Julia Azari, Marquette University
Julia Azari
is Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. Her research
interests include the American presidency, political parties and political
communication. Her work is motivated by questions about institutional
legitimacy and the interaction between formal and informal rules. She is the
author of
Delivering the People’s Message: the Changing Politics of the
Presidential Mandate
, published by Cornell University Press. Her scholarly
work has been published at
The Forum, Perspectives on Politics, Social
Science History
, and in numerous edited collections. Her work has been
supported by the several presidential library grants as well as the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation. She was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the
Library of Congress’s Kluge Center in 2019. She has written about political
parties, elections, and the American presidency for
FiveThirtyEight, Vox,
the New York Times, Politico
, The Monkey Cage, the LSE-USAPP blog,
and
Grid News. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Statement of Views
My ambition for political science is for us to be a bold discipline, on the cutting edge of discovery and the fight for global democracy. As an active public-facing scholar, I see communicating about political science as an exciting intellectual enterprise, not just a translation of journal articles into smaller words and fewer regression tables. I am interested in enhancing opportunities for political scientists to engage beyond academia, and finding ways to amplify new voices. We are strengthened by including perspectives from scholars at all types of institutions, including contributions by graduate and undergraduate students at these institutions. I hope to be involved in discussions about outreach, conference accessibility, and making the strongest possible public case for the value of political science.
Michael Goodhart, University of Pittsburgh
Michael Goodhart is Professor of Political
Science, Gender Studies, and Philosophy
(by courtesy) at the University of
Pittsburgh. He has been involved in academic and professional governance for
much of the past decade, serving for six years as Director of the Pitt Global
Studies Center, for three years as elected co-president of the Association for
Political Theory (2017-2020), and as chair of the APSA Presidential Task Force
on Democracy, Social Justice, and Economic Security in a Volatile World
(2010–12). Goodhart has also been actively involved in the APSA human rights
organized section. He serves on three editorial boards:
Perspectives on
Politics
, Polity: The Journal of the Northeastern Political Science
Association,
and The Journal of Human Rights. He is author or editor
of five books and some three dozen articles and book chapters on democracy,
human rights, injustice, and related topics. He was a Research Fellow of the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced
Study, and he was Guest Professor in the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin,
from 2008-2010.
Statement of Views
Having directed a Center and helped to organize (hastily) an online annual conference for the APT during the lockdown, I have been thinking a lot about how to design virtual scholarly experiences that provide valuable benefits for differently situated members of our professional communities. I’m especially interested in working to develop conferencing and networking strategies and infrastructures that can help us to make our activities more equitable, inclusive, and accessible, more climate-friendly, and more resilient against unforeseen disruption. My thinking about these matters has raised big questions about how our professional networks and associations operate at present, and why (with what justification? because of what histories?). These lead to even bigger questions about our responsibilities as scholars and educators in times of radical and growing inequality and threats to democracy, precarity within and outside our profession, and impending climate transformation. I hope to encourage the APSA to consider and act on these challenges.
Alice Kang, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Alice J. Kang is an Associate Professor of Political Science
and Ethnic Studies
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kang is a scholar
of women and gender in comparative politics with a world regional focus on
Africa. She teaches courses related to African politics, democracy and
citizenship, and women and politics. Kang is co-author of
Reimagining the
Judiciary: Women’s Representation on High Courts Worldwide
(Oxford
University Press, 2021) with Maria Escobar-Lemmon, Valerie Hoekstra, and Miki
Caul Kittilson. Their book received the C. Herman Pritchett Award for best book
from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.
She is also author of
Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring
Muslim Democracy
(University of Minnesota Press, 2015), which examines the
impact of women’s and conservative movements in policymaking in the Republic of
Niger. Her other works have been published in journals such as
African
Affairs
, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Politics
& Gender, Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Political Science
Research & Methods
, and Politics & Gender. She has served as
an associate editor of
Politics & Gender.
Statement of Views
It is an honor to be nominated for the APSA Council. I have served on the executive committee of the Women and Politics Research Section and co-organized the APSA Annual Meeting conference program for the Women and Politics and the African Politics sections. If elected, I would bring to the Council an abiding interest in how changes in practices and rules can improve inclusion. Given the size of the APSA membership, issues of injustice and inequity are undoubtedly alive in the profession. The question is how the association can address these proactively to better serve all its members. As a part of the Council, I would seek to learn more about the challenges that varied members encounter across institutional spaces, with an eye to asking what changes to existing practice and new initiatives can be adopted so that all are supported within the profession.
Alison McCartney, Towson University
Alison Rios Millett
McCartney (PhD University of Virginia) is Professor of Political Science and
Faculty Director of the Honors College at Towson University, Towson, Maryland,
USA. A member of the Executive Editorial Board of the
Journal of Political
Science Education
, she is co-editor of three books published by APSA: Teaching
Civic Engagement Globally
(2021), Teaching Civic Engagement Across
the Disciplines
(2017), and Teaching Civic Engagement: From
Student to Active Citizen
(2013), and author of several book chapters,
journal articles, national and international conference presentations, and
webinars on political science pedagogy. She received the APSA Political
Science Education section’s Distinguished Service award, the P20 Partnership
Award from Campus Compact Mid-Atlantic, the University of Maryland Board of
Regents Faculty Award for Mentoring, the Towson University
Presidential Community Partnership award, and the Towson University
Outstanding Service-Learning Faculty award twice. Some of her recent service
to the profession includes being a member of the APSA Presidential Taskforce on
Re-Thinking the Political Science major, co-chairing the 2023 Teaching and
Learning program at the International Political Science Association World
Congress, serving as founding co-chair of TLC at APSA, and serving as past
president and past executive board member of APSA’s Political Science Education
section. Currently, she also is a member of the Steering Committee of the
AAC&U American Democracy Project, member of the Executive Board of the
Maryland Collegiate Honors Council, and co-creator and co-chair of the Towson
University-Baltimore County Model United Nations conference, a free civic
engagement program for local youth
.
Statement of Views
As a faculty member at a teaching-focused institution, I have directly benefitted from APSA’s opportunities to pursue the scholarship and pedagogy of teaching and learning nationally and internationally through APSA conferences, publications, and resources. I continue to hone my pedagogy and research through the network of supportive colleagues that APSA has helped to cultivate. If elected, my goals on APSA Council would be to maintain and grow these options for all political science educators at all types of higher education institutions internationally and to work on including our K-12 partners in APSA programming. Rapid social and economic changes continue to define APSA’s role in providing forums for research in political science education. Thus, collaborations need to occur within and between graduate, undergraduate, and secondary education programs so that our learning expectations will better align and so that we can advance evidence-based pedagogies that achieve our collective goals. Next, given that higher education operates in a global context, I believe that APSA has a responsibility to build stronger partnerships with other countries’ political science associations. Finally, I hope to encourage more mentoring of and resources for graduate students in political science for careers related to pedagogy and research and for careers outside of academia so that they are prepared for the challenges of an ever-changing job market.
Tamir Moustafa, Simon Fraser University
Tamir Moustafa is Professor of International
Studies and Stephen Jarislowsky Chair
at Simon Fraser University in
Vancouver, Canada. He earned his PhD in political science from the University
of Washington and his BA in political science from UC San Diego. His research
interests include judicial politics, religion and politics, authoritarianism,
politics of the Middle East, and the politics of knowledge production. His
books, all published by Cambridge University Press, include
The Struggle for
Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt
; Rule
by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes (with Tom Ginsburg)
;
and
Constituting Religion: Islam, Liberal Rights, and the Malaysian State.
His work has been funded by the NSF, the SSRC, the SSHRC (Canada), Carnegie,
Fulbright, and others, and he has held visiting fellowships at UC Berkeley,
Princeton, and Harvard. His work has been recognized by the APSA through
various honors, including dissertation, article, and book awards. He has an
active service record, including work in several APSA sections, adjudication
for the APSA/NSF DDRIG, participation in the APSA Mentor program, and service
on the editorial board of the
APSR (2020-2024), among other roles.
Statement of Views
I am honored to be nominated to serve on the APSA Council. As a scholar who has often felt out of place in our discipline, I am keenly interested in supporting APSA policies and practices that will help to foster a more inclusive, ethical, engaged, and self-reflexive profession. APSA has an essential role to play in supporting all forms of diversity in our profession, not least of which are methodological and epistemological diversity in political science scholarship. Examining the history of our profession is essential for fostering reflexivity and building awareness of the political dimensions of the knowledge we produce. I believe we should build a political science that is conversant with other disciplines and engaged with the problems of the world around us. More generally, I believe it is vital to address structures of exploitation within the academy, particularly regarding contingent faculty. If elected to the APSA Council, I will contribute to the efforts of many in the Association who are working to build a more inclusive and engaged profession alongside the perennial objectives of promoting excellence in research and teaching.
Daniel Nielson, University of Texas at Austin
Daniel Nielson is Professor of
Government and
Co-Director of Innovations for Peace and
Development
at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also serves as
Director of Graduate Studies for the Government Department. He is co-founder
and former Chief Social Scientist of AidData. He is a former professor of
political science and co-founder of the Global Politics Lab at Brigham Young
University. Dan received his PhD in international affairs from UC San Diego and
has been a visiting scholar at Princeton University, Duke University, and the
College of William and Mary. He has been principal investigator on major grants
from NSF, USAID, and the Hewlett and Gates Foundations. Dan’s research focuses
on the control of corruption, international development, foreign aid, and
international organization. He has performed field research in Brazil, Ghana,
India, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. He specializes in the
use of transnational field experiments to learn about causal effects in
political economy. Dan co-authored
Global Shell Games: Experiments in
Transnational Relations, Crime, and Terrorism
(Cambridge 2014) and
co-edited
Delegation and Agency in International Organizations
(Cambridge 2006). He has published articles in PNAS, Science Advances, AJPS,
IO, JOP, BJPS
, and CPS, among other journals.
Statement of Views
I am a committed APSA member and feel
humbled to be nominated to the APSA Council. If elected, I will promote leaning
into global diversity and its potential for collective problem-solving. Our
discipline has many strengths, but a critical advantage derives from our
appreciation of the world’s heterogeneity. As an experimenter in the
comparative politics and international relations of global development, I am
struck by how often programs that have worked in one setting work very
differently in others. This is not surprising to political scientists highly
attuned to the vast variety of political cultures and institutions, but it may
perplex those assuming uniformity in incentives and behavior. We also value how
groups form diverse institutions that produce outcomes sometimes quite
different from the wishes of individuals on average. I hope to increase
engagement with scholars from non-traditional backgrounds and lower-income
countries, including through sharing research and expanding collaboration. They
can guide us in making sense of and working together to address the world’s
critical problems – including climate change, poverty, and corruption – whose
effects and potential solutions manifest so differently from place to place. I
will also continue my efforts to encourage the ethical practice of social
science that protects participants’ autonomy, promotes justice, and expands the
beneficence of research.
Candis Watts Smith, Duke University
Candis Watts Smith is Associate Professor of Political Science and Interim Vice
Provost for Undergraduate Education
at Duke University, where she also
received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Political Science. Her research expertise
highlights the role race, racism, and structural inequality play in shaping the
American political landscape. She the author or co-author of Black Mosaic: The
Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Identity (NYU Press, 2014), Stay Woke: A People’s
Guide to Making Black Lives Matter (NYU Press, 2019); Racial Stasis: The
Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American
Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2020); and The History of Race and
Politics in America, 1968-Present (Audible Original, 2022). Smith has served
APSA in serval capacities including, as Chair for Section 32 (Race, Ethnicity,
and Politics), as the co-president of the REP section, as a member of the APSA
Committee on the Status of Blacks, and twice as a panel member for the NSF
Dissertation Improvement Grant for Political Science. She has served on the
editorial boards of several journals as well as Associate Editor at Politics,
Groups, and Identities and at Public Opinion Quarterly.
Statement of Views
It is an honor to be nominated to serve on the Executive Council. I have had the fortune of being involved with APSA for nearly two decades, attending my first conference as a participant of the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. Supporting RBSI is just of the ways APSA has helped to diversify our discipline, expand the networks and opportunities for historically underrepresented groups, and enhance excellence. I share this commitment. Over the course of my career and engagement with APSA, I have become privy to some matters that I hope our national association will address. One concerns the high-level and day-to-day challenges of editing and publishing in many Political Science journals; these challenges range from preparing faculty to negotiate contracts with publishers to ensuring that junior scholars learn to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of our discipline’s norms and trends. Another relates to ethics in research publishing, with an eye toward pinpointing a shared definition of (co-)authorship and ways to give credit to key collaborators. Finally, I hope that we can advance a professional development toolkit for (senior) scholars to more effectively mentor and advocate for junior scholars and scholars from marginalized groups, especially when thorny issues of ethics arise. I am committed to our discipline and APSA’s members. I hope to take part in navigating our shared challenges and uplifting innovations in research, teaching, and service.
Shatema Threadcraft, Vanderbilt University
Shatema Threadcraft is an Associate
Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Philosophy and Political Science at
Vanderbilt University and a Laurance V. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at
the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She works on
African American Political Thought, Feminist Political Theory and Feminist
Philosophy. She is the author of Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and
the Body Politic (Oxford University Press, 2016), winner of the National
Women’s Studies Association’s 2017 Sara A. Whaley Award for the best book on
women and labor, the 2017 W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award from the
National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the 2017 Best Book Award
from the American Political Science Association's Race, Ethnicity and Politics
Organized Section (Best Book in Race and Political Theory). She was the
2017-2018 Ralph E. and Doris M. Hansmann Member at the Institute for Advanced
Study and a Visiting Research Associate in the Department of Political Studies
at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from 2009- 2012. Her
research has been supported by Harvard’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in
American History, the Ford Foundation, the American Association of University
Women and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition.
Statement of Views
I am honored to be nominated to serve
on the APSA council. As a southern-born scholar of black political thought and
feminist political theory who has recently returned to the region, I know that
these are particularly difficult times. APSA members who work on these and
related issues in the South and throughout the country need the support of the
organization. As well, it is important to understand the attacks on the study
of race and gender as well as the escalating attacks on queer and trans people
as an integral part of ongoing threats to democracy, and therefore as threats
to us all. I have derived particular benefit from APSA’s Women’s Caucus for
Political Science. I have been fortunate to receive critical mentorship and
opportunities for professional development at the caucus’ pre-conferences. I am
committed to ensuring that APSA continues to be a place where junior scholars
are afforded such opportunities.