Political Science at Notre Dame
Boasting more than 40 faculty members, over 600 majors, and a strong and active graduate program, the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame is committed to excellence in both teaching and research. U.S. News and World Report's 2009 rankings listed Notre Dame's Political Science Department 36th in the nation. The department provides undergraduates and graduate students an education in four broad areas: American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations and Political Theory. Learn more >
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News & Events
New Book Suggests Liberal Public Policy Makes People Happier
February 03, 2010 • Shannon Chapla
Liberal public policies, such as a state’s level of spending on social programs and the degree to which its economy is subject to political regulation, have strong positive effects on life satisfaction, according to a new book edited by Amitava Dutt and Benjamin Radcliff, professors of economics and political science, respectively. READ MOREThe Review of Politics Turns 70
We can be grateful that the world of 2009 is so unlike the world of 1939, in which The Review of Politics was first published at the University of Notre Dame.
But agreeable as it is to leave the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin, the invasion of Poland, the concentration camps and fire bombings uniquely associated with that earlier time, it is not difficult in this one to share what the journal’s first editors described as a feeling “that we are living in a kind of interval of history, in a duration of formlessness and fury.” That generation-spanning resemblance may account for the Review’s enduring status as an indispensable journal of political philosophy. READ MORE.....
New Book Examines Founding Fathers, Religious Liberty
Vincent Muoz, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, questions the traditional view of the founding fathers’ stance on religious liberty in God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson, recently published by Cambridge University Press. READ MORE.....
Reflections on the Fall of the Berlin Wall, 20 Years Later
University of Notre Dame political scientist James McAdams recalls the first time he stepped over the border from West Germany to East Germany in 1973 as a 19-year-old college student studying in West Berlin.
“The first time I entered East Berlin, it felt like I was going to an anti-Disneyland. It was like going from color television in West Berlin to black and white in East Berlin,” says McAdams, the William M. Scholl Professor of International Affairs and director of Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
An internationally recognized scholar of the two-state period in modern German history (1949 to 1989) and its aftermath, and author of several books including Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification, East Germany and Dtente, and Judging the Past in Unified Germany, McAdams was living in West Germany in November 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. READ MORE.....
Book by Latin America Experts Explores Democratic Governance
Producing more effective governance is the greatest challenge facing most Latin American democracies today, say University of Notre Dame political scientists Scott Mainwaring and Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C., in a new book from Stanford University Press.
In Democratic Governance in Latin America, Mainwaring and Father Scully gather a renowned team of contributors to explore why some policies and some countries in Latin America have been more successful than others in meeting the challenge of governing both democratically and effectively. READ MORE.....
Lopez Testifies on Sanctions Against Iran Before National Security Subcommittee
In testimony today (Dec. 15) before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, University of Notre Dame faculty member George A. Lopez argued against passage of HR 2194, which would impose severe economic sanctions on Iran in an effort to halt its nuclear weapons program.
The proposed measures “will inflict economic pain in Iran, but produce no political gain on issues important to the United States,” Lopez said. READ MORE.....
New Book Examines “Rashomon Effect” and Implications for Conflict and Peace
On Oct. 28, 1967, a white police officer pulled over a black man in Oakland, Calif. Both men got shot, and the policeman died. Who pulled a gun first? And what happened after the shooting?
The answers depend on which news source you consult — the radical black newspaper (the black man was Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panthers), the moderate black newspaper, the radical white newspaper, the conservative Bay Area newspaper, or The New York Times, said Christian Davenport, a professor of peace studies, political science and sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
Fascinated by the wildly different accounts of police-Panther interactions, Davenport spent more than a year scouring newspaper archives and cataloging and analyzing the events, with funding from the National Science Foundation. READ MORE.....
New Book Focuses on Reconciling Societies Shattered by Violence
How do you reconcile former enemies in a society shattered by war, genocide or violence?
In a new book, Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence, published by Temple University Press, Ernesto Verdeja answers this question by examining reconciliation efforts in post-conflict regions from Chile to South Africa to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He proposes a new theory of reconciliation — one focused on a process of public truth-telling, accountability for perpetrators, recognition of victims, commitment to the rule of law and, most importantly, cultivation of moral respect and dignity.
“After war or genocide, former enemies must reach some form of morally acceptable coexistence, even though they have great political differences and disagreements,” says Verdeja, assistant professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame. “The key to reconciliation is not forgiveness or social harmony, but respect for each other’s moral worth.” READ MORE.....
http://al.nd.edu/news/14016-new-book-focuses-on-reconciling-societies-shattered-by-violence
Busting Myths About Extremist Legislators
John Griffin, associate professor of political science, has helped debunk a myth about ideologically extreme legislators in an award-winning paper he co-wrote, raising the question of whether citizens hold elected officials accountable.
Conventional wisdom holds that extremist legislators fare worse than moderate ones in congressional elections because they’re more likely to vote in ways that don’t reflect their constituents’ policy preferences—a pattern that voters don’t tolerate.
Griffin and Brian Newman, a Pepperdine University professor, question this inference in their paper, “Are Ideologically Extreme Legislators Really Out of Step?” The publication has earned them the Emerging Scholar Award from the Midwest Political Science Association, which is the second-largest political science association in the United States. READ MORE.....
Mayor of Rust-Belt "Hell" to Speak at Notre Dame
John Fetterman, the man Rolling Stone dubbed “the mayor of hell,” will visit Notre Dame to share his experience of another America—a Rust Belt town plagued by crime and a struggling economy—and his efforts to help revive the place.
Fetterman, the Harvard-educated mayor of Braddock, Pa., will speak at 8 p.m. on Monday, November 16, at McKenna Hall as part of a two-day visit he hopes will highlight the struggles towns like his endure—and confront students with realities they may not have encountered.
“I want to emphasize the importance of understanding that there are a lot of different Americas,” he says. “There’s the academic community, the public sector, the private sector. And then there are communities like Braddock that are beyond the fringe. Most people can’t fathom living in a community with no restaurants or ATMs or things that most college students would take for granted.” READ MORE.....
