Our faculty studies politics with many different methods, including elite interviewing, survey research, building statistical databases, mathematical modeling, digging through archives and secondary research. We try to find the right data to fit good questions.

The following list includes publications over the past two years, including manuscripts completed and accepted for publication but not yet published. (It can take a while!). It also includes fellowships, honors, and a bit on some major ongoing work.

Joe White, Department Chair, August 2012

Karen Beckwith, Flora Stone Mather Professor

Professor Beckwith’s most current research includes projects on how social movements respond to losses and on the extent to which women gain executive office in national governments and why that happens more in some countries than others. For the latter research she was awarded the 2012 Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics.

“Interests, Issues, and Preferences: Women’s Interests and the Epiphenomena of Activism,” Politics & Gender 7 (3), September 2011: 424-429.

“The Comparative Study of Women’s Movements,” In The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics, eds. Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola, Georgina Waylen, and Laurel Weldon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2013.

Book Review: S. Laurel Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups. In Journal of Politics 74(2), 2012.

Book Review: Lee Ann Banaszak, The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State. In Social Forces 89(3), March 2011: 1064-66

Justin Buchler, Associate Professor

Professor Buchler studies Congress and legislative elections. He uses a mix of game theoretic and statistical analysis to examine broad issues of democratic theory, such as the role of competitive elections in American democracy. He has completed the first draft of a new book on the link between legislators’ behavior in Congress and appeals to voters – for example, how is it possible to take extreme positions and not be punished at the polls.

Hiring and Firing Public Officials: Rethinking the Purpose of Elections. Oxford University Press, 2011.

“Equal Population and the Imposition of Risk on Partisan Gerrymandering,” forthcoming in Case Western Reserve University Law Review.

“The Aftermath of Redistricting Reform in California,” California Journal of Politics and Policy 3(3), 2011.

“Going off the Rails on a Crazy Train: The Causes and Consequences of Congressional Infamy,” The Forum 9(2)

“The Proximity Paradox: The Legislative Agenda and the Electoral Success of Extremists,” Public Choice 148 (1-2), 2011: 1-19.

Critical Dialogue with Ben Berger on Hiring and Firing Public Officials and Attention Deficit Democracy. Forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics.

Book Review: Keena Lipsitz, Competitive Elections and the American Voter, Forthcoming in American Review of Politics.

Book Review: George G. Szpiro, Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, From Plato to the Present. In Public Choice 151(3), 2011.

Book Review: David R. Jones and Monika L. McDermott, Americans, Congress, and Democratic Responsiveness: Public Evaluations of Congress and Electoral Consequences. In Political Science Quarterly 125(3), 2010.

Jessica F. Green, Assistant Professor

Professor Green studies the rise of private actors as regulators. Her research asks when and why private firms and NGOs serve as de facto regulators in world politics, and how that affects the existing landscape of international institutions. Substantively, she focuses on transnational environmental problems, and climate change in particular. Recent publications examine global carbon markets, and the role of private actors within them. Her dissertation on “Private Authority, Public Goods: Private Authority in Global Environmental Politics” (Princeton 2010) won the Virginia Walsh Award for best dissertation from the American Political Science Association Section on Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics. Her book manuscript is under contract for publication by Princeton University Press.

“Order out of Chaos: Public and Private Rules for Managing Carbon.” Forthcoming in Global Environmental Politics.

“Protecting Sovereignty, Protecting the Planet: State Delegation to International Organizations and Private Actors in Environmental Politics,” with Jeff Colgan. Forthcoming in Governance.

“Innovation in market solutions to climate change: Carbon Offsets,” in Thomas Hale and David Held eds., The Handbook of Innovations in Transnational Governance. Polity Press, 2011.

“Private Standards in the Climate Regime: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol,” Business and Politics 12(3), 2010.

Kathryn C. Lavelle, Ellen and Dixon Long Professor of World Affairs

Professor Lavelle’s research focuses on the politics of finance. Past research topics include how poor countries (particularly in Africa) are represented (or not) in international financial and trade negotiations, and the spread of stock markets in developing economies. Her recent book analyzes the relationship between the U.S. Congress and the major international financial institutions, i.e. the IMF and World Bank, and her forthcoming book focuses on financial politics in the United States.

Money and Banks in the American Political System. Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

Legislating International Organization: The U.S. Congress, the IMF, and the World Bank. Oxford University Press, 2011.

“Multilateral Cooperation and Congress: The Legislative Process of Securing Funding for the World Bank,” International Studies Quarterly 55(1), March 2011.

“Paris Club” entry in George Ritzer ed., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, Wiley 2012.

Mark Major, Visiting Instructor

Mark’s research interests include the American presidency and the news media. Currently he is completing his dissertation titled “Hiding in Plain Sight: The News Media and the Politics of Framing the Unilateral Presidency” (Rutgers University). He also edited Where Do We Go from Here? American Democracy and the Renewal of the Radical Imagination (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2010).

“Objective but Not Impartial: Human Events, Barry Goldwater, and the Development of the “Liberal Media” in the Conservative Counter-Sphere.” Forthcoming in New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture.

Vincent E. McHale, Marcus Hanna Professor of Political Science

Professor McHale studies politics, political systems and socio-political change across Europe, with special emphasis on elections and party systems in central and eastern Europe. He has been a recurring lecturer at the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis in Washington, DC; and continues to provide research as a consultant on European elections and other issues for the U.S. government.

Kelly M. McMann, Associate Professor

Professor McMann does field and survey research in post-Soviet countries, and relates her findings from that research to literature from the rest of the world. She is completing a project on corruption, market reform, and provision of social services by non-government organizations in Central Asia, with a book manuscript titled Corruption as a Last Resort: Adapting to the Market in Central Asia. Professor McMann is also part of the global collaboration Varieties of Democracy, which aims to measure democracy in all countries of the world from 1900 to the present. She is the project manager for subnational government. More information about this project can be found at https://v-dem.net/

“Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach” (with many other authors). Perspectives on Politics 9(2), 2011, 247-267.

Book Review: Thomas F. Remington, The Politics of Inequality in Russia. In Journal of Politics, forthcoming.

Book Review: Graeme B. Robertson, The Politics of Protest in Hybrid Regimes: Managing Dissent in Post-communist Russia. In Perspectives on Politics 9(3), 2011.

Peter W. Moore, Associate Professor

Professor Moore’s work focuses on political economy issues in the developing world generally, and the Middle East and North Africa specifically. He has written on business-state relations, oil politics, trade, and political economies of sub-state conflict. He is currently working on a book manuscript comparing the politics of war economies in Lebanon, Algeria, and especially Iraq; has collaborated on a forthcoming book examining issues surrounding the Arab uprisings of 2011 and the prospects for deeper political change in the region; and a shorter project analyzing political economic causes and consequences of the 2011 events. In 2010 he joined with faculty at other local universities to organize the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies, and in 2011-12, with support from the Social Science Research Council, directed a Cleveland area speaker series, New Perspectives on Muslim and Middle Eastern Societies.

Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism and Democratization in the Arab World. With Rex Brynen, Bassel F. Salloukh, and Marie-Joelle Zahar. Lynne Reiner Publishers, Forthcoming October 2012.

Elliot Posner, Associate Professor

Professor Posner is interested in the politics and creation of international markets and focuses on the regulation of cross-border finance. His current research explores the sources of international regulatory power, recent reforms to the global financial architecture, and regulatory cooperation at the G20, Transatlantic, and EU levels. He spent the 2011-12 academic year as a Fulbright scholar at Sciences-Po’s Centre d’études européenes in Paris and a visiting scholar at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank.

“International Interdependence and Regulatory Power: Authority, Mobility and Markets.” With Abraham Newman. European Journal of International Relations 17(4), December 2011.

“Sequence as Explanation: The International Regulation of Accounting Standards.” Review of International Political Economy 17(4), October 2010.

“The EU and Financial Regulation: Power without Purpose?” With Nicholas Veron. Journal of European Public Policy 17(3), 2010.

“The New Transatlantic Regulatory Relations in Financial Services.” In G. Underhill, J. Blom and D. Mügge eds., Global Financial Integration 30 Years On: From Reform to Crisis. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Paul Schroeder, Visiting Assistant Professor

Professor Schroeder is particularly interested in business practices in China, the relationship between local or regional governments and the central government, and the capacity or willingness of local and regional governments to pursue public purposes, as opposed to simply enriching local influential. He is currently conducting a study of environmental protection and public health in the city of Wuhan, focusing on the pressures on and behavior of local governmental bureaucracies, and the presence or absence of mechanisms of civil society that could support pursuit of public goods.

Laura Tartakoff, Instructor

Laura Tartakoff teaches courses on constitutional law, constitutions, and Latin American politics; her research and creative work includes development of constitutions, responses to dictatorship, and poetry. She is currently working on the roles of history and ideology in formation of coalitions in Uruguay and Chile.

“Religion, Nationalism, History and Politics in Hungary’s New Constitution.” Society 49(4), 2012.

“Silentaria” in Odette Alonso ed., Antología de la poesía cubana del exilio. Aduana Vieja, 2011

Joseph White, Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy

My own research focuses on U.S. government budgeting, health care policy and politics, social insurance programs more generally, and comparisons of health care policies between the United States and other rich democracies. I am especially interested in how ideas become popular among credentialed experts and therefore influence policy, regardless of whether they are either empirically true or popular with voters.

“The 2010 U.S. Health Care Reform : Approaching and Avoiding How Other Countries Finance Health Care.” Forthcoming in Health Economics, Policy and Law.

“American Health Care in International Perspective.” Forthcoming in James A Morone and Dan Ehlke eds., Health Politics and Policy 5th ed. Cengage Learning, November 2012.

“Réformes, licornes, et zombies : Quelques réflexions sur les idées en politique de santé.” (Reforms, Unicorns, and Zombies : Some reflections on Ideas in the Politics of Health). Forthcoming in Jean de Kervasdoué ed., Carnet de Santé de la France 2012. Éditions Dunod, October 2012.

“Obama et la réforme de l’assurance maladie. ” (Obama and Health Care Reform). In Olivier Richomme and Vincent Michelot eds., Le bilan d’Obama. Paris: Presses de Sciences-Pô, 2012.

“Playing the Wrong PART: The Program Assessment Rating Tool and the Functions of the President’s Budget.” Public Administration Review 72(1), January 2012.

“Prices, Volume, and the Perverse Effects of the Variations Crusade.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36(4) August 2011.

“Medicare and the Federal Budget: Misdiagnosed Problems, Inadequate Solutions.” With Theodore R. Marmor and Jonathan Oberlander. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 30(4) Fall 2011.

“Muddling Through the Muddled Middle.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 36 (3) June 2011, pp. 443-448.

“From Ambition to Desperation on the Budget.” In James A. Thurber ed., Obama in Office: The First Two Years. Paradigm Publishers, 2011.

Book Review: Marc A. Rodwin, Conflicts of Interest and the Future of Medicine. In Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 37(1), February 2012.

August 2012