Four internationally celebrated scholars visited the department this past year. Such visits not only provide exciting learning opportunities for our students, they underscore our department’s growing national reputation.
Cooper Drury, chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri, gave a talk on our current understanding of economic sanctions. Drury is the editor of the International Studies Association (ISA) journal Foreign Policy Analysis and was named a Quincy Wright Distinguished Scholar by the International Studies Association-Midwest in 2013. He has published widely on the foreign policy process and economic sanctions and has served on numerous journal editorial boards, including those for International Studies Quarterly and International Interactions.
Amaney Jamal, a professor of political science at Princeton University, shared her research on US foreign policy and democratization in the Middle East. Jamal published a recent book on the subject entitled Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy at All? (Princeton University Press). Named a Carnegie Scholar in 2005, Jamal is a well-known expert on the democratization process in the Middle East and the issues encountered by Arab Americans. Her book Barriers to Democracy won the Best Book Award in Comparative Democratization from the American Political Science Association.
Patrick James, Dornsife Dean’s Professor and Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, gave a talk on succeeding in graduate study and academia for undergraduate and graduate students. Among a long list of awards, Dr. James has been honored as a Distinguished Professor by two separate sections of the ISA; he has been Vice President of the ISA, and President of the International Council of Canadian Studies. James served a term as editor of the prominent journal International Studies Quarterly and has served on the editorial boards of the American Political Science Review, Foreign Policy Analysis, and International Interactions among other journals.
Mark Tessler, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Samuel J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, gave a public lecture on popular attitudes toward democratization across the Middle East. Dr. Tessler is a well-known expert on public opinion and behavior in the Arab world and the Middle East, and is a founder and co-director of the influential Arab Barometer Survey Project. He has been President of the American Institute for Maghreb Studies, President of the Association for Israel Studies, and on the Board of Directors of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University and Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.