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Department of Government

Newsletter

January 2017

A Letter from the Chair

Dear alumni of Harvard’s Government Department, You hold in your (virtual) hands the first semi-annual newsletter from the Government Department, which I hope you will find interesting and informative. Our goal with this innovation is to develop stronger and more consistent relationships with our many Ph.D. alumni, who have fascinating jobs all over the world but who (we hope) retain a sense of connection with Harvard and the Government Department. The newsletter contains announcements of faculty accomplishments and awards, departmental events, and current or recent PhD student activities. Be sure to check out the video of the annual Christmas skit, produced by our multi-talented G2s. I’d be delighted to hear from you – comments and responses? Other types of information that you’d like to see in a newsletter? Suggestions for the graduate program? Whatever… Please feel free to reach me at govchair@fas.harvard.edu Thanks, and best wishes, Jennifer

Jennifer L. Hochschild

Harvard University

Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, and

Professor of African and African American Studies

Immediate Past President, American Political Science Association

Chair, Government Department

Government Department

CGIS: 1737 Cambridge Street

Cambridge MA 02138

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List of Faculty Honors and Activities

Allen, Danielle

University Professor of Government

Renowned political philosopher Danielle Allen

has been named a University Professor,

Harvard's highest faculty honor.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/11/

danielle-allen-named-university-

professor/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_mediu

m=email&utm_campaign=hag&utm_content=ud

o_all_alumni_2016-12-02

Bates, Bob

Eaton Professor of the Science of Government

o Book selected for Canto Series -- fifty best books published -- by Cambridge University Press

o Inducted into National Academy of Sciences

o Featured biographical essay, Annual Review of Political Science

Blackwell, Matt

Assistant Professor

The paper "The Political Legacy of American

Slavery" (with Avidit Acharya and Maya Sen) was

awarded the Joseph L. Bernd Best JOP Paper

Award for 2016 by the Southern Political Science

Association

Cammett, Melanie

Professor of Government

o 2015 Giovanni Sartori Book Prize,

APSA Section on Qualitative and

Multi-Method Research

o 2015 Honorable Mention, Gregory

Luebbert Book Prize, APSA Section on

Comparative Politics

o 2015 Honorable Mention,

Outstanding Book in Nonprofit and

Voluntary Action Research of the

Association for Research on

Nonprofit Organizations and

Voluntary Action (ARNOVA)

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Carpenter, Dan

Freed Professor of Government

o Chosen as the Julius Rothbaum

Distinguished Lecturer at the University

of Oklahoma in 2017. Past lecturers

include James MacGregor Burns, Richard

Fenno, Morris Fiorina, Jennifer

Hochschild, Sam Huntington, Jack

Rakove, Theda Skocpol and Keith

Whittington.

o Mellon Foundation awarded Harvard a

grant, for which Dan serves as Principal

Investigator, for the creation of a Digital

Archive of Native American Petitions in

Massachusetts.

The Gazette ran a story on this grant earlier this year -- http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/a-hearing-for-pleas-to-right-wrongs/

Dominguez, Jorge

Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of

Mexico

o Invited plenary speaker at the annual meeting of the Mexican Political Science Association

o The Harvard Gazette – interview “Cuba

Under Fidel’s Long Shadow”

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/12/cuba-under-fidels-long-shadow/

Enos, Ryan

Associate Professor

o National Science Foundation (with Ken

Nakayama, Na Li, Krzysztof Gajos, Jeremy

Wilmer, Timothy Brady, Justin Junge)

“Collaborative Research: From

Knowledge Consumers to Knowledge

Providers: A Scalable Experiential

Learning Approach for Psychology and

Related Disciplines,” 2016

o Division of Social Science Tenure-Track

Manuscript Workshop Grant, 2016

o Princeton Center for the Study of

Democratic Politics (CSDP) Fellowship,

2016–2017 (declined)

o Tenure-Track Faculty Publication Grant,

2016: TESS: Time-sharing Experiments for

the Social Sciences (with Riley Carney),

2015: “Is Modern Racism Caused by Anti-

Black Affect? An Experimental

Investigation of the Attitudes Measured

by Modern Racism Scales” (research

subjects)

o Pershing Square Venture Fund for

Research on the Foundations of Human

Behavior, 2015: “Harvard Digital Lab for

the Social Sciences”

o Boston Area Research Initiative (with

Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Michael

Hankinson, and Melissa Sands),

2015: “Stimulating and Measuring Civic

Engagement through the Introduction of

Unclaimed Property in Public Spaces”

o Clark Award, 2015

o Levenson Teaching Prize, finalist, 2015

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Hochschild, Jennifer

Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government

and Professor of African and African American

Studies

Social Science Interview on Race in America in

Social Science Space

http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2016/12/jen

nifer-hochschild-race-america/

Iversen, Torben

Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political

Economy

o Rigmor and Carl Holst-Knudsens Science

Prize (one of Denmark's oldest awards

conferred annually by the University of

Aarhus to honor two researchers, across

disciplines. It comes with a 100,000

kroner cash prize).

o The BP Centennial Professorship in the

Department of Government at the

London School of Economics for the

academic year 2016-17

Perry, Elizabeth J.

Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government;

Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute

o A three-year series of training

workshops in Chinese politics organized

by the Harvard-Yenching Institute for

advanced doctoral students and young

faculty members based at universities in

Asia. The first, focused on using

ethnographic and historical approaches

to study contemporary Chinese politics,

was held at Nanjing University in June

2015. The second, focused on using the

China case to generate broader

(empirical and normative) theories of

politics, was held at Sun Yat-sen

University in June 2016. The third,

focused on studying Chinese politics in

cross-national comparative perspective,

will be held at Fudan University in June

2017. Lecturers at these workshops have

included current and former members of

the Harvard Government Department:

Elizabeth Perry, Devesh Kapur, Prerna

Singh, Benjamin Read. Outstanding

graduates of the workshops are invited

to spend a year in residence at HYI,

working with faculty in Chinese politics at

Harvard and in the greater Boston area.

o Elected to the British Academy and will

receive an honorary doctorate from the

Hong Kong University of Science and

Technology in November.

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Peterson, Paul

Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government

Harvard Magazine - article entitled Post-

Regulatory School Reform

http://harvardmagazine.com/2016/09/post-

regulatory-school-reform

Pharr, Susan

Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese

Politics

Japan Foundation Award for 2016, which

recognizes individuals who through their artistic

contribution or scholarship, along with their

work in promoting intellectual and cultural

exchanges, contribute to building ties between

Japan and the rest of the world. Previous

awardees include Senator William Fulbright,

originator of the Fulbright Program; Boston

Symphony Orchestra conductor Seiji Ozawa; and

writer Haruki Murakami. Scholars who have

received the award include John Whitney Hall,

Yale; Ronald Dore, Imperial College; Arthur

Stockwin, Oxford; and Gerald Curtis, Columbia.

Four Harvard faculty previously have been

recipients: Serge Elisseeff (1973), founder of

Japanese studies at Harvard; Edwin O.

Reischauer(1975), University Professor and U.S.

Ambassador to Japan; Ezra Vogel, Sociology

(1996); and Akira Iriye, History (2013). The award

was presented by Japan’s Foreign Minister in a

ceremony in Tokyo in October.

Putnam, Bob

Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy

2016 Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Achievement

Award of the Public Policy Section of the

American Political Science Association for his

book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival

of American Community”.

Rosenblum, Nancy

Senator Joseph S. Clark Professor of Ethics in

Politics and Government

o Harvard Magazine piece on Nancy and on

her book, "Good Neighbors".

http://harvardmagazine.com/2016/09/d

emocracy-of-everyday-life

o 2016 Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in

Mentoring Award recipient

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Sandel, Michael

Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of

Government

o As an experiment using new technology

to promote global public discourse,

Michael's been working with the BBC to

launch a new series, "The Global

Philosopher." Using a high-tech studio

with a wall of 60 video screens, they

connect participants from around the

world to debate the ethical questions

underlying such issues as climate change,

immigration and the moral status of

national borders, and meritocracy. The

first three programs are available here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07

5ft6f/clips

The Gazette -

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2

016/03/the-global-philosopher/

o The Harvard Gazette recently ran this

interview/profile, including a photo of

him in high school debating Ronald

Reagan, then Governor of California:

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2

016/04/people-want-politics-to-be-

about-big-things/

Shepsle, Ken

George D. Markham Professor of Government

Shepsle Festschrift Conference, London,

November 12th

A one day conference in honor of Ken Shepsle

on 'Political Economy, Formal Political Theory:

The last 50 years, the Next 50'. The conference

will survey the past and examine prospects for

the future of a. formal political theory, b. political

economy and c. political science.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/

events/2016/11/shepsle_festschrift_conference/

Sweeney, Latanya

Professor of Government and Technology in

Residence

New Currier House faculty dean appointment

The Harvard Gazette -

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/05/

new-faculty-deans-appointed/

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Skocpol, Theda R

Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology Harvard University

Post-election analysis for Talking Points Memo of the Trump transition “The new research study -- launched by Kathy

Swartz (School of Public Health), Mary Waters

(Sociology), and me (Theda Skocpol,

Government) -- aims to track and make sense of

the playing out of policy and political shifts in

eight nonmetropolitan counties where voters

supported Trump in election 2016. We will track

developments in two counties in each of four

states, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and

Wisconsin, looking closely at changes in health

and social spending programs, employment and

jobs efforts, and other policies that impact local

populations and communities. Collecting a

combination of quantitative, interview, and

ethnographic data on citizens and local

institutions and businesses, we will examine, in

each state, one county with a small city and

another county that is less centered on even a

small city. The core idea is that such

nonmetropolitan areas tend to have older, less

prosperous residents, low-wage economies, and

health delivery institutions are often prominent

local employers and civic players. What happens

if and when big policy changes arrive? How do

people and local leaders understand those

changes and how do they react?

So far, we have a seed grant to get going from

the Wiener Center and have applied to the

Provost's Interfaculty fund and an outside source.

Students are eager to get involve. We will hire

both graduate RAs and undergraduates. Four

Government undergraduates are already in

process of joining the project (and some students

may end up responsible for helping us to track

developments in their home-town counties).

We expect to learn a lot from this unique effort, started quickly so as to establish a baseline for post January changes”. OP-ED link: Subject: Behind "Make America Great," the Koch Agenda Returns with a Vengeance http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/behind-make-america-great-the-koch-agenda-returns-with-a-vengeance

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Snyder, Jim

Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and

Political Science

European Economic Association, announced that

his paper (co-authored with Riccardo Puglisi),

"The Balanced US Press", has been awarded the

2016 Hicks Tinbergen Award. This medal is

awarded once every even years to the authors of

an outstanding article published in the JEEA

during the two preceding years.The 2016 Hicks-

Tinbergen Award Committee, composed of Juuso

Valimaki (Chair), Rachel Griffith and Eliana La

Ferrra, has prepared the following motivation

statement:

"This paper proposes a novel methodology for

measuring ideological bias by newspapers. The

key insight is that ballot propositions can be used

to compare newspaper endorsements with the

ex-post votes received by the proposition at the

polls. Newspapers that disagree with a majority

of the voters on a proposition reveal to be to the

left or to the right of the median voter: if a

newspaper keeps endorsing left-wing issues that

lose at the polls, the newspaper is called left-

wing. By averaging over multiple propositions the

authors estimate an index of conservatism for

each newspaper. Their results contrast with

existing evidence that measured media bias by

locating newspapers relative to one another or to

politicians. While previous evidence had

suggested that newspapers exhibited a leftward

bias, the current paper finds that on average

newspapers are located at the median voter in

their states. Interestingly, differences emerge

across issues, with newspapers being more

liberal than voters on social issues, and more

conservative on economic issues. In addition to

the methodology and novel results, the paper

contributes to a literature in which JEEA has

published some very influential work, i.e., the

economics of the media".

Tingley, Dustin

Professor of Government

o American Political Science Association's

2016 Gladys M. Kammerer Award which

is awarded annually for the best book

published during the previous calendar

year in the field of U.S. national policy for

the book “Sailing the Water's Edge: The

Domestic Politics of American Foreign

Policy”.

o 2016 winners of Society for Political

Methodology Gosnell Prize for paper,

"Sparse Estimation with Uncertainty:

Subgroup Analysis in Large Dimensional

Designs." with Marc Ratkovic

o The Gosnell Prize for Excellence in

Political Methodology is awarded for the

best work in political methodology

presented at any political science

conference during the preceding year.

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Ziblatt, Daniel Professor of Government

o Below is a link to his interview on NPR

where he talks about his forthcoming

book and discusses historical analogies to

the election of Donald Trump -

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016

/12/07/trump-hitler-comparisons

o 2016 Summit on the Future of Europe

The Harvard Gazette’s article -

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2

016/11/desperate-but-not-hopeless-

times/

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A Post-Election Panel of Faculty from the Government

Department

On November 29th Faculty from the Department of Government gathered to discuss what to expect in

Trump’s America:

Trump’s America: What’s Next?

https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/8rgAG

The Gazette: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/11/likely-policies-under-trump/

Participants: Danielle Allen, Jeffry Frieden, Claudine Gay, Jennifer Hochschild, Steven Levitsky, Eric

Nelson, Stephen Rosen

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Notes from Participants:

Levitsky, Steven R. (Professor of Government), Ziblatt, Daniel (Professor of Government)

New York Times article “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy? “

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/opinion/sunday/is-donald-trump-a-threat-to-

democracy.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-

region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0

Frieden, Jeffry

Stanfield Professor of International Peace

Donald Trump’s campaign promises give us some idea of what to expect of his economic policies. The domestic measures he focused on in during the campaign, and which he has stressed since winning the election, include:

1. Substantial cuts to personal and corporate taxes

2. A freeze or cuts to Federal spending, except on the military and the elderly (Social Security and Medicare)

3. A substantial program of infrastructure development, totaling between half a trillion and a trillion dollars.

This will dramatically increase the Federal budget deficit, and provide a potentially substantial fiscal stimulus. Both the deficit increase and the stimulus are paradoxical. Republicans in Congress roundly criticized the Obama administration for budget deficits they regarded as excessive, and vigorously opposed attempts at a fiscal stimulus. However, Republicans in the legislature are likely to be more favorable to Republican deficits and a Republican stimulus. In addition, the electoral success of President-elect Trump seems to have convinced other Republican policymakers to fall into line behind his proposals.

Candidate Trump was also highly critical of Federal Reserve policy he regarded as too expansionary, railing against low interest rates that harmed savers. This, along with the fiscal expansion and the generally positive state of the economy, will undoubtedly lead the Fed to move in a more contractionary direction. The domestic economic-policy prospect, then, is for an expansionary fiscal policy and a more contractionary monetary policy. This is reminiscent of the first Reagan administration.

With respect to international economic policy, candidate Trump was open about his disdain for globalization, which he said “has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy...but it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache." He has threatened to impose an across-the-board 20 percent tariff on imports, and a 15 percent tax on overseas investment by American corporations. To be sure, these are only threats at this point. Nonetheless, the threats may be enough to accomplish at least some of President-elect Trump’s goals. Trading partners could be induced to exercise “voluntary” restraint on their exports; American CEOs may be much more reluctant to relocate production abroad.

There is a contradiction between the domestic and international components of President-elect Trump’s economic policies. The fiscal stimulus and increased budget deficit – especially if combined with tighter monetary policy – will lead to a substantial strengthening of the dollar. A stronger dollar will put important pressure on American firms competing with foreigners at home and abroad. This may heighten existing protectionist pressures. The contradictory effects of the Trump administration’s proposed economic policies are likely to present the administration with substantial challenges – challenges that will also affect the rest of the world.

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News from PhD Students and Alumni

Sheena Chestnut Greitens (PhD 2013) will become the first

lady of the state of Missouri on January 9th, 2017. As an IR-

Comparativist, she learned a lot about American politics from the

ground during a statewide campaign, and now looks forward to

applying her training to her new role, where she plans to work on

improving foster care and adoptive services and exploring the

intersection between state-level and international politics. Her first

book, “Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and

State Violence (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics)” based on

her dissertation, was published last year, and she continues to teach

and do research as an assistant professor at the University of

Missouri. She and Governor Greitens would be delighted to welcome

any Harvard Government alumni who happen to pass through

Missouri!

One of our current grad students, John Harpham, has been

selected as a Harvard Horizon Scholar for the 2017-18 academic year.

John was among eight PhD students whose ideas, innovations, and

insights have the potential to reshape their disciplines. These

students have been selected by the Harvard Horizons Faculty Fellows

as representatives of the high aspirations and the extraordinary

achievements of Harvard University’s PhD programs:

https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/announcing-2017-horizons-

scholars

Molly Roberts’ (PhD 2014) dissertation won a number of

awards including 2015 APSA Division of Political Communication’s

Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2015 Richard J. Herrnstein Prize for

Dissertation, 2014 Edward M. Chase Prize.

She recently completed a virtual issue for Political Analysis, write up

in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-

cage/wp/2016/05/27/heres-how-text-analysis-is-transforming-social-

science-research/.

She was named 30 top thinkers under 30 last year by Pacific

Standard: https://psmag.com/the-30-top-thinkers-under-30-the-coder-

studying-the-effects-of-government-propaganda-and-censorship-

2c0e9a43eae4?gi=c3235665a932

Her book based off of her dissertation is about the impact of

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censorship in China, provisionally titled: Rerouting the Masses: The

Powerful Impact of Porous Censorship in China. Her research with

Gary King and Jennifer Pan on China's 50 cent party was covered

broadly in the news media, see example here:

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/05/19/chinas-online-

propaganda-strategy-distract-and-conquer-new-study-says/

One of our current grad students, Stephen Pettigrew, in

addition to his research on American politics, has worked on a variety

of projects regarding sports analytics. This has allowed him to

collaborate on research with professional teams and to write

freelance pieces for media outlets like FiveThirtyEight and the Wall

Street Journal. Given the many parallels between sports and electoral

politics, which is his area of study, he has sought opportunities to

bridge the gap between these two research interests. Prior to last

summer's Olympics, he co-organized a conference called "Who Will

Win in Rio?" The event brought together political scientists,

statisticians, and economists whose work focuses on the political,

economic, and on-field factors that make a country successful at the

Olympic Games. If you're interested in reading more about his

research, please visit his website: stephenpettigrew.com

One of our current PhD students in political philosophy, Rory

Schacter, is teaching a year-long course “Ethics for Engineers” at

MIT. The course integrates classical readings that provide an

overview of ethics with a survey of case studies that focus on ethical

problems arising in the practice of engineering. Readings taken from a

variety of sources, such as Aristotle, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes,

Locke, the Founding Fathers, and the Bible. Case studies include

written analyses and films that address engineering disasters,

biotechnology, court cases, ethical codes, and the ultimate scope and

aims of engineering.

On October 21st

– October 22nd

the Department of Government

hosted its 10th

Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory. The

2016 program (as well as the prior years’ programs) can be viewed by

clicking on the link below

http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/politicaltheoryconference/past-programs

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Government Department Holiday Skit

The holiday skit is viewable and downloadable here: https://goo.gl/O0cM5d (password - holidayskit)