Princeton Politics Department

04/09/2026

Link in bio!

04/03/2026

Congratulations to the Politics Class of 2026 for completing your Senior Theses!

04/03/2026

Meet Sun Shen, a 4th-year PhD student in Politics (International Relations)!

What attracted you to politics? “When I was in law school, the Supreme Court issued a decision that limited judicial review of certain immigration cases in federal court and reinforced the power of Congress and the executive branch. As a researcher, I have long been drawn to issues at the intersection of law and politics. While writing a law review article on this topic, I realized how law and domestic institutional structures fundamentally shape political outcomes. At the same time, through my work at the New York State Attorney General’s Office as a litigation intern, and later in the U.S. House of Representatives, I gained valuable experience in government that pushed me to think about how to produce research that makes a real policy impact. After completing my J.D., I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Politics.”

What are you working on? “It is in the study of U.S. foreign policy that I have found a synthesis of my interests in law and politics. I currently study the role of the executive branch, particularly U.S. presidents, in foreign policy and international cooperation. I examine how legal and political constraints they face shape policy outcomes. My research adopts a mixed-methods, data-driven approach. I collect and analyze different types of data, including international agreements and judicial data. I also conduct archival work, digitizing and examining historical materials using both quantitative methods and qualitative case studies.”

What are you looking forward to? “As a scholar of law and international relations, I aim to produce research that is interdisciplinary, empirically grounded, and can potentially change the way we think about how law and politics interact. This year, I look forward to visiting more archives and making steady progress toward that goal.”

03/19/2026

This week’s features fourth year PhD student Renold Mueller:

What attracted you to Politics? When I began my undergraduate at Michigan State, I studied political science because I wanted to become a public servant. As I watched the first Trump administration unfold amid polarization, misinformation, and civil unrest, I came to believe that careful and rigorous thinking was in short supply among American public servants. This led me to mathematics. During my final year, two things happened: 1) One of my mentors encouraged me to apply for the Rhodes scholarship - and, although my resumé was nowhere near sufficient, the process resulted in a portfolio of application materials. 2) I was introduced to formal theory in my final class for the major, and the professor convinced me to consider domestic PhD programs. I had zero idea about what to study, but the notion of spending a career rigorously analyzing politics with mathematics and statistics was very appealing.

What are you currently working on? I am currently studying the effects political career incentives have on US legislators’ behavior. Scholars frequently assume that career concerns have effects on the behavior of politicians, but these effects could be quite complex. Career incentives and opportunities vary randomly over time and affect politicians through their beliefs about the future. Such effects are difficult to empirically identify. To tackle this problem, I use an approach from economics called “structural estimation,” which involves deriving a statistical model from a formal model of legislative career decisions to recover legislators’ preferences. This approach is also convenient for simulations, allowing me to study aggregate effects of institutional changes.

What are you looking forward to? The most exciting thing about being in the fourth year of the PhD is also the most intimidating thing: completing a draft of an ambitious project I’ve been thinking about for years and showing it to others in my field. In the earlier years, most of my time was spent workshopping one idea. This year I have been executing on it, and if all goes well, by next year it will be in good shape.

03/05/2026

In this week’s spotlight, we celebrate our very own Tolgahan Dilgan’s recent American Citizenship. Tolgahan is the Statistical Services Manager at QAPS and a Lecturer in the Politics Department:

“I was originally drawn to the study of politics because it combines big normative questions with real-world consequences. Over time, I became fascinated by the idea that mathematical and statistical tools can help us model and better understand the behavior of individuals and societies.

“Political outcomes often emerge from strategic interactions among actors who face uncertainty about their informational environment. This makes the study of politics a natural place to apply formal reasoning and causal inference methods to pursue our research questions.

“My current work examines how unexpected political events affect survey responses and political behavior. I also find my work especially rewarding because I support Princeton scholars in their independent research through statistical consulting and methodological workshops. In these workshops, I introduce programming tools that support game-theoretical modeling and statistical analysis to members of our research community.”

02/26/2026

Hiroto Sawada: “As a child in a peaceful countryside in Japan, I have long wondered why people, groups, and countries sometimes cannot get along. It was very natural for me to get interested in international relations. I study the political economy of armed conflict using game theory. My current project suggests that if climate disasters negatively affect the military capabilities of political groups, disaster events and conflict events may appear to be negatively correlated, even though disaster risks might be triggering conflicts. I enjoy thinking about one thing and interpreting puzzling phenomena. I also believe that my research is interesting and could alter the way we think about armed conflicts. I am looking forward to contributing to the important literature from a theoretical perspective.” Want to be featured in our weekly profiles? Message us!

01/23/2024

Congrats to Politics majors Colton Simmons, Thomas Emens, and Desmond Lam on their selection as SINSI scholars!

Nine students, representing six states, two countries, and a host of majors, concentrations, and certificates, have been selected for the 2024 cohort of SPIA’s prestigious Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI).Established in 2006, SINSI encourages, supports, and prepares high-achie...

05/24/2022

Princeton’s Ph.D. and master’s degree recipients were honored in a ceremony held May 23 on Cannon Green.

05/24/2022

Congratulations to the Politics Class of 2022!

04/06/2022

Princeton University seniors Beata Corcoran, Fernanda Romo Herrera Ibarrola, Elle Ruggiero, Naomi Shifrin and Frances Walker have been awarded the Henry Richardson Labouisse ’26 Prize to pursue international civic engagement projects for one year following graduation.

04/06/2022

If you’re researching your college and financial aid options, you may be surprised at how much tuition costs. Between the 2010-11 and 2019-20 academic years, prices for undergraduate tuition and fees increased by 13% at public four-year schools and 18% at private nonprofit colleges. With the majo