We welcomed six new students to the graduate program this fall with each bringing in an extraordinary list of accomplishments. All graduate students were celebrated at our annual welcome reception, held on August 17, 2018 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Iowa City.

FALL 2018

UNIVERISTY OF IOWA DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE | 341 SCHAEFFER HALL , IOWA CITY, IOWA 52242 | 319-335-2358

Welcome Yu Wang, Ph.D. Seasonal Message from the Chair

Welcome to the fall issue of the Political Science Newsletter. The Department is facing a challenging and uncertain new academic year with the ongoing search for a new Provost at the University and a new Dean in CLAS. Under the University’s new budget model, CLAS has cut 40% of our DCE revenue. This is in addition to the 35% cut of the same revenue two years ago. We will work to make up the budget crunch by negotiating an increase of the College’s share of our budget and by setting up our own endowment funds to protect us from future financial uncertainties. On the upside, our faculty continue to be hard working and productive in offering new courses, increasing enrollment, participating in conferences, publishing research papers, receiving internal and external grants and awards, and serving editorial positions in top academic journals. As a result, the Department continues to garner a strong reputation nationally and internationally, even under the drastically reduced fiscal support from the College.

Welcome New Grads!

FALL 2018

Quarterly Newsletter

The Department of Political Science is proud to welcome its newest faculty member, Professor Yu Wang. Wang received his Ph.D. from New York University in 2009. Since graduating, he has worked as an assistant professor of political science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2009-2015 and at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China from 2015-2019. Wang’s research areas include comparative politics and international relations. His work has been published in Oxford Development Studies, Constitutional Political Economy, and Representation. This semester Dr. Wang is teaching Intro to Comparative Politics, Designing Political Research, Chinese Politics and Society, and Problems of International Politics.

Stop by Dr. Wang’s office in the rotunda, 340 SH, to say hello!

Front row (L-R) Professor Bill Reisinger, Saera Lee, Natasha Gaydos, and Hyein Ko.Back Row (L-R) Darrell Carter, Tracee Saunders, and Lindsey Allemang.

Wenfang Tang Department Chair

Stanley Hua Hsia Professor

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)

2018-2019 Collab AssistantsSaera Lee & Christopher JunkThe collab assistants provide assistance with tech and schedule use of the 334 SH collab.

RECENTLY AWARDED Congratulations!

FLACSO in Quito

Cassandra Tai

Sara Mitchell and Elise Pizzi traveled to Quito, Ecuador in July to attend a conference sponsored by FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) and ISA (International Studies Association). They presented a new co-authored paper titled “Environmental Shocks, Migration Patterns, and Civil Conflict.” In addition to reviewing the literature on natural disasters, environmental migration, and civil wars, Sara and Elise created a typology of government policy responses to environmental shocks drawing upon case studies and quantitative analyses of multiple cases such as Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Nepal. They had fun exploring the sites in Quito and beyond including one of the most ornate gold churches in the world (La Compañía), El Panecillo (a statue with a great view of the city), the equator, and a train tour of several volcanoes. Elise was brave enough to try the guinea pig appetizer, one of the popular local dishes. Sara stuck to more traditional fare such as the empanadas.

Sojeong Lee Ballard and Seashore

Dissertation Fellowship 2018

Christine BrickerBallard and Seashore

Dissertation Fellowship 2018

Yue HuBallard and Seashore

Dissertation Fellowship 2018

Ruoxi Du Ballard and Seashore

Dissertation Fellowship 2018

Tracee Saunders Iowa Recruitment Fellowship, 2018

Yooneui KimOutstanding Teaching

Assistant Award 2018

Dong “Erico” Yu Post-Comprehensive

Research & Graduate College Summer &

Fellowship, 2018

Sara Mitchell

Eating lunch at the El Panecillo

A tour of a rainforest

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One of many alpacas seen on

the trip

This summer I attended the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research program in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The two courses I took were Multilevel Modelling and Casual Inference. Both courses are advanced, and I learned that our department truly cares about students understanding the course materials. Ann Arbor is a larger-scale version of Iowa City, nice and

peaceful. I met a lot of students from different programs. A girl I met said her undergraduate advisor majored in political science (at Iowa) and knows a lot about our department. She said students in our department are so lucky to take courses taught by our excellent faculty. I want to thank the Department for giving me this great experience.

Send us your content for the next quarterly newsletter at polisci@uiowa.edu

Special Announcement!Congratulations to grad student, Christopher Junk and wife, Emma, who are expecting a baby boy to arrive at the end of October. They will name him Ezra Thomas Junk.

Off to China

2018 APSA Special Projects Fund

Democracy Fellow Scott LaCombe

This summer, I was able to participate as a Democracy Fellow through the Social Science Research Council at the University of Bamberg in Germany. In Bamberg, I worked with graduate students and faculty throughout Germany. I also went to a conference on inequality outside of Milan, Italy at a resort (the irony was not lost on the group), and I used my time to travel in Italy, Germany, and France.

Congratulations to Professor Caroline Tolbert for being selected as a recipient of the 2018 APSA Special Projects Fund. Tolbert received $25,000 to support her proposed “2019 Vision in Methodology Conference. The Visions in Methodology group is a mentoring organization for women faculty and grad students doing intensive data analysis or teaching statistics. The APSA award was only given to 10 out of 58 applications based on the quality of their proposals.

In late May, Wenfang and I spent two weeks in China along with Marina Zaloznya of UI Sociology to prepare for surveys in China and Russia. While in Beijing, the Associate Director, Dr. Yan Jie hosted us and other staff of Peking University’s Research Center for Contemporary China. The surveys that we were planning during our several days of meetings were funded by a grant that the three of

us received from the Minerva Initiative. We studied “Informal Economies and Societal Stability in China and Russia.” The surveys are currently in the field, and we are hoping to begin analyzing the resulting data later this fall. In addition to visiting Beijing, we made stops in Changchun and Dalian in China.

Bill Reisinger

Bill Reisinger with Wenfang Tang & Marina Zaloznya pictured with staff of Peking University’s Research Center.

Inside the Coliseum representing the Department

Lake Como, Italy at the conference

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Eli Bratsch-Prince, a University of Iowa Political Science major has been awarded with a 2018 U.S. Department of State Critical Language

Scholarship. This past summer he traveled to Amman, Jordan to study in an Arabic language program. Bratsch-Prince plans to attend graduate school to study the politics of the Middle East and North Africa.

International Relations major, Alex Bare, received a 2018 U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship.

He traveled to Ibri, Oman this past summer to study Modern Standard Arabic in addition to focusing on a regional Arabic dialect. Bare aspires to be an international journalist.

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Digging potatoes I look up.

At the topof the near lilac busha burst of new bloomslavender and blush.

High up.Leaves all round turning, burnt.No sense,no scent. Nature’s accident.

Fall Lilacs by Michael Lewis-Beck

UNIVERISTY OF IOWA DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE | 341 SCHAEFFER HALL , IOWA CITY, IOWA 52242 | 319-335-2358

BOOKSTim Hagle Supreme Court Agenda Setting: The Vinson Court 1946-1952

Richard Nadeu, Èric Belanger, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Mathieu Turgeon, and Fraçnois GélineauLatin American Elections: Choice and Change

PAPERSDion, Michelle L., Jane L. Sumner, and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell. 2018. “Gendered Citation Patterns Across Political Science and Social Science Methodology Fields.” Political Analysis 26(3): 312-327.

Claypool, Vicki L. Hesli, William M. Reisinger, Marina Zaloznaya, Hu Yue and Jenny Juehring. 2018. “Tsar Putin and the ‘Corruption’ Thorn in his Side: The Demobilization of Votes in a Competitive Authoritarian Regime,” Electoral Studies 54 (August), 182-204.

Saunders, Tracee, Kreitzer, Rebecca J., Watts Smith, Candis. 2018 “Variation in Title X leads to Contraception.” The Gender Policy Report.

Critical Language Scholarship Recipients

Publications

STAY CONNECTED

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APSA awarded the Edwards S. Corwin Prize to Abigail Matthews at the 2018 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition, the world’s largest gathering of political scientists. The $750 prize acknowledges Matthews’ dissertation on public law as the best in the country. “Connected Courts: The Diffusion of Precedent across State Supreme Courts” explores the practices of American courts and the role of the judiciary in the development of jurisprudence and specific domains of law.

2018 Edward S. Corwin Prize Abigail Matthews (Ph.D. ‘17)

Did you know?...The Department is now offering a new certificate to undergraduates. The Political Risk Analysis Certificate offers students the opportunity to understand and adapt policy to the risks posed in specific countries and regions. The Department currently offers two majors, one minor, and two certificates to undergrads.

Two new courses will be offered to undergrad students starting in spring 2019. POLI:1410 Introduction to Asian International Relations and POLI:3524 Politics and Multinational Enterprises. Both courses will count towards two international relations tracks as well as three political science emphasis areas.