Department of Political Science Bulletin
October, 2009

Political Science News

Undergraduate Research Proposal Funded

The Undergraduate Research Proposal submitted by Professors John Ishiyama, Marijke Breuning, Paul Hensel, Kimi King, David Mason, and James Meernik was approved for funding.  This grant will provide $8,000 to support undergraduate research projects.

Publications

The 5th edition, revised and updated, of John A. Booth, Christine J. Wade, and Thomas W. Walker’s book Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion, and Change (Westview Press) is in press and will be published in January, 2010.

Paul Collins, Kenneth L. Manning, and Robert A. Carp, “Gender, Critical Mass, and Judicial Decision-Making,” has been accepted for publication in Law & Policy.

Jacqueline DeMeritt (with William D. Berry and Justin Esarey), "Testing for Interaction in Binary Logit and Probit Models: Is a Product Term Essential?"  was accepted for publication in AJPS.

Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, “How Policy Conditions the Impact of Presidential Speeches on Legislative Success” has been accepted for publication by Social Science Quarterly.

Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, “The Importance of Policy Scope to Presidential Success in Congress” has been accepted for publication by Presidential Studies Quarterly.

Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, “Presidential Campaigning in Midterm Elections” (with Sean Nicholson-Crotty), American Review of Politics (Spring 2009).

Steve Forde’s essay, “The Charitable John Locke,” was published in the Review of Politics.

Cullen Hendrix, "Measuring State Capacity: Theoretical and Empirical Implications for the Study of Civil Conflict" has been accepted by the Journal of Peace Research.

Peer-reviewed book chapter: Sherri Mora and Tom Miles. 2010. "Using Technology to Engage Students in Large Classroom Settings." In Teaching Matters: Tips and Strategies for Teaching American Governement. Daniel M. Shea, editor. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Longman (forthcoming February, 2010).

Presentations

John Ishiyama was a speaker on a panel of journal editors  at the annual meeting of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) in Indiana University- Bloomington in October.

Ko Maeda participated in a roundtable session entitled “Roundtable on the August 30, 2009, Japanese Election” at the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies on October 17 in Austin, TX.

Valerie Martinez will be one of the keynote speakers at the National Conference on Latino Politics, Power and Policy at Brown University on October 24.  Brown and several other organizations (including the American Political Science Association) are holding the conference to recognize the work of the team who collected the Latino National Survey data and to highlight the new findings from the survey.

Awards

Steve Liebel was awarded a UNT Graduate Student Research Grant for a semester long Disseratation Grant Writing and Assistance Workshop by the Office of Research and Economic Development and the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies.

Professional Leadership

Marijke Breuning has been invited to serve on the Editorial Boards of International Studies Perspectives and Foreign Policy Analysis.  Both journals are sponsored by the International Studies Association.

Marijke Breuning visited Radboud University Nijmegen and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands as a member of the visitation commission for re-accreditation of these universities’ political science programs (Bachelor and Master), organized under the auspices of the Quality Assurance Netherlands Universities (QANU).  Earlier (in June), the commission visited the Free University of Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam.  

John Ishiyama conducted an external program review of the Department of Political Science at Central Michigan University in October.

Graduate Students Finishing

Erik Case successfully defended his master's thesis, "State Level Causes of Terrorism: Limits on Political Expression," on October 15.  His major professor was Emile Sahleyah.

Natalie Elliot successfully defended her dissertation, “ Letters And Liberty in The Democratic Age: Alexis de Tocqueville on The Place of The Literary Arts in Modern Democracy,” on September 23. She will receive her PhD at the December commencement. Steve Forde was her major professor.