Political Science
Faculty Research
Dennis Ippolito, chair of the Department, studies U.S. federal budget policy. His most recent book, Why Budgets Matter: Budget Policy and American Politics (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), examines how conflict over budget policy has shaped American politics by determining the size and role of the federal government. The writing of Brad Carter focuses on the political thought of James Madison as well as Mary Parker Follett.
Jim Hollifield, Director of the Tower Center and of International Studies, teaches and writes about international political economy and the politics of immigration. His most recent work looks at the rapidly evolving relationship between trade, migration, and the nation state. Cal Jillson teaches and writes about American political thought and the development of American political institutions. His current project, The American Dream: The Politics of Opportunity and Exclusion in American History, will be published by the University of Kansas Press in 2004.
Michael Lusztig has two main research agendas. First, his work concentrates on how governments are able to forge political coalitions to pass controversial legislation. Substantively, he looks at free trade. Second, Lusztig’s research focuses on comparative constitutional politics, with emphasis on the interplay between individual liberty and group rights. Luigi Manzetti studies the political economies of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. He specializes in corruption, economic integration, privatization, policy and deregulation politics in Latin America.
Dennis Simon studies the American Presidency, presidential-congressional relations, public opinion, and electoral behavior. His current research agenda includes two projects. The first, entitled The Perilous Experiment, is an historical and quantitative study that traces the evolution of popular and legislative leadership in the American Presidency. His second project, “Southerners in the United States House of Representatives,” is a history of electoral and ideological change in the South since 1930 and is supported by a grant awarded by the Dirksen Congressional Center. Harold Stanley is known as an expert in American national politics and electoral change in the South. His current research concerns presidential nominations, partisan change and voting rights. Hiroki Takeuchi's research interests include politics and economics of China's reform, comparative politics of authoritarian regimes, and international relations in East Asia, as well as game theory applied to political science. Wendy Watson works on equal access to the courts, constitutional law, judicial decision-making, and wedding doctrinal and empirical analyses of legal issues. Stephen Wegren specializes on Russia and post-communist states. His research concentrates on urban-rural relations, land reform, and the politics of agrarian reform. Matthew Wilson's work focuses on American political behavior, with particular emphasis on political psychology and religion and politics. He is particularly interested in how citizens’ cognitive biases and limitations condition their ability to make political choices. Several of his recent articles and his current book project, entitled The Blame Game: Political Sophistication and the Politics of Attribution, address versions of this question.
