Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

09/04/2026

Andrew Wender Cohen, professor of history and author of “Gangster of New York: A Violent Life in Nineteenth-Century America” (Cambridge University Press, 2026), was featured on the HistoryExtra podcast.

Following the remarkable career of Louis Bieral—a boxer, gambler, political enforcer and American Civil War veteran—Cohen uncovers how one man's life illuminates the brutal realities of the 19th-century U.S., from slavery and organised crime to political corruption and the struggle to establish the rule of law.

HistoryExtra podcast · Episode

09/03/2026

When she graduated this past May, Amelia Rudolph wrapped up a senior year at the Maxwell School that included a study on trust in maps and an opportunity to present the findings at a national conference.

Rudolph, who majored in Geography and Citizenship and Civic Engagement, traveled to San Francisco for the American Association of Geographers annual meeting, and was one of just a handful of undergraduates in attendance.

Working with Meghan Kelly, assistant professor of geography and the environment, and a collaborator at the University of Oregon, Rudolph helped design a survey testing what makes people trust, or distrust, the maps they see every day, from flood maps that shape insurance rates to the satellite imagery in the apps we use daily.

"I think a lot of people assumed I was a master's student," Rudolph said. "Which felt cool, that I was doing work that was at that level."

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09/02/2026

“Being a Trump ally, getting the Trump endorsement, and at least supporting Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020, or even beyond that, seem to give candidates an electoral boost,” says Richard Barton, assistant teaching professor of public administration and international affairs. “Over the last few years, election denialism has become something of a litmus test within the Republican Party.”

Secretary of state candidates in Nevada, Arizona and Wisconsin have cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election.

09/01/2026

“I think Putin's strategy is unlikely to work and unlikely to change the basic trajectory of the war, which is still that his strategic objectives that he set out at the very beginning of the invasion, which is basically to control Ukraine will not be achieved. And he's only made the Ukrainian population more resistant to any kind of submission to Russian political domination,” says Brian Taylor, director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs.

U.S. intelligence believes Vladimir Putin could try to test NATO's ...

08/31/2026

Congratulations to Emily Thorson, associate professor of political science, named the inaugural Fortunato Priore Endowed Faculty Fellow in Civic Engagement at the Maxwell School. The fellowship honors the late Col. Fortunato “Fred” Priore ‘55, whose family believed, in Dean David M. Van Slyke’s words, that democracy depends on citizens who understand “the policies and institutions that shape all our lives.” Thorson's research on the gap between government policy and public perception makes her a fitting first honoree.

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08/28/2026

Maxwell’s sociology department was well represented at the American Sociological Association 121st annual meeting in New York City. The gathering, with the theme Disrupting the Status Quo, featured faculty and graduate students participating in discussion tables, panels, roundtables, and paper presentations.

The more than 25 faculty and students whose work was discussed or presented included Professor and Chair Merril Silverstein; University Professors Jennifer Karas Montez and Madonna Harrington Meyer; Professors Amy Lutz and Yingyi Ma; Associate Professor Marc Anthony Garcia; and Assistant Professors Gabriela Kirk-Werner, Elizabeth C. Martin, Katie Quinn and Haowei Wang, among others.

08/28/2026

“You’re going to have businesses on both sides of the border that are dealing with higher costs and more uncertainty, both of which are not sort of conducive to good business and to providing products to consumers at their sort of most efficient prices,” says Ryan Monarch, associate professor of economics.

Stakeholders say the ongoing uncertainty is causing problems within their industries.

08/27/2026

The originality of Associate Professor of Political Science Glyn Morgan’s book “lies in its claim that European unification—first the European Coal and Steel Community, in 1951, then the European Economic Community, in 1957, and finally the European Union, in 1993—was more an American creation than a European one. Postwar Europe, he argues, was made in America’s image,” says reviewer Ian Buruma.
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During the Cold War, U.S. policymakers pushed for a unified Europe. Their MAGA successors are trying to undo all that.

08/26/2026

Every Tuesday morning, staff, supporters, and tenants of A Tiny Home for Good set out on a two-mile walk through Syracuse alongside founder Andrew Lunetta. They pass homes the nonprofit has built, tenants who step outside just to say hello, and a dog named Jack who leaps straight into Lunetta’s arms.

Lunetta ’14 M.P.A. arrived at Maxwell planning a career abroad until one class changed his path. He soaked up lessons from professors Tina Nabatchi and Sarah Hamersma, including a statistics course that became a tool he reaches for every day. By the time he graduated, he'd already started the nonprofit that would become A Tiny Home for Good.

Twelve years and 47 tenants later, he's a 2026 CNN Hero. One tenant, Rhea Holmes, spent eight months sleeping at her late husband’s grave before she found a home through the program. Another, Dolphus Johnson, was the first person to ever move into one of Lunetta’s tiny homes—and now works alongside him.

“He’s my everything,” Johnson says of Lunetta.

Read the full story — link in the comments. 🏡
A Tiny Home for Good

08/24/2026

Richard Barton, assistant teaching professor of public administration and international affairs, writes, If D.S.A. and Justice Democrats underperform in their own races, “then we might reasonably infer that, in a nationalized and polarized environment, they likely cause indirect electoral harm to other Democrats in purple and red districts.”

Barton acknowledges that “there is some support for the claim that ideologues can more effectively mobilize the base and activate new voters, but they are also more effective at mobilizing opposition.”

Trying to determine how much of a problem the D.S.A. poses for the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects. If it actually does.