Amherst College Department of Political Science

04/25/2019

Current Senior thesis writers, and prospective thesis writers met for pizza to celebrate and talk about the thesis writing experience, April 24, 2019. In total we had 11 students attend, including Will live from Budapest.

11/02/2017

10/30/2017

Event Calendar | How do Indigenous Peoples Value Nature: Experiences From Water Defenders Resisting Mining Projects in Ecuador. | Amherst College

https://www.amherst.edu/news/calendar/node/694153

During this event Yaku Perez Guartamble asks the question; Is gold more valuable than water? Ecuador’s paramos are fragile ecosystems rich in water. Yet these waters often run above mineral reserves rich in gold. The state pursues mineral extraction in the name of development. Indigenous peoples, in...

10/27/2017

Event Calendar | What is a Constitutional Crisis (and Are We in One?) | Amherst College

https://www.amherst.edu/news/calendar/node/694798

Stephen Vladeck will give a talk titled “ What is a Constitutional Crisis (and are we in one?). During this talk he will discuss how the first ten months of the Trump presidency have not only raised a litany of novel and important legal and constitutional questions about presidential power, presiden...

10/26/2017

Conferences | Colloquium on the Constitution | Amherst College

https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/ljst/events/conferences/CIA

COLLOQUIUM ON THE CONSTITUTION AND THE IMAGINING OF AMERICA Colloquium on the Constitution and the Imagining of America “In Defense of Voting Rights” Amherst College November 10, 2017 (Fri.) Friday, Nov. 10 3:00-3:15 Welcome and Introduction Austin Sarat, Amherst College 3:15-4:15 “Obstruction or Op...

10/23/2017

Analysis | Zimbabwe created a new ministry to monitor social media. But most Zimbabweans don’t want government monitoring.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/20/heres-the-real-reason-zimbabwe-created-a-new-ministry-of-cybersecurity/

No matter what Mugabe's government says, poll shows citizens want government out of private communications, even when security is at stake.

09/12/2017

Disaggregating the Developing Welfare State: Provincial Social Policy Regimes in China - ScienceDirect

Professor Kerry Ratigan has an article forthcoming in World Development (October issue) entitled, Disaggregating the Developing Welfare State: Provincial Social Policy Regimes in China, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X17301730. She has also been awarded a research grant from the Chian Ching-ku Foundation for a survey of popular attitudes towards social policy in China. The survey will be conducted in the fall of 2017.

Local variation in social welfare provision appears in myriad contexts around the world. And yet, our attempts at conceptualizing welfare regimes focus on the national level. In China, local authorities have shaped social policy implementation since economic reforms. In this paper, I answer three qu...

09/12/2017

A Manifesto, in 140 Characters or Fewer: Social Media as a Tool of Rebel Diplomacy | British Journal of Political Science | Cambridge Core

Professor Eleonora Mattiacci’s research on social media as a tool of rebels’ public diplomacy in civil wars has been published in the British Journal of Political Science and can be accessed here: https://goo.gl/cnfwTD. With the assistance of several Amherst College students, she is conducting original research on the causes and implications of the attempts on the part of foreign governments and rebel groups to lobby Congress and to influence the US public. Her research on the implications of climate change for civil unrest in Africa has been published in the Journal of Peach Research and covered by news outlets such as Reuters. It can be accessed here: https://goo.gl/gMq6zA.

A Manifesto, in 140 Characters or Fewer: Social Media as a Tool of Rebel Diplomacy - Benjamin T. Jones, Eleonora Mattiacci

09/05/2017

Political Science | News & Events | Amherst College

Welcome Back Students! Check out our news and events page https://www.amherst.edu/mm/13828.

News from the Department of Political Science Fall 2017 Professor Kerry Ratigan has an article forthcoming in World Development (October issue) entitled, Disaggregating the Developing Welfare State: Provincial Social Policy Regimes in China, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X...

03/10/2017

L E C T U R E A N N O U N C E M E N T

The 2017 Annual Vogel Lecture at Amherst College presents:

Peace in Colombia:
Economic Costs, Potential Rewards, and Political Risks
A Panel Discussion

Date: Friday, March 24
Place: Fayerweather 113, Amherst College
Time: 3-4:30pm

Speakers:
Gonazlo Hernández Jiménez
Director of Research and Associate Professor of Economics
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá
http://www.javeriana.edu.co/blogs/gonzalohernandez/

Camilo Zea
Founding Director
PRONUS Investments, Bogotá
http://pronus.co/quienes-somos/

Peter DeShazo
Visiting Professor
Dartmouth College
http://lalacs.dartmouth.edu/people/peter-deshazo

Moderator: Prof. Katharine Sims, Department of Economics and Environmental Studies, Amherst College
Opening remarks: Bob Vogel

Sponsored by the Departments of Political Science and Economics through the generosity of the Robert S. Vogel '60 Fund at Amherst College.
The event is free and open to the public

For more information contact:
Javier Corrales
[email protected]

03/09/2017

Latham Scholarships
Open to enrolled Amherst College students ONLY

Eligibility:
You are a first year, sophomore or junior
Must be in Washington, D.C., in offices of government or public service
Internship can be full-time or part-time
Preference will be given to students who are returning to Amherst
Extra consideration will be given to students whose summer internship is connected to work on a senior thesis.

Please visit this link to apply

https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/careers/tools-online-services/jobs/internships/funding

Application Deadline: 11:59pm April 1

Scholarships are awarded each year to Amherst students who are seeking to spend the summer working as interns in Washington, D.C., in offices of the federal government, or in other positions in public service.

03/09/2017

Visiting Faculty for Spring Semester 2017

Professor Sayres Rudy, Visiting Professor

Sayres Rudy specializes in comparative political economy and philosophy, with a regional focus on the Global South. He has written on Islamism and globalization, sovereignty and the war(s) on terror, and violence and regimes, and is now working on the politics of adoption, suicide, and tragedy. In addition to "canonic" theorists, he reads and teaches "counter-enlightenment" authors, especially Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Foucault, Mariategui, Marcos, Fanon, Gandhi, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Kincaid, Cassavetes, and Haneke. He has taught social theory at Harvard and politics at Hampshire College and Amherst College where, from 2002-2007, he offered courses on Islamism, Ideology, Social Movements, Partition, Evil, Palestine, and the State and Violence. He has researched and resided in Europe and the Middle East/North Africa. Sayres studied at Davidson College (BA), Johns Hopkins (MA), and Columbia (PhD, political science). He is teaching POSC 159, The State and Violence.

03/09/2017

Visiting Faculty for Spring Semester 2017

Professor Jessica Lake, Karl Loewenstein Fellow

Dr. Jessica Lake is a Lecturer in Law at Swinburne University and researches in the areas of privacy law, intellectual property, and American legal history, with a particular focus on gender. She has an LBB (Hons) and PhD from the University of Melbourne. Her PhD thesis, 'Privacy and the Pictures: the photographed and filmed (women) who forged a right to privacy in the United States (1880-1950)', demonstrated that women forged a 'right to privacy' in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries by bringing cases protesting the unauthorised use and abuse of images of their faces and bodies. Her PhD is published as a book, The Face that Launched a Thousand Lawsuits, by Yale University Press, 2016. Jessica has published her work in journals and newspapers, and presented at conferences in Australia and the United States. She is also a qualified lawyer, and practised for many years in the area of media and entertainment law and commercial litigation at a Melbourne law firm. She is teaching POSC/SWAGS 261, Privacy and Gender.

03/09/2017

Your Account | Taylor & Francis Online

Professor Ruxandra Paul's article "Welfare Without Borders: Unpacking the Bases of Transnational Social Protection for International Migrants" has been published in Oxford Development Studies (special issue, Peggy Levitt and Jocelyn Viterna eds.).

It's now available online and will appears in print soon (Volume 45, Issue 1 of the journal). If you want to read more, you can download the full article for free in PDF format here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YaBg7zA7rVdHXEMdzahk/full

Amherst College's Seminar on helping new students to adapt was featured in the Boston Globe.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/01acclimating-amherst-college-after-orientation-ends/JniVmj50FCPt1tHC7V8fbP/story.html

03/09/2017

Professor Manuela Picq joins the Editorial Board of Intercontinental Cry, a publication of the Center for World Indigenous Studies.

03/09/2017

Page not found - Intercontinental Cry

Political Science Students Leave the Classroom to Shape Public Opinion on Intercontinental Cry

Students enrolled in the class "Indigenous World Politics" with Professor Manuela Picq (Fall 2016) showed what activist scholarship can look like. They transformed theoretical debates in the classroom in influential research published on Intercontinental Cry, an online publication of the Center for World Indigenous Studies. Students reported on the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and the events at Standing Rock, addressing broken treaties, lack of media coverage, legal battles, and pipeline leakages. Then they published their own research, which addressed a broad range of issues from how to bring indigeneity to the digital world (Lauren Tuiskula) to struggles for self-determination in the Philippines (Cristina Rey). Some pieces generated so much interest that they were translated into Spanish and reposted by other media venues like Truth-Out. For instance the stories on the erasure of indigenous presence in New England (Sam Spurrell) and on how indigenous concepts of rights of nature are reframing state law (Kiana Herold).

More info: https://intercontinentalcry.org/activism-journalism-academia-collide/

02/28/2017

"Mapping Sexuality in Ancient Rome": A Talk by Dr. Luca Grillo
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm Merrill Science Center, Lecture Room 4

On Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the Merrill Science Building, Lecture Room 4, Dr. Luca Grillo will give a talk titled "Mapping Sexuality in Ancient Rome." Dr. Grillo asks, "How did the ancient Romans conceive sex and sexuality? Did they have the same categories we can easily take for granted today? Could sexual inclinations elicit admiration, disparagement or disapproval?" This talk will address these and similar questions by locating Roman habits in their historical and cultural context and by discussing formalist and constructivist approaches.

Luca Grillo is an associate professor of classics and William R. Kenan Scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, having earned his M.A.s from the University of Minnesota (in classical and Near Eastern studies), a Ph.D. from Princeton (classics) and taught for five years at Amherst College (2008-13). His area of specialty is Latin prose and Roman history, with a special focus on writers of the Late Republic. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Caesar, and he has published a monograph on Caesar’s Civil War, a commentary on an oration by Cicero and various articles.

This event is sponsored by the Lamont Funds and the Department of Political Science at Amherst College. It is free and open to the public.

03/30/2015

Increasing Financial Inclusion in Lation America: Letting technology do the work.
March 31, 2015 - 6:00 pm to 7:15 pm
Seeley G. Mudd Building, 206

A talk by Jose Lapadula. Mr Lapadula is a senior financial services industry executive for Millicom International Cellular. He specializes in risk management issues, including regulatory relations, compliance and Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terrorism Financing matters.

This talk will discuss how cellular technology is changing the financial landscape in the region by providing access to formal financial services to those at the base of the economic pyramid not currently served by traditional banks. This talk is sponsored by the Vogel Fund and the Departments of Political Science and Economics at Amherst College and is free and open to the public.

01/26/2015

www.amherst.edu

Check out our Newsletter athttps://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/Newsletter_January_2015.pdf

10/30/2014

Tuesday, November 4th at 6:00pm (Book launch party)
Join Prof. Tom Dumm in celebrating the publication of his new book, My Father's House: On Will Barnet’s Painting. Dumm, who teaches political theory at Amherst College, reflects on a series of paintings by Will Barnet which depict the artist’s family & childhood home. Dumm is author of several previous books, including Loneliness as a Way of Life & A Politics of the Ordinary.

09/18/2014

ISIS, IRAQ, SYRIA:
WHAT SHOULD OBAMA DO?

A Five College Faculty Panel with:
Prof. Vinnie Ferraro, International Relations, Mt. Holyoke College
Prof. Michael Klare, Five College Peace & World Security Studies
Prof. Ronald Tiersky, Political Science, Amherst College

TUESDAY, SEPT. 23, 7:00 PM
Converse Hall Assembly Room
AMHERST COLLEGE

Sponsored by Five College Program in Peace & World Security Studies

Free and Open to the Public

09/08/2014

Special Topics Course in Political Science Fall 2014

LGBT Rights in the Americas: A Digital History Project
Prof. Javier Corrales

This course is designed for students interested in: 1) the history of activism on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the Americas, 2) digital history, social sciences and humanities; and 3) independent work. In collaboration with our library staff, and making use of archival and online resources, we will produce a digital timeline of important events in the history of LGBT activism in the Americas. Students will be expected to become familiar with the history of LGBT rights in several countries of the region, classify events according to a set of criteria, and provide input for the digital timeline. Students will also be engaged in thinking about how the visualization of these events in various ways could provide opportunities for research and communication. Currently, we are expanding the timeline with three goals in mind: to build upon the existing entries, to add new entries, and to digitize the entire content. Our end goal is to produce an expansive and publicly accessible digital timeline to make this information widely available for general consumption and future scholarship. Reading knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese a plus, but not mandatory. Interested students should contact me at [email protected].

08/29/2014

Faculty travels to China. Profs. Javier Corrales, Tom Dumm and Jyl Gentzler (Philosophy), pictured with students, traveled to Shanghai in August as part of an education program organized by Amherst students Shiyan Chen 16 and Dian Yu 16. The two-week, short-course program was to familiarize advanced high school students from all over China with liberal arts studies in the United States.

08/27/2014

Special Topics Course in Political Science Fall 2014

LGBT Rights in the Americas: A Digital History Project
Prof. Javier Corrales

This course is designed for students interested in: 1) the history of activism on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the Americas, 2) digital history, social sciences and humanities; and 3) independent work. In collaboration with our library staff, and making use of archival and online resources, we will produce a digital timeline of important events in the history of LGBT activism in the Americas. Students will be expected to become familiar with the history of LGBT rights in several countries of the region, classify events according to a set of criteria, and provide input for the digital timeline. Students will also be engaged in thinking about how the visualization of these events in various ways could provide opportunities for research and communication. Currently, we are expanding the timeline with three goals in mind: to build upon the existing entries, to add new entries, and to digitize the entire content. Our end goal is to produce an expansive and publicly accessible digital timeline to make this information widely available for general consumption and future scholarship. Reading knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese a plus, but not mandatory. Interested students should contact me at [email protected].