Congratulations to all of the winners of the Pi Sigma Alpha Essay Contest.  Winners were selected by faculty judges. All essays will be published in the Georgia Political Review. Please visit Pi Sigma Alpha’s webpage for more information about this organization.

The University of Georgia’s Department of Political Science ranks among the best in the nation according to U.S.News & World Report’s 2013 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools. The Department is tied for 26th in the nation among public universities and ranks 48th among both public and private universities. The rankings reflect the strength of the program and are another sign of the steady upward trajectory of the Department.

The Department of Political Science Welcomed its newest inductees into Pi Sigma Alpha on March 27th. Click here for more information.

In Ambition, Competition, and Electoral Reform, Jamie L. Carson and Jason M. Roberts present an original study of U.S. congressional elections and electoral institutions for 1872-1944 from a contemporary political science perspective.

Our Department’s Alpha Pi chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, has been awarded two competitive Chapter Activity Grants.  The funded projects include a competitive essay contest for Political Science majors, as well as service learning work at the Thomas Lay After-School Program.  Grant proposals were submitted by Alpha Pi officers, pictured here.

Georgia Magazine features Dr. Keith Poole in its December 2012 issue. Read about Dr. Poole’s rise to fame, along with that of Dr. Howard Rosenthal, that resulted from their creation of the NOMINATE software package.

The “Effects of the 2012 Presidential Election Conference” was held at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on Friday, November 30th and Saturday, December 1st.  Organized by Keith T. Poole, the Philip H. Alston Jr. Distinguished Chair in SPIA’s Department of Political Science, the Election Conference brought together renowned congressional election, public opinion, and policy experts from around the country to discuss the outcome of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

See the conference schedule under “additional files” below.

Additional files

• Conference Schedule

DW online, Germany’s international broadcaster, quotes Dr. Jamie Carson concerning the competitiveness of congressional races.

Scott Ainsworth weighs in on Todd Akin’s controversial comments in the New York Times.  Dr. Ainsworth is the co-author of Abortion Politics in Congress with Thad Hall.

The Political Science Department is pleased to announce that Robert “Bob” Grafstein has been named a Georgia Athletic Association Professor. The position recognizes professors with an outstanding record of scholarship that is based in and generates research.

Dr. Grafstein’s designation was approved by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and became effective August 10, 2012. The department sends out its congratulations to him on this well deserved honor.  Read more about this distinguished honor on online in UGA’s Columns.

M.V. “Trey” Hood’s new book, co-authored with Quinten Kidd and Irwin L. Morris, The Rational Southerner focuses on Black Mobilization, Republican Growth, and the Partisan Transformation of the American South.  Read more about it here.

On May 24-25, 2012, the University of Georgia hosted the 11th Annual Congress and History Conference.  The conference was supported by the Department of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs and Dr. Keith Poole, the Philip H. Alston Jr. Distinguished Chair of Political Science.  On Friday afternoon, a set of roundtables was held at the new Richard Russell Special Collections Library on campus in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress.  The photographs illustrate a roundtable with David Parker, Scott Frisch, and Sean Kelly who are discussing their new edited volume on conducting archival research in political science.

Elinor Ostrom, the first political scientist and only woman to win a Nobel Prize in Economics, passed away in the morning of Tuesday, June 12.  Ostrom gave the Parthemos lecture at the University of Georgia in the spring of 2012.  We send our condolences to her friends, relatives, and the discipline.  She will certainly be missed.

Princeton Review named Associate Professor, Audrey Haynes, as one of the top 300 college teachers in the United States.  See the list in its entirety here. You can also read the write-up from UGA news here.

UGA’s Columns profiles Carson’s research on trends in American voting. Read more here.

Charles S. Bullock III, Richard Russell Professor of Political Science, was interviewed on the PBS NewsHour on March 1 about which Republicans will show strength in the South on Super Tuesday.

Political pundits are buzzing about Keith Poole’s path breaking research on political polarization which he regularly updates on his Voteview blog.  “The Rachel Maddow Show” devoted an extended segment to it on February 29.  Nobel laureate Paul Krugman featured it in the New York Times, as did Nate Silver. Then there’s the Washington Post, Politico, the Huffington Post, the New Yorker, and a host of other news outlets and prominent blogs. Keith Poole holds the Philip H. Alston, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Political Science.

The Political Science Department is pleased to announce that Dr. Paul-Henri Gurian is the recipient of the 2011-12 SPIA Excellence in Teaching Award.

Dr. Haynes is quoted in the Ledger-Enquirer regarding the Republican primary.

Get to know more about Dr. Audrey Haynes as UGA focuses in on top faculty.

Keith T. Poole, who holds the Philip H. Alston, Jr. Chair in Political Science, was cited in the January 30, 2012 issue of The New Yorker. Ryan Lizza, in his article, “The Obama Memos,” discusses research by Poole and Howard Rosenthal on the polarization of the two parties in Congress. You can follow Poole’s Voteview blog at http://voteview.com/blog/ .

Josh Putnam (PhD, 2010) has been profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education. His blog FrontloadingHQ is frequently cited by major media, including the New York Times, and followed by political pundits.

Scott Ainsworth was quoted by the BBC News in an article about anti-piracy laws. Additionally, the book Abortion Politics in Congress by Scott Ainsworth and Thad Hall (who received his PhD from our department in 2002) was reviewed in the journal Politics & Gender. Read the review under the “additional files” tab.

Additional files

• Abortion Politics Review- Ainsworth & Hall

Apply now for the trip of a lifetime.  Applications can be found on our Maymester China page.

Dr. Jamie Carson’s recent article in the American Journal of Political Science on electoral accountability in House elections is part of a “virtual” issue of AJPS in conjunction with the 2010 midterm elections: http://www.wiley.com/bw/vi.asp?ref=0092-5853&site=1. According to the website, “This research represents the state-of-the-art in what we know about congressional elections and helps to frame the questions that scholars are raising about the election process.”  The virtual issue is available to the broader community interested in the types of issues that political scientists grapple with when studying congressional elections.

Robert E. Clute, who taught in our department from 1962 until his retirement in 1992, died on February 2nd at the age of 86. Bob served the university in many capacities: as department head from 1972-75, Graduate Coordinator from 1962-72 and 1976-88, and Undergraduate Coordinator from 1988-92. He also served for many years as the adviser to the University of Georgia Model UN Team. He published more than two dozen articles, chapters, and monographs on topics related to international relations and comparative politics. He earned an M.A. from George Washington University (1948) and a PhD from Duke University (1957).  He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he was severely wounded on the field of battle. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Clute-Nigro Fund at the School of Public and International Affairs. This fund provides small grants to help our graduate students complete their thesis and dissertation work.

Georgia Trend magazine names Dr. Charles Bullock one of the 100 most influential people in the state. See the complete list here.

Loren P. Beth, who taught in our department and served as department head from 1976 to 1982, passed away on December 28 at the age of 90 at the home of his daughter in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Larry, who taught Constitutional Law, retired in 1989. His books included John Marshall Harlan: The Last Whig Justice, The Development of the American Constitution and The American Theory of Church and State. His articles appeared in leading venues such as the American Political Science Review and Journal of Politics. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago and taught at the University of Florida and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst before coming to the University of Georgia.

The Triumph of Voting Rights in the South by Charles S. Bullock III and Ronald Keith Gaddie (who received his PhD from our department in 1993) has won the V.O. Key Award presented by the Southern Political Science Association for the Best Book on Southern Politics published in 2009.  This makes Dr. Bullock the first two-time winner of this award. Runoff Elections in the United States, which he co-authored with Loch Johnson, won the award in 1993.

Dr. Paul Gurian has been inducted into the UGA Teaching Academy.  The Teaching Academy honors outstanding teachers and also uses their skills to create campus-wide teaching and learning activities throughout the academic year.  Dr. Gurian joins a number of other political science faculty who are members, including Drs. Charles Bullock, Audrey Haynes, and John Maltese.