged conversations in an academic setting both with peers and faculty. 

RSVP is required through the "REGISTER" button below. Space is limited, and lunch will be served.

Party leaders are seen as the face and central control of a political party’s agenda (also possibly the legislature). This asks the question, with all this power why would a leader ever relinquish their position? Little work has looked comparatively at why leaders step down from office due to data limitations. We contribute to the literature on party politics and leader tenure by providing a new dataset of leadership changes in advanced industrial democracies from 1960-2017. This dataset includes approximately 1,400 party leaders, and it codes why leaders step down using primary and secondary sources. With these original data, we investigate the drivers of leadership change across time and space. We find that electoral loss and intra-party ousting are the most common forms of leadership change, suggesting that voters and party members have effective power to check leaders. Even though we analyze cases with different party systems and institutions our findings suggest similar outcomes. A leader’s survival is contingent on party member and voter support. We test the relationship between vote loss, incumbency status, and leadership change to understand the role of external drivers on party organization. This new data provides a unique tool for understanding party organization more broadly.

Julia Maynard is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. She studies party politics and voting behavior mostly within the context of European Politics. Her interests are within the dynamics of mainstream parties and niche parties- how these parties react to each other as well as reasons why voters would choose one over the other.

Dr. Soroka is Michael W. Traugott Collegiate Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science, and faculty associate in the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research, U-M. His research focuses on political communication, on the sources and/or structure of public preferences for policy, and on the relationships between public policy, public opinion, and mass media. Current projects include work on negativity in politics, on the role of mass media in representative democracy, and on support for social welfare and immigration policy. With the 2020 elections coming up soon Dr. Soroka will provide some interesting insights.

RSVP is NOT required. 

Adam Dahl's research and teaching interests are in American political thought, democratic theory, the politics of race and indigeneity, and political theories of empire and colonialism. His first book, Empire of the People: Settler Colonialism and the Foundations of Modern Democratic Thought (University Press of Kansas, 2018), examines the constitutive role of settler colonialism in shaping modern norms of democratic legitimacy. His current project, tentatively titled Transnational Democracy in the Americas, explores the interconnected dynamics of internationalism, anti-imperialism, and transnational citizenship in the American democratic tradition, focusing on the political thought of Ottobah Cugoano, Frederick Douglass, Randolph Bourne, W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, and Herman Melville.

RSVP is NOT required. 

COST: $5

RSVP is NOT required. 

The 2020 Census is closer than you think. The U.S. population census is one of the most significant processes sustaining our American democracy. Learn what it is all about, find out about the history of the census, how it’s run, the many important ways census data is used in Michigan, and the rigorous process to protect the privacy of your information.

Speaker Margaret Leary, from the League of Women Voters, will unfold the Census and explain why it’s essential that everyone is counted. There will be pertinent handouts and perhaps some interesting stories about attempts to influence some prior census results.

RSVP is required through the "REGISTER" button below. Space is limited, and lunch will be served.

Learn about the University's policies when it comes to campus events, particularly around controversial and/or political speakers or issues. 

Amir Fleischmann's work is focussed on critical and continental political theory. He is interested in questions concerning critical history, the history of capitalism, and democratic theory.

RSVP is NOT required. 

RSVP is NOT required. 

Corrine McConnaughy, "Hidden Politics: Women’s Organizing and the Shape of American Democracy"

Professor McConnaughy is Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. Her research interests are in identity politics, focusing primarily on the roles race and gender play in American politics, and in the development of political institutions.

Angela X. Ocampo, “Political Pioneers: Women of Color as Candidates and Elected Officials”

Angela X. Ocampo is a LSA Collegiate Fellow at the University of Michigan. Ocampo’s research examines the political incorporation of racial, ethnic and religious minorities both as every-day participants and as political leaders within American institutions. 

Mara Ostfeld, "Why Women Oppose Policies that Support Women"

Mara Cecilia Ostfeld is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Her research broadly focuses on the relationship between race, media and political attitudes.

Christina Wolbrecht, "Popular views of women voters over the past 100 years, and what the evidence actually tells us about them"

Christina Wolbrecht is professor of political science, director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, and C. Robert and Margaret Hanley Family Director of the Notre Dame Washington Program. Her forthcoming co-authored book, A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage (Cambridge 2020), examines how women voted across the first 100 years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Jenna Bednar, Moderator

Jenna Bednar is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Her research is on the analysis of institutions, focusing on the theoretical underpinnings of the stability of federal states. Her most recent book,The Robust Federation demonstrates how complementary institutions maintain and adjust the distribution of authority between national and state governments.

This event is part of the U-M Department of Political Science Rubin Speaker Series and U-M Suffrage 2020 event series.

Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.

This event will be livestreamed. Check back here just before the event for viewing details.

Please join us for a talk with Denis McDonough, former White House Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama in conversation with Associate Professor John Ciorciari, director of the Weiser Diplomacy Center and International Policy Center. McDonough will speak about transforming labor markets and the new economy, as well as leading interagency coordination and crisis responses in the White House.