Thanks to our program committee for putting together the following plenary panels:
THURSDAY, FEB 8th
Understanding the Crisis in Israel and Palestine
A panel of political scientists will discuss the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The panelists will consider how the crisis evolved, its implications for the region, and the role of the U.S.
10:45 A.M. – 12:15 P.M. (EST)
Chair:
Mark Tessler, University of Michigan (moderator)
Mark Tessler is Samuel J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, where he also served for nine years as Vice-Provost for International Affairs. He has conducted field research in Tunisia, Israel, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), and Qatar, and he is one of the very few American political scientists to have attended university in both Israel and an Arab country. He has written extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as on public opinion in the MENA region. His 1,000-page book, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, has won national awards.
Presenters:
Daniel L. Byman, Georgetown University
Dr. Daniel L. Byman is a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, the director of the Security Studies Program there, and a Senior Fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Byman is also the Foreign Policy Editor for Lawfare and a part-time Senior Advisor to the Department of State as part of the International Security Advisory Board. In addition to serving as the Vice Dean for the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, he was a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Professional Staff Member with both the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (“The 9-11 Commission”) and the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation, and as an analyst of the Middle East for the U.S. intelligence community.
Dr. Byman is a leading researcher and has written widely on a range of topics related to terrorism, insurgency, intelligence, social media, artificial intelligence, and the Middle East. He is the author of nine books, and his most recent is Spreading Hate: The White Power Movement Goes Global (Oxford, 2022). He is the author or co-author of almost 200 academic and policy articles, monographs, and book chapters as well as numerous opinion pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other leading journals. Twitter/X: @dbyman
Dana El Kurd, University of Richmond
Dr. Dana El Kurd is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Richmond. She is the author of the book Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine (Oxford University Press, 2020). She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington and a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute.
Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and a Deputy Under Secretary of State, and won distinguished service awards from all three agencies. His books include Soft Power, The Future of Power, The Power Game: A Washington Novel, and Do Morals Matter? He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy and, in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2014, Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun.
Yael Zeira, Syracuse University
Yael Zeira is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University. Her research examines political conflict, ethnic politics, and ethnic violence in the Middle East. Her book, The Revolution Within: State Institutions and Unarmed Resistance in Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2019), investigates individual participation in Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation using original survey, interview, and archival evidence. Her current book project, supported by a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, examines the ethnicization of civil conflict in comparative perspective. Zeira’s articles have been published in in Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the Journal of Peace Research. She earned a Ph.D in Politics from New York University in 2012.
Friday, Feb 9th
Academic Freedom & Cancel Culture
This keynote session will focus on the contemporary debate over academic freedom and “cancel culture.” This includes both informal social pressures and attempts by legislators, donors, civil society groups, and educational administrators to restrict course content and curriculum, limit DEI initiatives and freedom of expression, and regulate campus protests, hate speech, and disruptive conduct.
1:00 P.M. – 2:30 P.M. (EST)
Chair:
Pippa Norris, Harvard University (moderator)
Dr. Pippa Norris is a comparative political scientist who has taught at Harvard for three decades. She is the Paul F. McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Founding Director of the Electoral Integrity Project, Director of the Global Party Survey, Co-Director of the TrustGov Project, Co-Principal Investigator for Trust in European Democracies (TrueDem), and Vice-President of the World Values Survey.
Her research compares public opinion and elections, political institutions and cultures, gender politics, and political communications in many countries worldwide. She is ranked the 2nd most cited political scientist worldwide, according to Google scholar. Major career honors include, amongst others, the Skytte prize, IPSA’s Karl Deutsch award, fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, APSA’s Charles Merriam award, Warren E. Miller award, and Samuel Eldersfeld award, George H. Hallet award, and the PSA’s Sir Isaiah Berlin award, as well as several book awards and honorary doctorates. Recent books include Electoral Integrity in America, Cultural Backlash and In Praise of Skepticism: Trust but Verify. Her latest book is forthcoming with Oxford University Press on The Cultural Roots of Democratic Backsliding. For full details, see her biography.
Presenters:
Sharon D. Wright Austin, University of Florida
Dr. Sharon Wright Austin is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on African-American women’s political behavior, African-American mayoral elections, rural African-American political activism, and African-American political behavior. She is the author of Race, Power, and Political Emergence in Memphis (Garland 2000); The Transformation of Plantation Politics in the Mississippi Delta: Black Politics, Concentrated Poverty, and Social Capital in the Mississippi Delta (State University of New York Press 2006); The Caribbeanization of Black Politics: Race, Group Consciousness, and Political Participation in America (State University of New York Press 2018); Beyond Racial Capitalism: Cooperatives in the African Diaspora (Oxford University Press 2023 and co-edited with Caroline Shenaz Hossein and Kevin Edmonds); and, most recently, Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors (Temple University Press 2023). She has also published several book chapters and articles and is a member of the editorial team for the American Political Science Review. Twitter/X: @SharonA82707528
Kenneth R. Mayer, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Kenneth R. Mayer is professor of political science at UW Madison, and affiliate faculty at the La Follette School of Public Affairs. He is a frequent expert witness in voting rights, redistricting, and campaign finance cases in both federal and state courts, and has been active in free speech and academic freedom issues on the UW campus and around the country. With Howard Schweber, he is the coauthor of “Framing Controversies over Free Speech and Academic Freedom in the University,” in Lori Cox Han and Jerry Price, Campus Free Speech: A Reference Handbook (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023).
He is the author of With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (winner of the 2002 Neustadt award as the best book published on the American presidency in 2001), and coauthor of Presidential Leadership: Politics and Policy Making (13th edition, 2024, with George C. Edwards, III and Stephen J. Wayne).
Daniel A. Smith, University of Florida
Dr. Daniel A. Smith is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Smith’s research broadly examines how political institutions affect political behavior across and within the American states. In addition to publishing over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and three books, he has served as an expert witness in dozens of voting rights lawsuits across the county.
Friday, Feb 9th
The 2024 U.S. Elections: Déjà vu or the Unexpected?
The 2024 U.S. Elections are poised to be both unprecedented and a historic replay of 2020. Why does the next presidential election seem likely to provide Americans with a choice of either Biden or Trump when polls consistently indicate that most voters dislike both? Join our expert panelists as they analyze events influencing the elections, share their insights on the intricate factors and forces guiding the political landscape in 2024, and provide a glimpse into what is anticipated as Election Day 2024 approaches.
2:45 to 4:15pm EST
Chair:
James M. Curry, University of Utah
Dr. James M. Curry is an associate professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah, and co-director of the Utah Chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network.
Curry’s research focuses on U.S. politics and policymaking, especially the U.S. Congress. Specifically, he analyzes how contemporary legislative processes and institutions affect legislative politics, with a particular focus on the role of parties and leaders in the U.S. Congress. His book, Legislating in the Dark (2015, University of Chicago Press), examines how congressional leaders leverage their unique access to legislative information and resources to encourage their rank-and-file to support leadership decisions, and how rank-and-file members of Congress are often in the dark as the legislative process unfolds. Legislating in the Dark was selected as the recipient of the 2016 Alan Rosenthal Prize.
Curry received his Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland in 2011, and previously worked on Capitol Hill in the offices of Congressman Daniel Lipinski and the House Appropriations Committee.
Presenters:
Thomas Byrne Edsall, New York Times
Thomas Byrne Edsall is an American journalist and academic. He is best known for his weekly opinion column for The New York Times, Previously, he worked as a reporter for The Providence Journal and for The Baltimore Sun, and as a correspondent for The New Republic.
Andra Gillespie, Emory University
Dr. Andra Gillespie is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. Her research focuses on the political leadership of African American politicians who attempt to transcend race and how Black voters respond to them. She is the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark and Post-Racial America (2012) and Race and the Obama Administration: Symbols, Substance and Hope (2019). She is also the editor of Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post-Racial Black Leadership (2010).
Jennifer L. Lawless, University of Virginia
Dr. Jennifer L. Lawless is the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and the Chair of the Politics Department. She also has affiliations with UVA’s Miller Center and the Batten School. Her research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics. She is the author or co-author of eight books, including News Hole: The Demise of Local Journalism and Political Engagement and Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era (both with Danny Hayes). Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, has appeared in numerous academic journals, and is regularly cited in the popular press. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Political Science and the recipient of the 2023 Shorenstein Center’s Goldsmith Book Prize (for the academic book that examines the intersection among media, politics, and public policy). She graduated from Union College with a B.A. in political science, and Stanford University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science.
Angela X. Ocampo, The University of Texas at Austin
Angela X. Ocampo is Assistant Professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in the study of race, ethnicity, and politics, with a specific focus on the Latina/o/x community. Her research examines the political incorporation of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities both as every-day political participants and as leaders in American institutions. Her current book project “Truly at Home?: The Politics of Inclusion and Latino Political Incorporation”, which received 2019 APSA’s Best Dissertation Award in Race, Ethnicity and Politics, examines the notion of perceived belonging to U.S. society and its influence on political engagement among Latinas/os/xs.
Seth E. Masket, University of Denver
Dr. Seth E. Masket is a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver. He researches and teaches about political parties, state legislatures, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of Learning From Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020, as well as several other books on political parties and legislatures. Masket regularly contributes to Politico and to his “Tusk” Substack newsletter.
