FALL 2017

UNIVERISTY OF IOWA DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE | 341 SCHAEFFER HALL , IOWA CITY, IOWA 52242 | 319-335-2358

Quarterly Newsletter

Enrollment Growth!A marked increase in online enrollments and undergraduates majoring in political science and international relations.

SEASONAL MESSAGE from the Chair

Send us your suggestions and content for the next quarterly newsletter to: polisci@uiowa.edu

Welcome to the fall issue of the Political Science Newsletter. We are looking forward to an exciting academic year of expansion! Our undergraduate program has seen enrollment growth and we’ve added several new general education and online courses. Fortunately, the office is now fully staffed and, in the next 2-3 years, we will be working with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to fill several faculty positions in International Relations, Comparative Politics, and American Politics. Additionally, the department is hosting a number of international scholars from China and the Alumni Advisory Board has plans to grow in the coming year. I look forward to seeing where the expansion takes us.

Wenfang Tang Department Chair Stanley Hua Hsia Professor

Richard J. Tyner International Relations Scholarship Available Spring 2018. The award will be granted to political science and international students with preference given to members of the honors program.

As of August 2017, the department had a total of 635 undergraduates majoring in political science (461) and international relations (174). This is approximately a 10% increase from our numbers in fall 2016. Additionally, our online course enrollment jumped to 417 at the start of this semester from 288 in 2016. The Iowa Center for Higher Education saw a slight increase of students taking political science courses. We believe recent additions to both our general education and online offerings may have contributed to the overall enrollment growth.

Topping the Big Tenin Ph.D. PlacementsAccording to the 2016 Big Ten Survey, our department ranked the highest in Ph.D. placements with 87.5%. The results also indicated that we had the smallest program in terms of faculty and grad students within the Big Ten.

16.7

41.7 42.9 42.9

66.770.0 70.0

77.3 80.0 80.083.3 85.7 87.5

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PhD Placement % 2015-16 Big 10 Survey

Recent Scholarship DonationsThanks to generous donations from alumni, the department will be offering two new opportunities to our annual undergraduate scholarships.

Molly C. and Joseph R. Gaylord Scholarship Fund Recently awarded to students in 2017. The award recognizes political science students who graduated from an Iowa high school and are actively involved in campus activities.

We are very pleased to add these to our list of annual scholarships!

Jingjing Lin Lecturer, School of Public Affairs, Southwest Jiaotong University Research topic: Quantitative methods and big data analysis in comparative politics and Chinese politicsAUG 2016 - SEP 2017

Han Jiang Doctoral Candidate, School of Government, Sun Yat-Sen University Research topic: Political factionalism in the Ming DynastySEP 2016 - SEP 2017

Xuchuan Lei Associate Professor and Associate Dean, School of Public Affairs & Law, Southwest Jiaotong University Research topic: Quantitative methods in the study of Chinese politicsDEC 2016 - DEC 2017

Hongjun Jiang Associate Professor, School of Public Administration Guangzhou University Research topic: Citizen rights and the evolvement of national anti-poverty policyDEC 2016 - DEC 2017

Xiaoyan Liu Associate Professor, East China Normal University Research topic: Gender and politicsAUG 2017 - AUG 2018

Difei Hu Associate Professor, School of Public Administration and Emergency Management, Jinan University Research topic: Chinese identity of Chinese AmericansAUG 2017 - AUG 2018

Jing Liu Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology Research topic: Mechanisms of public participation in social risk evaluation of major policy decisionsSEP 2017 - SEP 2018

Xingquan Xie Doctoral Candidate, School of Public Administration, Sichuan University Research topic: Assessing the quality of public service provisionSEP 2017 - SEP 2018

Zixiang Hu Professor and Associate Dean, College of Marxism, Southwest Jiaotong University Research topic: Earthquake relief NOV 2017 - JUL 2018

Min Yan Lecturer, School of Public Affairs & Law, Southwest Jiaotong University Research topic: Quantitative methods and big data analysis in comparative politics and Chinese politicsNOV 2017 - NOV 2018

Lidong Li Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Public Management, College of Law and Politics Zhejiang Sci-Tech University Research topic: State-society relations and its transition in contemporary ChinaDEC 2017 - NOV 2018

Yan Lin Doctoral Candidate, School of Government, Sun Yat-Sen UniversityResearch topic: China-US government decision-making mechanisms at the local level JAN 2018 - JAN 2019

Wei Jiang Lecturer, Center for Youth Media Literacy Liaoning Normal University Research topic: Nature and strategies of government’s microblog service in political communication under different contexts JAN 2018 - JAN 2019

Visiting Scholars

ReisingerPostdocXu Bo Associate Professor, Northeast Asian Studies College, Jilin University, Changchun, ChinaResearch topic: Russian foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region

DEC 2015 – JAN 2018

Please welcome the following postdoc scholars visiting us from China. They will be assisting with Wenfang Tang’s research during the dates highlighted.

Bo is currently finishing up his second stay at the Univeristy of Iowa. While visiting, he has conducted research that will appear as reports and articles in Chinese and participated in courses taught by Profs. Kadera, Menninga, Mitchell and Reisinger. He recently presented a paper, co-authored with Reisinger, at the 2017 International Studies Association conference in Baltimore. A revised version is now under review at International Relations of the Asia-Pacific. He’s a big fan of Hawkeye sports and has season tickets to the football games. We wish Bo and his family a safe return to China at the end of the semester.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Bomi Lee

This summer I attended the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) program in Ann Arbor. I took two formal theory courses, Game Theory and Rational Choice Theory. In my classes, I recognized that what I’ve learned so far in Iowa is extremely helpful to understanding the course material. All thanks to our amazing professors! I had multiple opportunities, not just

Chicago Area Behavior Conference (CAB) Christine Bricker

Last May I attended the Chicago Area Behavior Conference (CAB) organized by Jamie Druckman at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. CAB is a special experience. It is a small, day-long conference that focuses on the diverse ways political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and journalists study political behavior and the implications of their work. Jamie Druckman does an excellent job of bringing in speakers who use unique approaches to researching behavior. The conference also does an exceptional job of mentoring junior scholars. Through the mentor-student lunch, graduate Courtney Juelich and I both had lunch with researchers whose work directly related to ours.

Moreover, I participated in the poster session for students on the job market. Not only did I receive excellent feedback on my work, but I also made good connections with faculty. Finally, Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research featured my work in their newsletter about the conference. I’m grateful for Caroline Tolbert’s personal commitment to providing Iowa graduate students with this experience.

to learn formal modeling, but to also interact with other graduate students and faculty from all over the world through social events. As former participants of ICPSR pointed out, singing (and of course, dancing) at karaoke was one of the memorable moments in Ann Arbor. I would like to thank the department for giving me this opportunity!

Christine Bricker Helen Fairall

Scholarship, 2017

Addison HuygensLawrence Fairall

Scholarship, 2017

Brian JanssenGraduate College Post-

Comprehensive Research Award, 2017 & Helen Fairall

Scholarship, 2017

Samantha Lange David and Rosalie

Braverman Scholarship, 2017

Ray Ou Yang Ballard and Seashore

Dissertation Fellowship, 2017

Cody SchmidtLawrence Fairall

Scholarship, 2017

Rachel Torres APSA Minority Fellow &

the Underrepresented Minority Summer Research

Fellowship, 2017

Desmond Wallace Dean’s Graduate Fellowship, 2017

JoshTschantret 2017-18 Collab Assistant

Josh provides assistance with tech and schedules use of the 334 SH collab.

Congratulations!RECENTLY AWARDED GRADS

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New Morning Hotel by Michael Lewis-Beck

UNIVERISTY OF IOWA DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE | 341 SCHAEFFER HALL , IOWA CITY, IOWA 52242 | 319-335-2358

BOOKTim Hagle Iowa Votes: Registration and Voting Demographics 1982 to 2016

PAPERSSara McLaughlin Mitchell and Christopher Achen. “Shifting Standards for Political Methodologists? Historical Trends in the Society for Political Methodology.” Forthcoming, PS: Political Science & Politics.

Andrew P. Owsiak and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell. “Conflict Management in Land, River, and Maritime Claims.” Forthcoming, Political Science Research and Methods.

Paul R. Hensel and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell. 2017. “From Territorial Clasims to Identity Claims: The Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Project.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 34(2): 126-140.

BOOK CHAPTERSara McLaughlin Mitchell and Andrew P. Owsiak. “The International Court of Justice”, in Robert M.Howard and Kirk A. Randazzo (eds.), Handbook of Judicial Behavior. Forthcoming, Routledge.

NATIONAL RECOGNITIONCaroline Tolbert’s internet access geographic data set was referenced in two articles reported by the national news website FiveThirtyEight.

CLAS OPEN HOUSE

The Department of Political Science took part in the OnIowa! Open House for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences on August 17. Our booth provided freshmen with information about our program along with a spin quiz and the chance to win a $20 Chipotle gift card. Spin quiz participants (including Herky!) had a blast testing their knowledge and learning fun facts. A big thank to current polisci majors, Pete Grabow, Nathan Micatka, and Courtney Squires (pictured above L-R) who helped to make OnIowa! an exceptional event!

NEW GRAD STUDENTS (pictured L-R): Byung-Deuk Woo, Yufan Yang, Megan Patsch, Cassandra Tai, Addison Huygens, Joseph Coll, Ahmad Qabazard, Martín Muñoz

Welcome New Grads!We admitted eight students to the graduate program this fall. They bring a variety of backgrounds and an impressive list of accomplishments. Faculty and returning students were introduced to the new grads at our annual welcome reception and fall kick-off, held on August 18.

NEW THIS YEAR!

Living Learning CommunityThe recently opened Catlett dorm is home to our new Political Matters Living Learning Community (LLC). The group includes approximately 100 freshmen of various majors who share an interest in political and legislative issues. The Department of Political Science is providing sponsorship and Brian Lai is planning opportunities for the students to explore politics.

Alumna Receives FulbrightSamantha Korns (B.A. 2016) received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program Award for an English teaching assistantship to Russia. Congratulations, Samantha!

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